164 How To Be A Rock, With Women And Other Important Things

In the last few weeks, I’ve had a few discussions with guys about “being a rock”. In theory, it’s a nice manly image… but what does it actually mean?

In practice, being “a rock” can seem like being “passive” at times, but it’s not the same thing. This episode covers HOW to be a grounded “rock” (as opposed to a fiery hothead, watery fish, or airy space cadet).

Transcript

So the past couple weeks I've had a few different conversations with a few different men,

All of whom are in very different life situations,

All in very different relationship stages.

One's not even in a relationship,

But somehow the same theme has come up,

And it is the idea of being a rock.

A man being a rock in response to the feminine,

Whether it's in a relationship with a particular woman,

With women in general,

And I think of course this metaphor extends to many other areas of a man's life.

If you've heard of this imagery before,

As you probably have,

It's an attractive metaphor,

Right?

If you are a man,

If you're someone who chooses to be in the masculine role in situations,

Then the idea of being a rock is very attractive.

If you're a woman who dates men,

The idea of being with a rock,

Of someone who's that solid that we could compare them to a stone,

Is also attractive.

But actually putting it into practice beyond the metaphor,

It's a little bit more challenging,

Especially in the moments where it matters,

Right?

It's easy to read a book or listen to a podcast when you're by yourself and like,

Yeah I'm gonna be a rock,

But in the moments the shit is actually hitting the fan,

Or the metaphoric waves are hitting you,

It's a little bit more challenging.

And I think this idea obviously extends to all parts of a man's life,

But particularly we're gonna focus on the intimate relationship,

One,

Because I think is most applicable to many people,

But also even in extending to other parts of a man's life,

The intimate relationship is the most clear and concrete example of this,

Because in this situation there's one person who is the masculine and one person who is the feminine,

And it's very easy because there's people to represent these concepts.

So this episode I'm going to use some metaphoric imagery as well,

You can draw on the four elements a metaphor,

But for the purposes of bringing us to concrete action.

Everything I share in this episode are gonna be perspectives and ideas that I use to actually put this into practice,

Because while I've known this idea conceptually for a long time,

I think only recently have I really been putting it into play,

Again in those critical moments that matter.

On that note,

If you are following me on Substack,

If you're subscribed then you probably saw that a couple weeks ago I've been sharing some articles from my old archives,

One is very relevant to this topic,

It's called When Kali Trampled Shiva,

A parable for men on dealing with difficult women.

It's an article that I spoke about with Mac Lethal when he was on the podcast,

If you haven't read it you can check that out,

And this topic is of use to you,

You can check it out at my Substack,

Rwando.

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Yeah,

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So this idea of being a rock,

Again it's something I've known conceptually for a long time,

It's a metaphor that resonated,

I think the first time I heard of this idea is probably in one of David Dada's books,

But actually putting into practice has been a little bit more challenging,

Especially in my current relationship,

Which is my first really committed relationship,

Where certain polarity dynamics,

They're not different,

But they're way more heightened.

One of the guys I've been speaking with recently,

You know,

He's been in the Tantra world for a while,

He's learned a lot about conscious relating and all forms of healthy communication,

But he's finding something that I've found in the last couple years,

Just had my two-year anniversary with my wife recently,

That when you're really in a committed relationship,

Which I would define as the woman is leaning more deeply into her feminine than she could by herself because she's trusting implicitly or explicitly that the man is handling her perimeter so she doesn't have to worry about the masculine part of life,

And vice versa,

The man can lean more deeply and must lean more deeply into the masculine to provide that also for his dependence with the other side,

That he's trusting his partner,

Is handling more elements of the interior,

Whether it's with literal creation of a child or any of the metaphors that go along with the feminine.

In this kind of committed relationship,

The stakes are a lot higher and the importance of these principles become a lot more,

Right?

Your wiggle room is less,

Let's say,

And I do think it's important and necessary and natural for a woman in this kind of situation to demand a little bit more from her man,

Whether she literally is going to be pregnant or not or have children or not,

Because whether or not you have children,

Whether or not you decide to do that,

All intersexual dynamics come from this.

