 Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Johnathan Asley of johnathanasley.com and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, Men Use This from Women as the New Form of Therapy. All right, really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if any time during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I could be seen in the YouTube algorithms. Really quickly, my coaching is what I call heart-centered radical honesty. It's direct, a little tough love and a lot of heart. And occasionally I use expletives to enhance a sentence. So if an F-bomb or two isn't your cup of tea, I suggest logging off right now. Lastly, these are my thoughts, my perceptions, my opinions, by no means do I suggest this is the truth. You have to decide the truth for yourself. I'm a bit of a contrarian, so my advice goes contrary to public opinion and you have to decide for yourself if it makes sense for you. All right, let's jump into why do men use this as the new form of therapy from women? Well, let's first off address the most important thing going on right now if you're probably watching my channel, whether you're in a relationship or you're single looking for love. Let's just agree that the dating process is incredibly dysfunctional today. I'm gonna repeat that the dating process is incredibly dysfunctional today. In fact, it's quite true that most relationships are rather dysfunctional because most people buy into the notion that chemistry and romance in the early stages of dating equals relationship success. And for those of us in the personal development world, we know that's the furthest thing from the truth because the reality is is most human beings are suffering on the inside in some way, shape, or form centered around, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, and I'm not likable. And this is a direct result of childhood wounds and traumas as well as adult traumas that have gone unhealed in one's life which causes negative patterns and limiting beliefs whether they're in their personal life, whether in their professional life in every area of their life. What happens is for most humans who have done little or no personal development work, it causes a restraint with inside of them to actually lean into deeper intimacy in a relationship, to lean into a full rich relationship where it's a co-creative process instead of a singular process that many of the leaders of the relationship and all you have to do is sit back in your feminine energy and it's all just gonna magically work out. Well, for those of you I'm here to say sitting back in your feminine energy hoping that it's all gonna work out is like expecting magic fairy dust to make your relationship work. And this is why I'm such a big proponent of individuals doing personal development, self-help and spiritual work to shore up their insights so they can actually be able to lean into a healthy, happy relationship. In fact, I wrote a book about it called What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? And it's a journey in all of the areas I just suggested and it includes a great reading list at the end of the book that will help you actually begin to heal those wounds so you can actually start leaning into a relationship and this is true for men and women alike. So let me give you an example of how a wound can affect your relationship. And then I'm gonna lean into, by the way, do you always notice I talk about leaning into? I'm just not a big fan of leaning back in life. I'm a big fan of leaning in or being neutral in life. So I'm gonna lean into, as I shared a moment ago, a couple of stories to illustrate this and then we'll talk about how men use this new form or have used women as their new form of therapy. All right, so I was talking to a friend of mine some years ago who was in relationship with a woman and it turns out she had a very traumatic experience in her childhood where her father left her and her siblings and I think there was like three or four siblings in there. I can't remember exactly. The father left the mother and the siblings to go marry another woman and to take care of that other person's family. He completely abandoned his family and his children. Now, we can criticize what he did, but to a young child, to a young woman who's 10 years old and your father's that person you look up to, this caused her to have an abandonment issue and the way this manifested in her relationship, she was highly jealous. I mean, ridiculously highly jealous of everything her boyfriend did. I mean, if he commented on someone's Facebook page, whether it was a man or woman, she would run off the rails, run off the rails. And by the way, I'm sharing a story about a woman this happened to. Certainly this happens to men as well where they run off the rails for some simple thing that happened in someone's life. And it's because they have unresolved childhood wounds and traumas that carry forth in the relationship that causes so much friction. And this is why I continually say most humans have weak emotional skills or weak emotional maturity and weak relationship skills as well. And if you're not familiar with my relationship chart, emotional skills and relationship chart, I want you to check this out. By the way, this is not a fact, it's an opinion, but I roughly say 20% of the population has clinical issues, borderline personality, bipolar personality disorder, narcissistic sociopath, psychopath personality disorders. And if they're not doing any work, those people are the most problematic people to be in relationship with. And then I say over here roughly about 20% of the population is emotionally healthy. I'm being ridiculously generous when I say 20%, it's probably closer to three or 4% because the vast majority of people are in the dysfunctional range. And that's not to say dysfunctional people can't be in relationship. The challenge is if a person isn't addressing their wounds and traumas, it's going to manifest in the way they operate in the dating realm. And I'm gonna share a personal example of this because after my divorce, this was