LESSONS FROM THE DISHWASHER: PART TWO
Masculine Leadership + The Wound Template of Feminine Martyrdom
Two important insights on the now legendary Marmer-Pothier Dishwasher sitch:
1. IF Max had just said "No, I choose to not comply with your request (to do a better job at washing his dishes) ", this would (likely) have been poor leadership.
What makes this little story potent is that Max very rightly denied my request AND THEN PROVIDED SOLUTIONS **beyond what I could see for myself.**
This is called Masculine LEADERSHIP -- which is completely different than if he were just to rock his "no" and then not address the invisible labor that would have befallen to me IF he had not shared his greater vision of win:win solutions.
(**Important Note: There are certainly times when his precise 'no' is rightful without his choosing to erect additional layers of 'energetic provision', which is what Masculine leadership is ~ but this is a more nuanced situation.)
2. This will likely need to be a larger post, but I feel that its important that I illuminate my own Feminine shadow / wound template in this.
When Max said No to my request, do you see that the 2 "solutions" I named (my re-washing the dishes by hand or running them through the dishwasher a 2nd time) BOTH placed the "solution to his No" in my court?
In other words, my reflexive response ~ while totally respectful of Max's "no", left no space for HIS leadership and cultivation of an ACTUAL WIN:WIN SOLUTION ~ and this was the piercing energetic adjustment Max saw and corrected IMMEDIATELY.
(ie: "This is inaccurate thinking, Gillian.")
BOTH of his solutions were better and greater than the ones I was able to make contact with in the moment and they BOTH LIBERATED ME from absorbing the consequences of his No.
The reason he effortlessly offered this energetic adjustment to me is because
I INSTINCTIVELY (and JOYFULLY) FOLLOW MAX'S LEAD.
I follow his lead because it is GENERATIVE -- he creates solutions and experiences for me FAR BEYOND what I could ever see or name as a request or a desire.
The truth is that I have zero desire for Max to reflexively say Yes to me ~ or, to touch the deeper harmonic of truth:
to 'please me'.
I DO have deep desire for Max to *create pleasure* for me, which paradoxically, is so often created by saying No to the thing I think I want ("Oh, please be a good man and wash your dishes off.....") in order to receive the fatness of the experience he CHOOSES to create FOR ME.
I fully believe (and teach) that men and women need to be in MUCH deeper approval of the penetrating and at times, ruthless No of men -- WHEN the generative, win: win solution, embodied vision and leadership is in place.
The Good Boy / Yes Man is a corrupted, synthetic, inverted attempt by Men to "look good" and receive the rewards of (masculinized) women when what they actually may need is to place being perceived as "good" on the altar in order to be in deeper approval of their primal Masculine nature.
Unless and until he does so, the stranglehold of his attempt at 'being good and pleasing her' will so often lead to impacted contempt from *her* ~ and ultimately, towards himself.
In my relationship and teaching spaces: the answer is never more Masculine compliance -- its always MORE brilliant, masterful Masculine LEADERSHIP.