All of our feelings and our proclivities and our tendencies for both men and women,

What we're attracted to,

What makes us feel connected and loved and relaxed versus not,

All of this comes,

All of these behaviors and feelings evolved from reproduction,

Regardless of what we decide to actually do with our lives.

So one of these things that has been challenging for me is putting into practice the idea that when a woman is in her,

We could say,

Dark feminine,

In the more chaotic side of being in a more feeling state,

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.

This has been hard for me,

I think,

And I think for a lot of men it's not something that's natural,

Especially if you take pride in being an action taker,

If you take pride in being a problem solver,

If you think procrastination or avoidance or passivity are negative things,

And in many contexts they are not desirable traits,

Especially for men.

When dealing with the woman,

When being in more of the lover archetype and having to interact with the feminine without,

As I spoke about in the lover archetype episode,

To be able to hear the sirens call without crashing into the rocks,

Sometimes you have to do nothing,

Sometimes you have to be a rock,

And it's been challenging.

Actually,

I must have mentioned this in previous episodes,

But one of the things I appreciate about my wife is that after the storms have passed,

She is conscious enough to remind me of things that maybe I could have done better,

Just remind me of things that I know,

And one of the things that she has said a few times when I've maybe over,

I've tried to problem-solve or I've acted too much or tried to be a little bit too reasonable with her unreasonable emotions is that if I simply did nothing,

Emotions probably would have passed on their own even faster than if I tried to intervene.

She said a few times,

And I recognize this to be true,

That if I was out of the house when she went through an emotional cycle,

Whether it's hormonal or whatever,

Wherever the emotions come from,

She could have gone through an entire cycle of emotions and been totally fine by the time I come back home,

And I would have known none of it,

And our reality would have been just as peaceful as opposed to if I was home and noticing her in chaos and feeling like I need to do something about it.

Now one thing that's been important for me to understand,

And I share this with all the men listening,

Is that doing nothing in this way and being a rock,

And I'm going to use four elements imagery and metaphor because it's what's really driven it home for me,

It's not the same as being passive.

It might look the same.

It's not the same as being lazy,

Although it could look the same.

It's not the same,

Certainly not the same as being a punching bag,

Although in terms of just the fact that you might be doing nothing,

It can look the same,

But the results are very different.

So let's use now the four elements metaphor because it has been the most helpful for me in actually putting this into practice in these key moments.

So it's the basic idea of drawing on cartoons like Avatar,

Which I think is one of the best children's cartoons ever for its life lessons.

The four elements fire,

Water,

Air,

Earth,

Are representative of different emotions.

I did an episode on how they actually correspond with different neurotransmitters and how they affect our feelings and behavior.

We're going to keep it conceptual here and put it and see how the concept puts into practice.

So if your woman is dealing with chaotic emotions,

What we could call fire or dark feminine,

And again I do think this applies to any kind of chaos in your life,

But we'll keep it with the relationship because again it's the most accessible idea.

Example,

If you're dealing with fire,

There are four responses,

Right?

The first is you can respond to fire with fire.

I spoke about this in the how to fight with your partner episode of fighting fire with fire while it is necessary in various social situations it is important to sometimes attack back when you're being attacked.

In your intimate relationship it's almost never the best response and in fact if although it might sometimes be the natural urge,

Prolonged fire versus fire will end up burning your house down.

And again this is one of those things that I think is very different in a truly committed relationship as opposed to the you know some sort of casual relating be it sexual romantic or not.

So when if you want your partner to really be in her feminine,

To really be within your perimeter,

You can't attack what's within your perimeter.

If you do that you're pushing her out of your perimeter so you can't expect her to be in your feminine.

I've quoted Gabber Mate on this in a few episodes on how anger,

Which is one of the fiery emotions,

The evolutionary purpose of anger,

The reason why we or any animal experiences anger is to create space,

Right?

Anger is the emotion of get out of my space with the implicit threat of if you don't I'm going to attack,

Right?

Whether it's an animal's growl or a person yelling or whatever,

Right?

That's the purpose of anger.

It's like you're you're defending the borders of your own metaphoric perimeter.

Which means if you're doing this to your so-called partner and she's doing it back,

If you're both you know spitting fire at each other,

You are not only being mean but that's not really my concern is that you're both reinforcing the implicit reality that you are separate units,

That you have separate perimeters.