some years ago, I thought, my marriage ended, there was this thing called online dating and I thought you could punch in exactly what you want and someone would magically appear and sure enough that happened and I went on one date right after I moved out of the house and nice woman, nice date, but it didn't work out. And another woman, nice woman, nice date, but it didn't work out. And again, and again, and again. And in the course of a year, I had over a hundred internet dates, a hundred first meetings. Now a few of those turned into some short-lived relationships but what was happening during that whole period of time is I was spending hours upon hours upon hours upon hours on the phone talking with women. Now what I didn't realize that I was actually preparing myself for my now profession, so it was a blessing in disguise. And yet at that time, I was literally addicted to talking to women on the phone, sharing my experiences, hearing their experience. Why is this critically important? I'm gonna share with you in a moment because coming back to men, here's the thing about men. As men age, their testosterone levels begin to decrease and their estrogen levels begin to increase right around midlife. So right around the age of 38-ish, give or take, men's shift happens. And what happens is we have this chemical cocktail going on inside us that makes us highly emotional. Now you may not see it in the outer world, it's happening in our inner world, it's happening in our inner world. And what happens for many men is that they don't feel safe communicating with those that they know in their life. They don't feel safe in communicating what's going on and their emotional level in their life. And what's interesting that's happened nowadays is this little device has changed everything. This online dating, swipe, telephone calls, text messaging that didn't exist really 20 plus years ago is relatively a new phenomena. And what's happening is, this is how men are using this new form as therapy, is many men are seeking connection with women with no intention of actually being in a relationship and they're seeking connection as a way to vomit their emotions and their feelings. I'm gonna repeat that, vomit their emotion and feelings. Now the reason why I say vomit is because an emotionally healthy person will actually go seek therapy or seek some level of help to help them navigate this in their life. And yet probably 90 plus plus percent of men would never even consider therapy. It would seem like it's something shameful to do. So what they do is they start this online dating conversation and this happened big time during the pandemic where people were lonely and this is true of men and women as well where they were lonely and they wanted connection with somebody. And what happens is in some of these cases if not many, the connection starts to turn into a complaining session, a complaining session. And what it might mean is they might be complaining about their ex-spouse. They might be complaining about something within their children. Now here's the tricky part to understand this. The reason why I said they're complaining is to many of the women out there, you're actually hearing this as venting, as venting. And when someone's venting, women have this beautiful, compassionate, empathetic side to actually want to nurture someone when they're going through problems in their life. In fact, this is music to many of your women's ears because this feels like true intimacy. When you think a man is venting to you, you think he's actually bonding with you. The difference between venting and complaining is venting is designed to seek solutions. Venting is designed to seek solutions. Complaining is just vomiting what's going on. And when somebody's complaining, they're usually coming from a place of victim consciousness instead of victor consciousness. And this is what's happening again and again and again. Many people are using the internet as the new form of therapy. And by the way, this isn't the healthy form of therapy. I'm not suggesting that this is a good thing. It just happens to be what's happening today. This is why, folks, if you follow my channel, I'm such a big proponent of everybody reading the book, The Hoffman Process, The Hoffman Process. This is a deep dive into looking into your childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas as a way to heal oneself because the vast majority, here's the thing. If you're single looking for love, I get it. It feels great when you have chemistry and romance because that feels so fucking good. And yet all the chemistry and the romance in the world will not solve if you don't share the same values, if you don't have lifestyles that are blendable and then the emotional maturity I just talked about. And if you're not familiar with my relationship, Iceberg, and many of you are, here it is, above the water line is attraction and you can see the word chemistry and below the water line is compatibility which says shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. You can spend days, weeks and months thinking that you're building something with somebody over the telephone because you're driven by the chemistry piece without really ever recognizing do they have a level of emotional maturity? Do their actions match their words? Do they have victor consciousness instead of that victim consciousness? Do they know how to fight fair? Here's the thing, men and women alike are hyper focused on trying to be right when they're having conflict instead of trying to find solutions between the two people. So this is one of the fundamental problems in relationships is when there's conflict, each person goes to their corner and they feel that they're right and a emotionally healthy person isn't about, look isn't about being right. They're looking to solve the problem and another level of emotional maturity is that area of empathy and empathy isn't just I can feel your feelings, empathy is I care about your feelings. I genuinely care about your feelings and also you care about your own individual feelings that's empowered