Dr. John Gray: Beyond Mars and Venus
CARMEN HARRA: I feel that this is different from individual to individual because people have different hormone levels.
DR. JOHN GRAY: Now, here’s the next thing when it comes to despair that I love talking about, and that is Freud explained this idea and, boy, did I experience it more profoundly when I lost Bonnie. He calls it a ‘need integrate.’ Are you familiar with that term?
CARMEN HARRA: Yes.
DR. JOHN GRAY: Most people are not, so let me explain it to most people. A ‘need integrate’ means that we all have conscious awareness or an unconscious awareness that we need love. We need nurturing, we need someone to care, we need to feel understood, we need to feel appreciated, we need to feel trusted. These are all forms of love. We need that, we require that, and the more we’re no longer in a realm of survival that needs becomes more vigorous, as I mentioned before. We simplify by saying our need for love. A ‘need integrate’ that Freud explained was that “I need love,” and now Bonnie gives me love. I can depend on Bonnie to love me.
The brain goes through a change. The brain is plastic. It reorganizes itself, and it shifts gears from I need love to I to need Bonnie, and if Bonnie dies, that monkey brain inside of me is bonded to her. You see, I don’t need love. I need her. So, if she’s gone, then I can’t have what I need, and that’s the pain that we go through until we reorganize the brain to experience that in the absence of Bonnie.
No, it’s a very, very big process—a massive operation. Men and women do it differently. That will be another book that I can write, because often everybody wanted to come and talk to me, whatever. I needed to be in my cave because I process my stress as a man, but I needed to know how to process that pain, and most men are not adept at it. So you’ll see men, more than women, commit suicide after the death of a spouse or even after an emotional breakup. It can be so painful. Maybe for some, it’s not as painful as they tend to solve the problem by getting in a relationship right away. The average is on a divorce – I don’t know what the standards are on death, but I know that a man will be married in three years on the average of divorce. A woman may never marry again, or it will be nine years before she’s ready.
Because women, the female side, it bonds more profoundly because bonding is a big estrogen thing. This is why one of the simple, practical tools for any of the guys listening. You have to realize something Bonnie told me for years, I finally got it because women have a greater need for reassurance. Now, men require reassurance that they don’t realize. What we need is what often women might say ‘stroke his ego,’ but he’s looking for reassurance that you see him as a successful male. Celebrate the depth of our love, and continue finding that love.
You know, I remember once watching a movie of a guy who’d been in jail for a murder rap, and finally, they found out he was innocent. After 32 years of being a hardened person in prison, he got out of jail, and some woman took compassion on him and had sex with him.
They didn’t end up falling in love, or whatever. She was just being kind, cutting his hair, and she realized what he’d been through, and they ended up having sex. This scene showed you could only see his heart. It was like the emotional pain, tears, and agony, at the same time pleasure, came forth because he felt again. If you go way, way over to the male side where you’re not having a sense of purpose, you can stop feeling anything. You just detach from feelings altogether. So, here he was feeling again, and feeling all the pain he had suppressed was coming up. This is often why when women have orgasms, they’ll cry, and guys go why you are crying. She says I’m crying tears of joy, but actually, it’s letting go of those deep fears of being alone that can happen.
CARMEN HARRA: I want to remind everyone, we have a free course that Dr. John Gray is offering to the OMTimes Readers. It’s called How to Get Everything You Want in Relationships for Women, Men, Couples, and Singles. To access the free course, go to www.marsvenus.com/welcome-start-here. So this is the way you access this fantastic course.
Connect with Carmen Harra on her website http://www.carmenharra.com
