Jan 27, 2013

5 Tips To Hack The Male Brain: Understanding Men

Understanding Men

One simple thing that you can do to today to have less stress in your life (and maintain healthier relationships with women) is understand how your brain works.

All men (and women) have a masculine side, and a feminine side. It is necessary to have both a masculine and a feminine. The problem arises when someone is predominantly one over the other in the direction that they do not intend.

All intimate relationships have a Sexual Polarity. This means that one of the partners is more strongly associated with their masculine, and the other their feminine.

As it currently stands in the modern day developed world, there has been a large shift towards feminizing men and minimizing masculine energy overall. This, at one point, was a good, healthy step. Sexual polarity in the developed world was extremely polarized and feminine energy was thought of as less valuable before the sexual revolution of the 1970′s. During this decade of the hippie, women burnt their bras and men grew their hair long and got in touch with their emotions.

In other words, the two poles of masculine and feminine energy were DE-polarized. Instead of the two plot points clocking in at 0 and 100 on the continuum, they were registering as 40 and 60. This depolarization, again while a healthy step to get away from the archaic system that penalized the feminine, caused mass dissatisfaction in couples’ intimate relationships. Instead of polarity, couples had too much similarity.

The lines were blurred and the relationships suffered. Sexual attraction can only occur in the space between two people, and that space had narrowed significantly.

Am I now going to suggest that the pendulum needs to swing back in the other direction back to a pre-1970′s polarization? Not a chance.

As I mentioned earlier, every being has a masculine and feminine energy. Just like a yin and yang, it is best when one partner is 90% masculine and 10% feminine, and the other partner is the opposite. If you are one of the many men who feel like you sometimes have difficulty aligning yourself with your goals, your passion or purpose in life, or feeling ‘like a man’… then these next few steps of awareness are likely going to change how you think about yourself… forever.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

1. Men are singularly focused

The way that the male brain works we do much better focusing on one specific task than bouncing around between ideas. When we are absorbed in a task, we are like a freight train that has built up momentum. Everything else seems to fall away.

If someone tries to distract us from our single task or line of thought, it often takes some energy for them to break our focus. This is also why it feels more frustrating when they succeed in distracting us. The majority of energy used to get a freight train moving in one direction is used up in the initial process of getting the train up to speed.

Conversely, women’s minds are much more adept at switching from one topic to another. A man’s mind generally has one thought or none in it, whereas a woman’s mind, to us, would seem like a baffling kaleidoscope of thoughts coming and going seemingly at the speed of light. This is where the common dichotomy of “men are stupid, women are crazy” comes from. Feminine energy is a disco ball, masculine energy is a laser beam. Each have their own strengths and are both equally valid.

The way in which men focus would also explain why, likely at some point in your life, you have focused on a certain element of your life so intensely that other areas suffered. Maybe it was becoming fit, or starting a business, or dating a new woman. The singular focus on the one element made the other pieces fall away from your focus and so they suffered.

Ironically, often the one element that you are focusing on also suffers. Imagine that you were the sun, and instead of trying to grow an entire forest with your light, you focused all of your energy on one plant. The neglect of the forest would make for chaos, and the intensity of the focus would make the plant burst into flames.

Think about it. Have you ever focused so much energy on getting a phone number or a new girlfriend, that it ended up scaring the woman away? This is because your over abundance of masculine energy was laser-beam focused on it, and the fact that you were out of integrity with yourself, showed the woman that you didn’t value yourself enough to stay in control and balance. I’ll be writing an entire post on that subject soon.

2. A man’s life is seen as a series of challenges

Male brains are wired to seek out challenge. The front line of our mental army is always on the look out for potential threats or challenges. Women often don’t understand this because their ‘mental front line’ is looking for threats to intimacy and connection. This is the exact counterpoint to our front line that is looking for threats to independence and freedom.

This is why we often hear women’s questions about our day as an annoyance. It’s not that we necessarily don’t like talking, it’s that we want to have parts of ourselves that are purely for us. We don’t want our freedom impinged upon.

The feminine wants love and connection, and the masculine wants freedom and independence. We need alone time.

The feminine wants closeness, the masculine wants autonomy. Ideally, you need a partner that understands this (or will be receptive to it when you let them know your needs).