empathy and lastly transparency. And if it's material to the relationship then it's time to speak up and ladies many of you do not speak up in relationship for fear of a man running away. I see this continually over and over again you give your power away to men. And this is why it's easily seductive to get into these telephone conversations that can go on for days, weeks and months because what you are is that person's therapist. And here's the thing. If you find yourself in that position you've got to ask yourself what benefit do you get out of being someone's therapist? What is making you choose to do this? And I'm here to invite you to look forward inward, excuse me inward and maybe do some additional healing in some work so you don't get sucked into this trap of being someone's therapist in the early stages of dating or even in a seasoned relationship. And that's not to suggest I don't mean to suggest you shouldn't be supportive of your partner I absolutely want to encourage everyone to be supportive of their partners at the same time it's not your job to be their therapist it's their job to go seek help from someone else. And whether it's therapist or coach going to a workshop like the Hoffman process going to insight or going to the Gottman Institute or reading the books I recommend over and over and over again. And ladies, you know my narrative before the penis ever goes inside the vagina the two of you should be reading the book eight dates by doctors John and Julie Gottman just the fact if a man is willing to read this book with you you have an 80% chance of success than those that don't do this. Now I'm making up this number I'm saying 80% but you have a greater chance of relationship success if the two of you are actually intentional in the process. But Jonathan, I'm supposed to just sit back in my feminine energy and I'm supposed to play the game the rules and make them play hard to get and all that sort of stuff to make the guy fall in love with me. Folks, that isn't working anymore. The reality is is we are in a dysfunctional fucking the world is dysfunctional and relationship skills are dysfunctional. So until you actually learn good healthy relationship skills and I highly recommend reading the book nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg highly recommend reading this book and you better be buying this book how to be an adult in relationship because most human beings act like little children. Now listen, I'm not here to pontificate as if I'm perfect here believe me folks, I am riddled with flaws. I think the only and I make mistakes just like any other human being I'm just here to suggest what's most important is to do work and have an open heart because what's happening for many of you ladies you have a closed heart in relationship because you've been battered and beaten and I don't mean that literally, okay? I'm saying emotionally you feel battered and beaten that causes many of you to be closed off because some of you have spent a lot of time being a guy's therapist instead of each other's boyfriend and girlfriend and I invite you all to do some more work before you go out in the dating realm to look for a partner and again, look for those five signs of emotional maturity I shared before actions matching words, victor consciousness knows how to fight fair empathy and transparency start paying attention to the bigger picture instead of who pays for dinner or who pays for the valet I am so fucking tired about the whole narrative of who fucking pays who gives a shit who pays what's more important is are you gonna show up as a grownup in the dating process instead of expecting something from somebody else and most of the time people are operating from a place of being a taker instead of a giver this is why I continually recommend the book if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated because it throws out the stupid gender rhetoric and it says, how can we date from a heart-centered place? Folks, is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Is it making a difference? Please let me know, hit that thumbs up, write an amen comment so I know this is working or at least this is resonating with you and again, this is not the truth you have to decide the truth for yourself. All right, that covers the content portion of our live stream today we are now going to take questions and if you're listening, if you're on the video right now there's a chat box in the little left corner or right corner please, if you wanna ask me a question please write the word question and then post the question thereafter it makes it easier for me to find or you can purchase a super sticker super chat there's a little dollar sign in the chat box all of the monies from the super sticker super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley that's a picture of Connor right there doing his little game sign, he's my son who passed away in 2018 at the age of 19 and in his honor, not only did I write the book What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway I am actually promoting all my work in his honor and in his honor, the scholarship fund is to help defray the cost of personal development work for those who need it and also to donate to the charities that I do believe make a difference in people's lives and I'm here to suggest one thing for everybody pay it forward whether it's donating to the Connor Asley fund or donating to somebody else pay what you learn here forward even share this video with other people if you think it makes a difference and please share this video with men men need to hear this as well. All right, we're gonna take questions now again, post it there and by the way, all the books I recommend are in the links below you can schedule a discovery call with me you can join my membership group or you can purchase the books or follow me on Instagram the link in the description. All right, Glenn says, hallelujah. Nikki says, amen. Lola says, amen. Debbie says, hello Jonathan you hit the nail on the head dysfunctional people everywhere we live in a disposable society where