Hi.
In this video, I'm going to share one hidden thing you have to avoid
if you want to build lasting love with a guy.
[music]
Hi, there.
Mat Shaffer, your empowerment, connection, and relationship coach.
I'm a former attorney who's committed his life to supporting you
and creating the sort of fun, fulfilling, and dynamic connections
and relationships with men that you are so worthy of.
In this video, we're going to talk about one really important thing
that most women don't know about, that creates so many issues
around attraction and polarity with men and how to avoid it.
We're going to dive deep into it, but before we do take a second,
hit that little subscribe button, and don't forget to click the link
in the comments and caption.
I have created some great training that's going to make a huge difference
in your relationships and connections with men.
Let's dig into this because this is one of the biggest issues I see women
struggling with when it comes to pushing away men
or not creating the polarity or attraction with men in dating and relationship.
It's something that you may not be aware of because
it's a hidden trigger that many men have.
If you're not familiar with the concept of triggers, triggers are these
hidden wounds or pain points that we have stored within us,
that are usually based in our past experiences and our past relationships.
When a trigger gets activated through the behavior of a current partner
or something they say or something they do, the trigger comes
to the surface and we experience the pain and the trauma
of that past event in the present and we project that often
onto our partner or onto the person who activated it.
It's like stepping on a landmine.
It's buried beneath the surface and then you step on it and boom,
before you know it you have a confrontation
or some kind of conflict with your partner.
This is one of the biggest triggers that most men have.
It is their momma trauma.
Most women activate it and ignite it on accident all the time.
I'm going to share with you four ways that you can avoid activating
his momma trauma but first off, let's talk about what momma trauma
is in the first place.
To understand momma trauma, you need to understand
one very fundamental principle that at heart all men are little boys.
All men have this fundamental little boy within them.
They like to play, they like their toys.
There are so many avenues and areas that men are little boys
and embody that energy.
Another big area of life where men are little boys is in relationship.
I don't mean all the time.
You can be emotionally mature and still have that little boy consciousness
or energy within you.
When we were little boys there was nothing that was more devastating
for most of us than getting in trouble with our moms.
It's a core wound that almost all men share.
It's a wound that most of us are still carrying with us
to this day especially when it comes to our relationships with women
because our relationship with our mother sets the template
and our initial patterns for all of our relationships with other women
moving forward in our life.
This deeply held fear of getting in trouble with our mom
is something that most men are carrying around with them
and it's very easy for that to get triggered in your relationship with him.
The goal of this video is to help you understand how to avoid
triggering and activating his momma trauma because if you activate this
and he starts to feel like he's gotten in trouble with you,
like he has made you mad and he sees you as a maternal figure,
it's going to depolarize your connection.
He's going to feel emasculated and it can also kill attraction.
There are a few things less attractive to a man
than having him see you as his mom.
Let's unpack some common ways that women
activate a man's momma trauma that you can now look for and avoid.
One of the first big ways that women activate
a man's momma trauma is by always fixing him, always correcting him
because I know a lot of women out there,
you see your man's greatness, you see what's possible for him,
and you see better ways that he can do a lot of things in his life,
not just the things involving you and you want that for him.
You want to fix him and help show him, hey,
if you do it this way things are going to go better for him.
I get it but here's the problem with that.
When you're constantly fixing him and correcting him
think about who you are representing.
You're representing his mom, because when he was growing up,
when he was a little kid, his mom was constantly saying,
"Get better grades, make sure to straighten your shirt,
brush your teeth before you go to bed."
She was constantly correcting him and fixing him.
"You need to go to this kind of school if you want to get this kind of job."
Operating from that space of pushing him and pushing him and pushing him.
You got to remember, when you start fixing a man on a regular basis
he is going to feel wrong a lot because anytime he's feeling like
you're fixing him he's feeling like he wasn't enough at some deeper level.
When a man consistently feels wrong or he's not enough
in his connection with you, it's a very heavy feeling,
it's a very emasculated feeling, and it's really the opposite
of the kind of energetic dynamic you're looking to create with him,
which is empowered and free and courageous.
Remember, he wants you to be his biggest cheerleader and the person
who sees him in his greatness and is encouraging him towards it.
Avoid being the fixer and you're going to avoid activating his momma trauma.