So even if you resolve the seeming issue from that perspective,

You reinforce this kind of transactional model of relating.

You know this consumerist model of everybody's their independent unit,

Everybody is their own masculine and feminine and then we relate to each other through transaction.

And no long-term intimate relationship can really sustain on this because if you're viewing your marriage or relationship or and again this applies to any social situation,

If you're viewing it on a transactional basis,

The books have to be balanced,

Right?

If you and your partner have the implicit belief of like,

Oh I do this for her and she does this for me,

At some point over the long term,

Especially if you raise the stakes of your relationship by having a family or going into business together,

Anything of that sort,

At some point the books aren't going to be balanced,

It's going to cause resentment and it's going to cause anger.

As opposed to really viewing yourselves as one unit.

I'm not sure if I talked about this on the podcast but it's something I spoke about in the online men's group I was running last summer.

We had read this book on Bushido culture some time ago.

Honestly the only thing that stuck with me from the book,

It was written by a Japanese man pre-World War II and he's comparing American marriages to Japanese marriages and he was pointing out how American men would praise their wives in public and berate them in private.

Whereas Japanese men berate their wives in public and praise them in private and it's a strange thing,

Right?

But from his interpretation it demonstrated the differences in the way cultures viewed marriages.

He didn't use this language exactly but he said that the reason why American men did it this way is because they saw their wives as a separate entity so if you have a kind of transactional relationship with another person,

Well then you praise them in public whether it's genuine or not because that's like a nice thing you're doing for them,

They do nice things for you in public.

Whereas you'll tell the truth to them in private and berate them in private because you know again in a transactional relationship you might feel that they're not holding up their end of the bargain.

Whereas in the way the Japanese people in his view view marriage is that once people get married they're seeing themselves as one unit.

So they praise themselves,

They praise each other in private because that's kind of like how they talk to themselves,

Right?

It's like saying nice things like praising your wife in private to them is like affirming yourself in the mirror and saying nice things because she is a part of you.

Whereas you would berate her in public not to put her down but from that viewpoint it's kind of like being self-deprecating which is of course a kind of a part of a lot of Asian cultures.

Like you make fun of your wife not because you're making fun of her but because you're making fun of yourself and she's an extension of you.

So whether or not that idea literally translates to someone now of any culture,

It doesn't matter I'm not I mean I'm not for self-deprecation in general.

I thought that idea is very interesting of seeing your partner so much as a part of you that anything you say to them or about them in any setting is really you talking to yourself.

So fighting fire with fire is simply pushing someone out of your perimeter and reinforcing that you are not one which is not good for a long term truly committed intimate relationship.

What about the opposite?

If fighting fire with fire is attacking which would lead to burning your house down,

What about fighting or responding to fire with water?

This would be essentially showing grief in some level.

In extreme or you know one example of this would be crying in response to it.

In an extreme it could be playing the victim card but it's essentially responding when someone's being particularly hard with you,

You're responding with extra softness and showing pain.

Whether it's in response exactly to the perhaps mean thing your partner said to you or feeling so bad that you end up entering tears or again in the extreme going into victim mode of like oh my wife is so angry blah blah blah blah.

If fighting fire with fire is a bad thing because it reinforces separate perimeters and will eventually burn your house down,

I would actually say fighting responding with water,

A watery response to her fire is the absolute worst thing to do because if the previous was reinforcing separate perimeters to respond with a watery response of grief to her chaos it's reinforcing the opposite polarity where you are in her perimeter.

Anger evolved as we mentioned to push someone out of your space to establish your own perimeter whereas the watery response crying,

Grief,

Entering some sort of victim mentality also has a purpose.

It's not a bad thing we all need did that response at least when we were infants right when we were dependent on someone,

Our parents,

When our needs weren't met,

When something was too hard,

When we needed support we cried and that signals to our perimeter center that our caretaker to come take care of us right.

