A wife longs to connect with her husband on the heart level. But the husband is unable to express feelings, so the level of intimacy is very limited. Marshall models a dialogue between a giraffe wife and her jackal husband.
He also talks about the cultural programming men in the USA are exposed to and its effects. He ends with a song for men, who intend to reclaim their feelings and gentleness.
Time Codes
Intimidating Questions
00:04 Questions in combination with unexpressed feelings are often heard as aggression
01:35 Participant brings a situation, where they would like to have a connecting talk with their partner, but the partner is not responsive at all.
Roleplay – Wife Requests to Connect on Feelings – Husband is Unresponsive
02:33 Giraffe jackal roleplay – Giraffe has a need for connection, seeking help from jackal on how to move forward. Giraffe asking how jackal feels hearing the giraffe honesty from the heart.
03:11 “I feel that …” Jackal replies with a thought, rather than with a feeling
03:50 Giraffe persists in asking for the feeling from the jackal
04:29 Jackals gives another thought, a diagnosis
Effects of Cultural Background – Males Trained to Kill, Not to Feel
06:25 Many women seek more connection on the feeling level with their husbands
07:09 Cultural machoism: 1) Never express a feeling 2) Label people: Good guys, bad guys
08:31 Marshall singing “John Wayne is no longer my hero.”
09:56 Closing with this participant
For different section from this workshop – see here.
Notes
“Naked” questions risk to trigger jackals hearing an aggression.
A naked questions – a question where we give no information about our feelings and needs or about an observation – is the fourth step of Giraffe only. Request. Boom.
A giraffe simply may go to feelings, needs, observations anyway – but habitual jackal ears can grift anything onto this questions. It’s an easy start to misunderstandings.
Moreover – questions often mask judgments. “Why are you doing this?” can easily be heard as: “What is wrong with you, that you do this?”
So I want to be aware of the moments, when I use naked questions in my dialogues with people. How do they contribute to connection or not? Interesting!
Note also the way in which the giraffe responds to the jackal in the roleplay, when he produces thoughts, how she keeps holding her need for connection alive, while at the same time with care holding onto her request to hear a feeling word from her husband.