Another big way that women often accidentally activate
a man's momma trauma is by controlling or micromanaging him with guilt.
One of the most painful things most men heard
when they were growing up from their moms was,
"I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed."
You got to remember when a man is invested in you
and he's in relationship with you, he is very invested
in your emotions and in your emotional state.
If you start holding that over his head and controlling his behavior
and controlling his decisions through your emotional state
and making him feel guilty about that, you run a big chance
of activating his momma trauma and getting him to feel,
"Oh my gosh, I'm in trouble, I'm in trouble.
What do I need to do to fix this?"
It's a very anxious fearful state for a lot of men
and also it's very disempowering if you're micromanaging his life,
if you're controlling every little aspect of his life especially using guilt.
One way an ex-girlfriend used to do this with me is
"I would want to make plans with my guy friends
and go out and do fun stuff,"
and I would make those plans because I didn't have set plans
with her, and then she, because she felt threatened
by my guy friends and my relationship with them,
would talk to me and say,
"Oh, you want to go out with your guy friends?
Well, I thought we were going to have dinner tonight."
I'm like,
"Well, we didn't plan that."
She says,
"Well, I just assumed that because we had dinner this time this day
last week that we'd have dinner this week."
She would get really disappointed with me because of unspoken plans
with me and really want me to feel that sense of disappointment
and inherent obligation to her because of her emotional state.
That ended up making me very checked out of the relationship
and started resenting her a little bit.
This was before I stepped into personal development
and communicating my feelings effectively to my partners.
It's just something to watch out for because if you start
doing passive-aggressive behavior towards your man,
you run the risk of activating his momma trauma especially if his mom
used that kind of conditioning and guilt on him when he was little.
Probably the most common way that women
activate a man's momma trauma is through one simple pattern,
giving a man a command or a request without giving him context.
I talked about this on a prior video and I want to re-emphasize it here.
If you tell a man what to do or even ask him to do something for you
and you do not give him the context around it,
you run a real risk of bringing up this wound for him because
think about it, when he was little, what would his mom say?
His mom would say,
"Hey, take out the trash."
He would say,
"Oh, mom, why?"
She'd say,
"Because I said so because I'm your mother."
Little boys when they're growing up are often conditioned
to do what their mom says specifically because they were told to do so.
They don't have a right to get an explanation
or any context around that request.
You don't want to show up that way to him,
so if you have a request for him, let him know, give him the context
as to why it's important to you, how it's going to make you feel.
Oftentimes you can ground a request in a feeling statement
and make it super powerful and activating to him.
It's going to actually activate him to want to do it instead
of just doing it because
"Oh my gosh, if I don't do this I'm going to in trouble."
It's the distinction between activation and assertion.
It's really important for you to stay connected to in your relationship
with a man.
If you want him to take out the garbage, just ask him
in an activating way, say,
"Hey, I'd really love it if you could take out the garbage
so that we could settle in and have our date night that I've been
looking forward to all week."
You're saying,
"I would love it if you would take out the garbage
so that we could move forward and have our date night."
You're giving him context to understand why it's important to you
and what you both are going to get out of it as a result of his action.
That's activating to him rather than saying,
"Hey, take out the garbage, it's dinner time."
See, that's much more emasculating, and it's much more likely
to activate its momma trauma which you do not want to do.
The last common way that women activate a man's momma trauma
is by being very aggressive and confrontive with him with their feelings.
If you're in a triggered state, if you're mad at him or annoyed
or frustrated with him, you want to be really conscious of your energy
when you're communicating and expressing those emotions to him.
Of course, your emotions and your feelings are very valid
and it's very important that you express them to him, but come
to it from a space of partnership, because if you're coming at him
yelling at him about how you're feeling or what's coming up for you,
blaming him for it, or making it his fault, that is going to bring him
right back to when he was a little kid and he put
a bunch of rocks in the blender, and then turned it on
and broke the blender and then mom flipped out.
[laughs]
If you come to a man from a very aggressive space
and a blaming space with your feelings, it is going to cause
him to shut down, go into momma trauma mode,
and completely be disconnected from the situation.
When you are looking to communicate confronted feelings
or experiences or share any of that with your partner,
or with a guy, do it from a space of partnership, do it from a space of,
"Hey, we're on a team, we're in this together,
and I have a lot of feelings coming up right now.