I think it's a more natural emotion for women for this for this reason right women are physically smaller you know if you think of Paleolithic times if you imagine a caveman and cavewoman for a woman to respond with anger against the wrong person that might not be the best that might not be the best strategy for survival whereas signaling to them of hey things are a little too rough or you're being a little too whatever can you please lighten up might actually be the better response than physically fighting back at least this is the evolutionary roots of these behaviors whereas for a man to do this he is signaling to her he's reinforcing the implicit reality that he is within her perimeter which means that he is depending on her emotionally which puts her into the mother role and at least that's a nice way to put it but it's putting her into the masculine where she now has to take care of his feelings which is probably the absolute worst thing one can do if you actually want to be holding the masculine pole and this is something I need to stress very strongly because in our culture and Western culture there have been a lot there's been a lot of reinforcements of men getting in touch with their feminine side which you know if you have been reading my book on substack my memoir that was a huge part of my journey you know getting in touch with my emotions very important thing for various aspects of my life but it's still not the thing you should do with the woman whom you want to relate to in a polarized sense because again it puts it forces her into her masculine I think it's important for men to cry at times just not with your partner with other people you know a mentor a strong male friend the men's group a coach a therapist whoever but not with your woman because you're forcing her into a role that neither one of you want her to be in for the sake of your intimate relationship couple years ago I was dating a woman who is very steeped in feminist ideology and I remember actually I think in those situations I did respond well to her chaotic emotions but sometimes she would get angry at me and she actually compared me to an ex-boyfriend who would actually start crying when she cried and she was like yeah you know he always he literally cried and he was feeling me so deeply that he he cried every time that I cried I thought about it for a moment and then I asked her okay well what happened with that relationship how come you're not with him and she was like oh well I cheated on him a lot right and this is not to blame her or anything but it's to show that that is a nice comfortable thing right for anyone to be for a woman that is a lot more comfortable to be with a man who's very effeminate right because it's not threatening because in the same way that for hypothetically for a man to be with another man or if you think about like just spending a lot of time with one of your close male friends right there's no there's no polarity is more symmetrical relating it is a lot more convenient right a masculine person can more readily understand a masculine person a feminine person can more readily understand a feminine person this is why we have same-sex relationships at all you know friendships connections but it's not attractive right a man who goes so deeply into his feminine might be convenient for the woman it might feel less threatening than say a more stoic response but it's not going to do it for her reproductive instincts right she lost attraction for that guy and she went off on another guy not to say that every woman would cheat in that situation but you can't expect a woman to feel sexy in response to a man who now she has to be in her masculine with right that's why the water response is probably the worst thing you can do in an intimate setting and while I think most most men wouldn't actually be drawn to tears when his woman is being chaotic I would put passivity under this to write to even if your response is to do nothing and it seems like you're being a rock but inside you're feeling like a victim inside you're feeling grief inside your running resentments in the sense of oh she is doing this to me or some form of woe is me I'm with the woman who's angry all the time if that's your internal dialogue and you're still having a watery response you might not be literally crying or even saying anything but you're still having that response and I would I would even go to say whether or not your partner is intuitive or anything she's gonna sense that on some level even if she's not conscious of it she's gonna feel that and if you do notice you know you know some some markers of polarity being lost that your her sexual attraction to you has gone down that's kind of a sign that maybe somehow your victimhood even if it's not expressed outwardly somehow is being felt somehow she's feeling like she can't be in her feminine with you and therefore this is the results ok so the next response would be the air response which is rationalization again this is another one of those things that can look like a rock response of doing nothing but really what you're doing is rearranging abstractions in your mind to somehow make the problem go away I'm guilty of this at times where you know I don't get angry I don't go victim me and I try to rationalize of this is you know she's feeling this way because of such-and-such or or you know in a non-relationship setting oh life is not working out because of this thing and this thing and everything's okay I think people who tend towards deep thinking or spirituality these are the air types of things of you know we sometimes call this spiritual bypassing of not dealing with something or avoiding something and pretending it's like not not there or reabstracting things to make it seem like there's no issue when