Tag: wisdoms

“Men process emotions slower than women

A couple of days I wrote a lightening post that said:

“He needs to slow down when it comes to her body. She needs to slow down when it comes to his heart” of which many asked me me to expand upon slowing down with a man’s heart.

So here you go, it’s a long post yet worth the read:

There is an interesting brain structure called the corpus callosum that is distinctly important in the differences between men and women.

What this part of the brain is responsible for is the switching between left and right brain modes of thinking.

Women have a distinctly thicker corpus callosum, generally, than men.

What this means is that women have much more neural density connecting the two hemispheres than men do, and are capable of switching between right and left brain modes of thinking at a much higher speed.

The left part of our brain deals with the logical, rational, practical, objective and tangible aspects of reality, whilst the right part of our brain, however, deals with abstract, creative, feeling, emotional, sensual and intuitive aspects of reality.

In the left hemisphere we process the concrete and actionable parts of our life and relationships. In the right hemisphere we process the subtle, relational and intangible parts of our life and relationships.

With less density of connection between the two hemispheres, men take time (and often considerable effort) to shift from an analytical and rational orientation to an emotional and relational one.

This doesn’t mean they can’t, it just takes longer.

When a woman comes to her man with an emotional issue, he is more than likely sitting contentedly in his left brain (which is where most men are more comfortable) and suddenly he is being asked to meet her over there in the right brain.

Gathering all his effort he begins the laborious journey over to the feeling part of the brain.

In the meantime, she has processed significant parts of the emotion and is bewildered at his lack of responsiveness.

His inability to meet her, right here right now, sets off all kinds of alarm bells of rejection and she rushes over to the left part of the brain to find solutions to what might be going wrong, and then back again to the right. This rapid switching sends her brain into overdrive.

The poor man has only just arrived in the right brain and is trying to make sense of this vast feeling world that is now swirling all around him.

They are operating at entirely different speeds now.

She is 12 steps ahead wondering what the hell is wrong with him!?

She asks him a feeling-based question, and 18 seconds pass without him opening his mouth.

To her it feels like 3 hours have gone by already.

“He doesn’t care at all about this, about me, about our relationship!!”

He is digging deep inside into this less familiar territory trying to make sense of how he actually feels about it, and is gathering himself to speak.

Finally a sentence tumbles out of his mouth, and it is clunky and unformed… and so stupidly… male!

A bomb explodes inside of her.

She interrupts him.

He gets defensive.

They fight.

The emotions are the domain of the heart and men move slower here.

Men process emotions slower.

Men take longer to open their hearts.

Men take longer to open after a fight.

Men take longer to recover after a breakup.

Generally.

When women understand this about men, they can support him immensely into deepening into the deep worlds of intimacy, of which men are absolutely capable of journeying, through patience, time and space.

The other day my partner, Katie, and I were talking through some deep and vulnerable parts of our relationship.

It was sensitive and raw, and after she had finished sharing she asked me a question.

She reflected later how long I took to start replying, and that half way through I paused for what seemed like 3-4 minutes (in her perception, in actuality it was probably more like 30 seconds).

As she sat quietly with me, I was able to keep digging deeper, finding deeper and deeper layers of my feelings and thoughts and where I finished was so much more vulnerable than when I started, and so much more profound in the depth of intimacy it afforded us.

Containing her urge to rush through, or to take my extended moments of silence as disinterest, supported me in touching these parts of myself.

That level of safety, care and holding from the feminine for a man’s slow heart is so healing.

When I receive this kind of slow feminine presence from Katie my heart opens more every time.

My love expands and our intimacy grows.

This is a secret key.”

[In my next post I will talk more about the reciprocal of this dynamic, how men can support a woman’s body to open with presence]

~Damien Bohler

This is a Beautiful reminder for all of us women. 🌹)