It's important for you to understand where I'm at and the role
that you've played in it so that we can work through it together."
Does that sound good?
He's going to be much more likely to keep his walls down
and be open to what you have to share if he's not in a anxious,
fearful momma trauma state.
That's just a handful of the many ways that women can activate
a man's momma trauma and so just check in with yourself
on a regular basis as you're communicating with him
and in relationship with him, especially when you're asking him
to do things where you're having confrontations
or situations like that are arising.
Just ask yourself,
"Am I showing up as his partner or as his mother?"
It's just a great check-in question to ask yourself throughout
your dynamic with your partner, to stay firmly rooted
in that space of being in a polarized partnership with your man.
You want to be an activating, inviting, empowering force
in his life, not a controlling, emasculating maternal force.
Make sense?
One more important thing you can do as you get to know your partner
better is ask him questions about his relationship with his mom.
Get him talking about his feelings and his experiences with her
so that you can get a sense for his specific brand
of momma trauma as in what his wound might be based in?
What sort of patterns of conflict or communication he might have had
with his mother so you can learn what specific things
you don't want to do to trigger him?
Remember, ladies, all men are little boys at heart who just happened
to grow up, and most have some degree of momma trauma,
a core wound around their relationship with their mother,
based in the emotional dynamics that they had or the communication
or experiences that they shared that are triggers that can come up
in their relationship with you because their relationship with their mom
set the foundation for all female relationships they're going to have
for the rest of their lives.
If you activate his momma trauma, he will revert to that little boy
and he will become emasculated, he will become very fearful,
he will shut down, his walls will go up and he will see you
as a maternal figure rather than the activating, inviting,
polarizing partner that he loves so dearly,
and that is not where you want to be because that will kill attraction
and polarity between the two of you.
Four common ways women activate men's momma trauma are,
one, always fixing and correcting him.
A lot of men experienced this with their mothers growing up
and when a man feels like he's constantly needing to be fixed
by his partner, he's always feeling wrong, which is heavy and emasculating
and can cause men to check out, so don't do it.
Trust your man's decision-making, let them make mistake sometime,
let them fall on their face, and just honor their ability
and capacity to be in relationship with you.
A second common way women activate this trigger
is micromanaging or controlling him using guilt.
Remember that phrase that most men have deep within their hearts.
"I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed",
and hearing that from their mom, so you do not want to use
your emotional state as a leverage point or control point
to passively-aggressively control your man.
Thirdly, don't give arbitrary commands or requests
without context because remember, when he was growing up,
his mom would tell him to do something and then say,
"Because I said so, because I'm your mom."
Men love context.
Context gives them meaning and purpose behind their actions.
If you have a request or a directive that you want to give a man
that you're dating or in relationship with, let them know why?
Let them know why it's going to make you happy,
or why it's important to you and that's going to activate him
to do it rather than assert him to do it because he might get in trouble.
Lastly, be careful not to be super aggressive
when sharing confrontive emotions with a man.
If you come at a man in a very elevated emotional state,
very aggressive, very upset with him over whatever it is,
you are going to put him right back in the shoes of when he was a little kid
and his mom was mad at him because he snuck a goat into the house
or whatever he did and he's going to go in anxious,
fearful shutdown mode, which is something that you want to avoid,
because then he's not going to be receptive
to whatever it is that you want to say to him.
I invite you to share your feelings and experiences and feedback
with your partner but you don't want to do it in that angry way
that's going to activate his momma trauma.
Come to him from a space of partnership and let him know,
"Hey, it's important to me to share this with you so that we can work
through it together."
If you're able to avoid activating a man's momma trauma
by continually being in partnership with him, recognizing that you
are his feminine companion, you are the inviting, evoking muse
in his life, and you're constantly inspiring him to step deeper
into his masculine empowered space, you're going to create
the sort of polarized relationship that's going to lead to attraction,
and romance and all the beautiful things that I know you're craving
in your connections with men.
I hope you enjoyed these tips and you love this video.
If you did, take a second hit that little subscribe button,
and don't forget to click the link in the comments and caption.
I have created some great training that I know is going to make
a huge difference for you in your relationships
and connections with men.
Thanks so much, and I'll see you in my next video.
Bye-bye.