there is one or just checking out all of these kinds of air responses to chaos in your life are some form of dissociating from actual from real reality let's say as opposed to your subjective construction I think a lot of people men and women but I'll call out men here will do this to avoid some sort of difficulty right I think a lot of people use like the good guy persona to avoid confronting situations right this idea of oh she's feeling this way it's gonna upset her if I call it out I'm not gonna do anything or I don't want to be the fiery asshole and they and they kind of spin off into some other place or ultimately what has to happen is that you separate from reality so much that you essentially lower the fidelity of your reality you make things fuzzy you know you you pretend like certain things aren't there or you you basically numb outs and reduce the definition of your reality such that you don't have to look at this thing that's upsetting you be it your chaotic emotions of your partner or anything chaotic or unpleasant in your life this is some sort of avoidance right and whereas you know the fire response creates different perimeters the water response reverses the polarity the air response kind of just makes everything not exist right like you're you're dematerializing the the visceral senses in your relationship and you're literally numbing outs this is another thing where you know when a couple starts to again you know sexual attraction is a great concrete marker of the health of your polarity you know when when people are relating to each other just as friends when a partners are relating just as friends and seeing things seem to be okay but there's just no spark between them this could be one of the things that they've one or both have over rationalized certain things and reabstracted things to try to you know separate from the concrete visceral emotions this of course is no way to live just in general so finally the earth response what does it mean to be a rock and in the rock of course is the great image right a rock just sits there a rock is solid a rock is very different difficult to break if the narrative of fire is stop doing that or I'm gonna make you pay if the narrative of water is please lighten things I'm having a hard time here if the narrative of air is oh there's nothing wrong here then the narrative of earth energy the narrative of a rock is I'm gonna let everything settle around me I'm gonna let everything take its course and I'm only gonna act when it's absolutely necessary in the avatar cartoon which of course has inspired some of some of my perspectives you know there's a lesson that the main character and gets from an teacher and Earth Master which is the energy of earth is neutral right the energy of earth is doing nothing until the absolute right moments which is often the best thing to do when chaos is around you and specifically with a woman the defining characteristic of earthness or being a rock is patience right you don't move you just stay there and you're not doing nothing in the sense of cowardly avoidance you're not doing nothing of rationalization you're being there you're being fully presence you are not abstracting anything you're actually being in the moment but you're not trying to fix anything you're letting the waves crash around you you're letting the fire burn around you because you know it's gonna take it's it's gonna it's gonna pass the change metaphors for a moment this has reminded me of a jiu-jitsu principle of cooking your opponents right there's this idea that if you're against someone who's not the only time that a jiu-jitsu practitioner can just enact whatever moves they want to do is if they're way superior in strength and technique and all that stuff right but most the time even if you have an edge you're not just going to get a submission immediately you have to cook your opponent you have to move around you might try this thing and they counter and you're just wearing them down and then over the course of a match then you'll get the submission right obviously there's a metaphor to actual cooking if you let the thing cook you don't force it like you can't force it's some a raw thing to be edible same thing with you know a woman's emotions and this is I think I think it's challenging for men because it's not how most of us relate to our emotions but it is how most women relate to them that they have to just let it pass they have to feel through it and the best thing you can do to allow it to go smoothly and easily and complete fully is to literally just be there and do nothing so I want to switch away from metaphors now and go into more actionable how's certain other perspectives that have been particularly useful for me in these moments right because if she's spitting fire sometimes at you it's very hard not to take things personally at times we share a couple perspectives that have helped me in the heat of the moments remember to be a rock now the first thing is actually a piece of advice I gave to one of the gentlemen I've been speaking to recently which is to recognize that when she's in her chaos when she's in her fire to see her not as an adult but to see her as a child and I know this can be taken and maybe a sexist way I certainly don't mean it that way and you can reframe it as to see her inner child right if someone is deep in their feelings they're not acting as a rational adult and you shouldn't hold them to that standard right I think I think that I've heard from many men when they complain about the chaos their partner brings at times is like is expecting her to you know take responsibility for emotions in general that's a great thing in any relationship and as people evolve with their conscious awareness and evolve as a partner of course that is something to