As men, we are more status minded. This means that in our day to day dealings with others, we are acutely aware of who has more power, control, or dominance over the other. This is why, as a man associated with his masculine, it is much easier to speak in public and in group settings, than in a one on one situation with a girlfriend. Men are better at speaking in public, and women in private. So when our male brains come home from a long day of work and we look forward to not having to compete for status or dominate conversations, we can feel bothered by a partner that wants to hear about the random effluvia of our day. We see her invitation to intimacy as a threat to our independence.

The masculine also thrives when challenged. This is why men typically love working out, watching or playing team sports, or succeeding in a chosen career path – all of these examples are purely challenges and obstacles that have been overcome.

3. Men desire emptiness

Men are the most content when they have a lack of chaos or frustration in their paths. For the masculine, the ultimate goal is complete freedom. To enjoy the world, while being completely free from it.

It is a very fulfilling experience for the masculine to be empty of thought, empty of emotion, and empty of desire. The moment after reaching climax in a sexual context is blissful for men because it is total emptiness.

Feminine energy does not crave emptiness like the masculine. The feminine is drawn towards fullness. Fullness of experience, or desire, or emotion.

The masculine drives you to drink alcohol to a point of numbness, whereas the feminine drinks in moderation to add more fullness to an occasion.

The masculine drives you to bring sex to completion quickly so that you can be free of desire, whereas the feminine wants to continue sex to experience more connection and fullness.

You want to speak as little as possible when you get home from work, and a woman wants to communicate as much as possible to narrow the gap of separateness that she feels.

This is not something that we can change, nor will you want to when you have found a partner that thrives off of your masculine energy. More on this later.

4. If a man’s career isn’t going well (or there is no direction in his life), he will feel closed off to women

understanding men

As men, because our freedom is of primary concern to us, we feel incomplete and anxious when we don’t have our lives sorted out. Men are very prone to depression and anxiety disorders when they don’t feel in integrity with themselves or when their work life isn’t in order.

Often unconsciously, we feel like our masculine energy isn’t as strong as it needs to be, and so we keep ourselves sheltered from feminine energy. You could equate this as either feeling too weak to be there for her, or feeling shamefully undeserving of her feminine energy.

This is also why when our work life is out of alignment, our relationships with our partner and friends often suffer. It’s like a spine with a slipped disc… it isn’t a compartmentalized situation, it has a ripple effect in to our lives.

The masculine side of anyone (male or female) prioritizes career, whereas the feminine prioritizes love and intimacy. I have coached many men that found themselves in ‘fulfilling’ relationships where they spent every waking moment with their partner, but then found themselves deeply unfulfilled because they weren’t spending any time on themselves and their own path. This inevitably frustrates both partners involved.

5. An overabundance of feminine energy only unsettles men if they don’t feel solid enough in their masculine energy

Have you ever seen a woman that you felt very drawn towards but you felt something holding you back from talking to her or getting to know her?

We are drawn to feminine energy. We want to be around its warm, nurturing effects. But we hold ourselves back from it when we don’t feel stable enough in ourselves.

Feminine energy can sometimes feel like a threat to us because if we were to approach the woman in all of her feminine awesomeness, we could be exposed as sub-par or ‘not man enough’. Men go to great lengths to avoid showing vulnerability and weakness. This is largely due to early social conditioning and tender ego’s that have not used the element of courage enough in the past to grow a thick, solid personal boundary.

And if you want to really dig deep into understanding the male mind, I’ve recently released a brand new video series called Inside The Male Mind. There’s something in here for anyone who loves men and wants to have better relationships with them.

Dedicated to your success,

Jordan

Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you will also love checking out the following:

Inside The Male Mind (video course for women)

What Amazing Sex Feels Like For Men (In Their Words)

The 3 Biggest Things That Bother Men In Bed

5 Ways To Help Reduce The Male Suicide Rate

The 3 Biggest Reasons Men Love Blowjobs

10 Simple Ways To Immediately Be More Attractive To Your Man

– What Men Really Think Of Women (You Asked For This…)

Jordan Gray
About Jordan Gray

Jordan Gray has been a sex and relationship coach for over 15+ years, with his work reaching over 200 million people worldwide. His writing has been featured in Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and countless other publications around the world. When he’s not working with 1-on-1 coaching clients or writing a new article, he’s most likely to be found reading, chopping wood, or spending time with his wife on a little island off the west coast of Canada.

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