most move on to the next profile here's the thing by the way, when we say this we have to say this about ourselves too I am guilty of everything I've shared here in this video and I'm sure many of you have on some level contributed to this so when we take ownership that's Victor consciousness and not victim consciousness and I'm not suggesting anything there Debbie, thank you so much Alex says, amen. Colleen says, I do not have the book eight dates but I'll check it out I hope you do it is a game changer. Lindsay writes, question. What do you like to do when you feel burnt out from the dating? What do you like to do? Okay, what to do when you're feeling burnt out from dating? So I don't think it's a burnout from the dating itself I think it's the burnout from the prospecting the amount of prospecting whether it's swiping, emailing, texting I think people get burnt out on the actual prospecting aspect of the dating process and it certainly is frustrating as well when you go out on a date and you're not attracted to the person or you go out on a date and you're attracted to them and they're not attracted to you or you go out on a date and they're a jackass or you go on a date and they think you're a jackass so it can't and by the way I want you to think about this for a second it can wear on us emotionally dating triggers the number one emotional health issue facing most everybody that is I'm not good enough I'm not lovable and I'm not likable So it's no wonder it can be frustrating to put yourself out there Now with that said what can you do? I'm a big proponent of only investing 15 minutes a day in the actual prospecting area okay the prospecting area and then maybe 15 or 20 minutes if it warrants it communicating with someone in any given day keep it very small keep it very contained the amount of effort you put into the process in any given day 15 or 20 minutes isn't that much to invest in searching for a life mate and I'm a big proponent of folks looking for a life mate and I know it can feel painful to do this in fact a lot of times people say love is a risk and as my friend Dennis says and it's still the best game in town love is still the best game in town So what can you do? I'm not a big proponent of shutting everything down I'm a big proponent of limiting the amount of effort you put in an any given day so and then you live your life you do your sports you do your activities you do your exercise you spend time with family and friends you do social activities you do hobbies all those sorts of things and carve out a little bit of time in the day for your actual prospecting and by the way ladies this is where a lot of you fail because you don't know how to determine if someone is emotional grown up my whole coaching program is designed to help you determine true compatibility based on your personality then asking the right questions again based on your personality to determine if he's a good fit from you from a compatibility perspective and from an emotional maturity perspective so check out the link to a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you because that's how I can help you in this process and I gotta tell you something I get calls from clients who will literally about to step into the rabbit hole of doing something dysfunctional for themselves in fact it just happened the other day someone wanted to go on a date with someone who's clearly still married and actually living with their partner and I think we all know that's probably a taboo no-no but because she had some previous relationship with someone in his family she thought that was okay and then we talked it out and she realized that she's following the pattern her pattern of doing the same thing over and over again and I'm here to suggest what's the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results folks it's time to do a better job of vetting people before you ever go on a date and that way if you do a better job of vetting in the beginning you don't have to feel frustrated because you're probably gonna go on a lot less first dates but wouldn't you rather go on a lot less first dates and narrow it down to really good prospects that's my invitation for everyone if you need some help again check out the link to schedule a call with me so coming back to your question there Lindsay just to reiterate limit the amount of time of prospecting and make sure you have a full life in the process or you can just take a break and come back to it either one great question thank you so much I really appreciate it all right let's go swimming let's go okay Hannah says question do I have to offer help when he pulls away himself he said to me he has a lot of work and needs some rest I feel like I should be offering help to him but I'm not sure I should well so offerings to help somebody you care about especially if you're in a relationship with them is a very kind gesture to offer some sort of help or support most human beings reject supports I'm gonna repeat that and particularly men most men will reject support it's okay to offer the support by the way folks that's not chasing that's not doing anything wrong that's not being leaning you know I know you're told to lean back when he pulls away it's absolutely okay to lean in to check in and offer support you have to look at why is someone leaning back do they have a contentious relationship with their ex are they going through chaos in their professional life is your relationship ideas mismatched with one another does he have problems with his family or maybe his children or worse he just doesn't have any real direction and commitment that's what usually happens and causes men to pull away is these five factors that I just shared with you and what's really the problem here today for most couples is they don't actually genuinely know how to get to know each other this is why I just purchased the book talking to strangers talking to strangers and the subtitle says bear with me for a second what we should do what we should know about the people we don't know folks we're meeting most of the time total strangers and