be to strive towards but also recognizing that in a polar polarized relationship where she's in her feminine where she's feeling her feelings in order for her to really feel all the positive feelings that come from being in your feminine all the things that you know I spoke about in the episodes on how to help a woman into her feminine the joy the creativity the passion the love the caring the nurturing you have to also accept that there are some negative things that come with that just like you can't control a child's emotions and again you know this there's two things where people might you know be upset with this idea one obviously is seeing women as children firstly if you are again if you are creating the perimeter for someone you're giving them there that opportunity you're giving the other person be it your wife your girlfriend children you're giving them the opportunity to express all those things and be irrational because you are handling the perimeter for them you know and the other side of things I think some men would complain about again looking at relationships transactionally is well why is that fair like why do I need to care for her emotions you know and she doesn't do the same thing for me well essentially that's what polarity is right I stress this in the Kali Trample Shiva article of when you do this what you get in return because you are taking extra responsibility for you're taking you know you are you are not holding her as a peer you're holding her as someone you are caring for the response is she gives you all the good things that the feminine do on the sexual level in love and really the reason why all of this exists in accordance with perimeter theory is that what she really does for you and quotes is not directly for you she cares for your offspring in the way that you care for her and that's what makes it quote-unquote fair and for myself in this you know I have a family now and especially witnessing my wife through pregnancy and now you know breastfeeding our infant child right it's brought it's brought all these polarity principles really into like an obvious heightened concrete state of like oh yeah she's expending so much care so much energy for our child I almost owe it to her right to allow her to be in her chaos at times right I shouldn't expect her to you know basically mother both of us on both ends right she cares for the child I care for her and that's what makes it fair and even outside of the perimeter views on things you know if you want to look at it is when someone's emotional they're in their inner child for me this has been useful in that when she's upset if she even says something mean or is unreasonable or you know it's not you know in emotion so deeply that she can't meet me as a peer recognizing that she's in her inner child or viewing her as a child you know takes away whatever resentment or fear that I would have right because if your partner is upset and you're taking it extra personally and you're you know in some way you're running you know the water victim resentment narrative inside of she shouldn't be that way you know I take responsibility for my emotions why isn't she being that way if you recognize that she is in child mode or if you even think of her as a child you probably wouldn't feel that way right if you you know actually said this to the guy where you know this idea came from you know if you were talking to a seven year old if you're talking to your seven year old daughter and she was expressing the same kind of things hopefully you wouldn't be you would take it personally you wouldn't be upset you would recognize that she while her emotions are very valid and real she probably doesn't recognize the context of them or why this is technically unfair of her or there's other reasons you wouldn't expect that of a small child or let's say a five year old girl or a five year old kid of any of any gender treat your wife the same way in those moments right it'll make you feel a lot less defensive and be a lot more caring as opposed to seeing her as someone who is threatening to you which is the root of all of these of all of this extra defensiveness and on that note bringing it to the second principle a rock recognizes that everything will pass right a rock or if you imagine the view the perspective of a rock they're thinking of things on a very long time scale which again is a thing that you know if you think of you know higher human consciousness or simply the the logical left brain masculine mind this is another function right this is circuit three consciousness time-binding recognizing that this immediate moment even if her chaotic emotions are saying this is the reason for that or this is the problem with this or blah blah blah you need to recognize that that fire is gonna burn out it's on you that's the perimeter setter to frame things in a correct time scale which is typically a much longer time scale than someone in their emotions deep in their emotions is viewing things right when a really emotional we're really only dealing with the present where's your job as the rock as the less emotional being to look at things on a very long time scale which also should help you not take things personally and another idea on this is you know if you've ever if you've ever hallucinated on psychedelics or been with someone hallucinating you recognize that you're experiencing certain things that could be very meaningful but not necessarily in line with concrete reality if you've ever trip trip sat for someone you know I think this is like a great metaphor for parenting and relate relationships and any kind of leadership actually is recognizing that with the per that your dependents are experiencing emotionally is very real and valid right this is one of my favorite lines from Mr.

Rogers one of my one of my role models for parenthood and certain forms of masculinity and he said something like people treat children's emotions as if they're not real but a child's emotions are as real as an adult's emotions they might not I mean I'm paraphrasing this quote but they might not recognize the context of the emotions but the emotions themselves are real which is why in his view it's important to validate children's emotions it's also important to validate your partner's emotions when she's deep in them but also recognizing that you don't expect them to see what's going on you don't expect the mushroom tripper to recognize reality while they're tripping but you're the one who recognizes the context and you're the one that recognizes they're safe and you're the one that recognizes that whatever they're upset about whether it's real or not it's gonna pass it's okay you don't have to convince them of that like you can't convince a tripping person not to trip but you can't just make sure that they're safe and not take anything personally or not take anything seriously that they are asserting about the world because you recognize that they're gonna come back to reality right your woman's emotions are gonna pass as long as you don't add gasoline to the fire which means containing it being there with her and not not taking things personally and as I spoke about in the how to get her into a feminine episode of a few months ago again this is one of the gifts that a man gives a woman or what the masculine does for the feminine you know something my wife has pointed out is that when she's really in a good state she's in what she calls a timeless state where she's not she's not aware of what time it is or what day it is she's being really present and in her feelings and she's the most creative and she's the most nurturing she's the most open and the most happy but she's only able to go into that state when she trusts me implicitly that I'm handling all of the survival needs of time and space right I'm gonna remind her when we have to go somewhere you know I'm speaking a little bit in extremes but it is like the state where she is happiest and where I'm the happiest in our relationship like Bronner's dealing with things which means that I'm really handling the time binding for her so the final principle and perspective on this of being a rock is looking at the other form this metaphor is used of being dumb like a rock right to be called a rock in that context might not seem attractive but I actually think is the same thing in the sense that you are D abstracting right if air air energy if you will is rationalizing and making meaning from things and going deep which is obviously something that's more natural for me here I am having a podcast where I talk about ideas really being a rock also means being kind of dumb right if you look at you know relationship humor of many different comedians who talk about this kind of things right it's easy to poke fun and it's a thing you know women can poke fun at men like you know when a man when you ask a man what he's thinking and he says nothing sometimes he's actually thinking about nothing and I actually think this is one of the important things actually all things about men and women that we can make fun of in each other and our differences they all have an evolutionary purpose they don't always apply themselves in modern relationships the way that is most beneficial but they all have a purpose and the fact that men can really zone out and think about nothing at times and not go into abstractions that can turn into demons is another gift that a man a person in the masculine role gives to someone else you know there are times to reabstract things and you know I think this is part of the spiritual perimeter that a leader gives his dependence the masculine gives his dependence the perimeter setter of you know giving a framework this is kind of shaman archetype stuff which I'm gonna publish an article on the sub stack about soon but sometimes it's D abstracting of like just looking at things plainly the way they are when I'm coaching people in relationships a lot of the times of what heightens a problem or stretches out a small problem into a big issue is thinking too much on both ends right if like looking at the meaning of things or why do they say it that way or what does it mean or what are they thinking what does it mean for our relationship in the future and a lot of times whether your assessment of the deeper meaning is right or not very often you should just treat it as nothing because the result will be nothing as long as you don't stoke that fire as long as you don't feed that demon of whatever whatever meaning you were drawing you know very often the concrete advice I give to a man when his woman is being unreasonable or there's chaos at home it's a simply leave right that is also rock energy now the intention is important right if you leave with anger you know you have a fiery feeling of like oh she's being a she's being a bitch or whatever words you want to come up with your in your head you storm out of the house that way that's very different it's gonna get a different result or same thing with victimhood if you like I need to get out of the house because she's so whatever or even the air thing if I'm gonna get out of the house and do other things and you just check out about it those are all very different than looking at things extremely pragmatically of like okay she's dealing with her emotions can't do anything it's uncomfortable to be around I'm gonna go do something else and not think about it right I'm just gonna you know one of the ideas that I run through with in various settings with coaching clients especially with guys deal with anxiety or any any sort of thinking too much right is pretending like this is a lucid dream right imagining this is a dream and you know you're gonna you know you're gonna wake up and all you have to do is just like enjoy this reality it's not gonna last forever what are you gonna do like what would you do in this immediate moment to entertain yourself or to maximize your well-being or enjoyment right you wouldn't think too deeply about anything you wouldn't worry about what the other person thinks about this you just go do something that's more entertaining right if you're at home and there's chaos at home well it goes somewhere else and do something that is actually enjoyable and come back when it feels right right and again the intention is very important because your partner will probably