when we meet strangers it takes more time to build the first layer of trust and in fact it takes about a hundred hours of face to face time just to build layer one of trust and if trust isn't built it's very common for people to pull away this is why I'm a big proponent of the dating process being a two lane street not the narrative of expecting men to claim you because all you do is sit back in your feminine all you have to do is sit in your feminine and the guy is just gonna magically be perfect folks it takes mutual effort for two people to get to know one another this is why and it starts by being radically honest from the get go this is why I repeatedly say before the penis goes inside the vagina purchase two copies of this book this book is designed to help build intimacy into me you see into me you see and when you start to do that in the beginning then you can establish whether or not you're by the way, remember I said before besides chemistry do you share the same values are your lifestyles blendable and is this post person emotionally mature an emotionally mature person will read this book with you and emotionally immature person will basically say things like what are you talking about? That's ridiculous can't we just live in the moment? Folks, I am tired of hearing men and women say can't we just live in the moment? Of course you can live in the moment but your penis doesn't get to fuck me if you're living in the moment and I'm looking for a relationship with someone that's listen I'm here to throw out that kind of language because it's time to be a grown up stop acting like children many of you or this is my Scooby Doo mug so stop being Scooby Doo anyway I got off on a tangent here what I'm here to suggest and coming back to your original question Hannah of course you can offer someone help I want to establish build intimacy in the beginning so that help has value let me repeat that build intimacy in the beginning so that help has value and it starts by being radically honest right from the very get go and most humans don't have a capacity to be radically honest but then again they don't really have a good they don't have good relationship skills anyway so you can have the short term fun for a lot of long-term headache is this sinking in? I hope so thanks again for that question Hannah I really appreciate it all right we're gonna take one more before we wrap up today Colleen says like or Colleen says I gotta love Scooby Doo Stormy says you gotta love the penis I do I love mine Suzette says thank you all right let's see let's go swimming Colleen says I love what you share you are how real you are thank you so much Angie says great question Hannah thank you so much oh let's see what Hannah's question okay this is gonna be our last question of the day oh we already did that one excuse me all right Angie this will be the last question how to help build trust with a man after he was cheated on oh okay folks there is nothing worse to a male psyche than being cheated on men are very territorial it is an absolute burst to a man's psyche to believe that someone that they cared about cheated on them not to suggest this isn't true for women women I think are a little bit more forgiving but and by the way men actually if they genuinely love someone they'll actually tolerate cheating I think sometimes men tolerate cheating more but it fucks with their psyche and by the way this is not an absolute I'm just speculating here not the part that says it messes up with their psyche but I will tell you most men if they've been cheated on have a very difficult time building trust with someone so what are these men seeking going forward they're seeking companionship connection and sex but they may not be seeking commitment because they if they haven't addressed that wound and I highly recommend that man addresses that wound with a qualified therapist a true qualified therapist to talk about it and come to some level of healing there is nothing you can do to help him build trust I mean you could be the most perfect person on the planet and he will continually most likely sabotage the relationship until he goes and seeks help elsewhere to work on that that that shame he's probably feeling and most like he is feeling a level of shame addressing what may have been the cause to it and how he may have contributed to it and then you might have a chance for deeper intimacy but I will tell you unless he's done some real deep healing that's that's a traumatic event that's PTSD and by the way if people don't go seek help when they've had PTSD that's going to be very very problematic to be in relationship with someone like that so that's my invitation for you is to maybe not invest in men who haven't done work in that area if that's what's happened in their life so Angie thank you so much for that question I really appreciate it folks we're going to wrap up our live stream today oh love I love you says perfect answer thank you so much Julie says good question I love you says thank you for your honesty I appreciate that all right folks we're going to we're going to wrap up today's live stream and listen if you felt value from this please purchase a super stickers chat before we wrap up today to donate to the Connor Asley scholarship fund if this has been valuable to you check out the links below check out the books I recommend also please share this video with your friends I would appreciate that or hit that like button as well and come back in a few days because I'm going to do I do live streams every other day for the most part and I hope you enjoy this these are one of my shorter ones I will do a longer one next one all right we're going to wrap up this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrock of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to someone Pat a teddy bear pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it we could all use more love in our lives I want to thank you so much and wishing you a fabulous day bye now bye Julie, bye Angie, bye I love you by Shannon, by Colleen, by Lovely by Elaine, by Heather take care now