feel some version of it and if you're not sure I often recommend to state it out like the correct rock energy in this situation is hey I understand you're feeling such-and-such way I can't do anything I think the best thing is to give you some space so I'm gonna do such-and-such I'll be back at such-and-such time that last bit is particularly important if you are the perimeter setter to allow to basically let her know what to allow her to feel contained in a safe way of like you'll be back at this time she doesn't have to worry forever right you're letting her know exactly the rails exactly the the limits of what's going on which allows her to feel okay I'm I have the house to myself for X number of hours or whatever and this really required for you to say this genuinely you really need to feel like a rock you really need to feel you're dumb like a rock where you're not thinking about anything you're not drawing meanings you're not you're just you're just being right and it's actually you know again this is one of the more challenging elements for me you know given that I like to think and go deep into meanings and read into things so actually it reminds me of one of my friends he's actually one of my of all the people that I've spent significant time with he's one of the more challenging people for me in that we're so opposite right like he really is a rock in fact you know when I'm you know a lot of my friends were we're a little bit more intellectual and we like to look into meanings and principles and philosophize and he often will make fun of us because you know he just sees things purely pragmatically like his whole his whole view on life it comes down to purely tangible things like his view on happiness is do I have enough money to buy the things I want and do my friends like me and that's it like anything deeper than that anything spiritual or deeply psychological like it goes over his head and I have been frustrated with him at times because when he's amongst the group of friends that I know him from sometimes the conversation has to be dumbed down a little bit because we can't speak too deeply because he doesn't get sometimes the abstractions but we all hang out with him because he actually grounds us all in a sense right like you know when we get when we start acting too smart he'll make fun of us and bring us back down to reality and he actually prevents us from spinning off into ideas right in the slaying demons episode I spoke about how what a demon is when someone's dealing with like an existential emotional issue it's always an abstraction it's always some sort of meaning you've constructed and attached it to maybe events or not but it's not it's not it's not a it's not an immediate thing it's not an immediate real threat you have to deal with it's something that exists in your head which is why we call it a demon whereas for someone like him I think he's not even capable of experiencing these kinds of problems because he only looks at things purely on a tangible level and while I'm a very different kind of person and if you are into my podcast you're probably closer to me in personality there is something we all can learn from people like this where you don't look into things you actually you dumb yourself down you act like a rock in that sense and you just let things happen and deal with only the practical tangible results of things and here's where this we can bring this back to how this applies to everything in life right I've been framing this as in the intimate relationship simply because that's it's relatable and it's you know easy to conceptualize but all this can apply to all forms of chaos in your life right all all sorts of all sorts of fieriness that seems to be around you and you know to dumb things down while it's not maybe the most attractive way to phrase it it is the same thing as being present it is D abstracting and looking at what's really true and immediately in front of you because almost all forms of demons or fear or chaos the actual threat is not immediate it's something that's beyond you whether it's an existential thing or a quest for purpose or fears about money right most people who are afraid about money they're actually lit in their immediate reality it's actually okay right they're not literally on the street most of the time it's some fear about the future's fear about abstractions that are in the mind and sometimes the absolute best thing to do is to dumb yourself down be like a rock and just treat things as they are because most things will pass over you most life will happen around you if you just look at things on the correct time scale and appreciate the immediate moment because ultimately a rock doesn't think too hard a rock doesn't you know look for meaning a rock just is a rock is just a solid being that is where they are and very often that is the best thing you can do in terms of being grounded or any other virtue that we can come up for masculinity sometimes just being there is the best thing random factoid is something I'm going to share in the upcoming history of man episode 4 is that in Sparta ancient Sparta where you know which was a whole society built around masculine virtues it going into that extensively episode it was actually seen as a manly virtue to be idle which is not true in most cultures in Athens which is a very opposite is actually a crime to be idle because everyone needed to be contributing to the commercial and industrial efforts of the city-state whereas in Sparta men were actually celebrated for doing nothing like if you were a man who could sit and just be there that was seen as like one of the most manly things you could do and while you know Sparta is not the perfect society it does show what a society would be like if it was centered around the masculine or masculinity and there is something very beneficial about being a rock at times this is our last episode of the year as with all episodes if you know someone who would enjoy it please share it with them if you have any follow-up questions or thoughts or anything feel free to comment via the sub stack every episode is there and stay tuned for next year where sub stack subscribers will be able to hop on to my future podcast live I'm actually gonna post a poll soon something I used to do in the Facebook group of what episode topic you guys would like to see next whether it be on relationships or reality creation or any other things I'm gonna list that over on sub stack that's a Rwanda dot sub stack dot-com thank you for listening and goodbye