but Access Consciousness^® Has a Way to Change That!

(and Other Aspects of Relationships)

One of the consequences of the women’s movement is that it’s destroyed most of the roles men knew they could count on in their lives, Gary Douglas, founder of Access Consciousness^® has observed. The definitions and expectations of men are so unclear that men are left wondering exactly what they should be and do.

This societal-wide change has made relationships between the sexes more difficult. A recent survey of 1000 adults in Britain, published this month in the British newspaper the Daily Mail, has confirmed and even quantified this.

The things that men do poorly, according to the survey, include buying clothes for women, remembering anniversaries and birthdays, dancing, ironing, cooking, domestic shores, buying gifts, multi-tasking, keeping up with fashion, and picking furniture. Less than 10 per cent of women thought men could iron a shirt and only 4 per cent said they could dance.

Men’s value has not been totally eroded, from the viewpoint of these contemporary women. Sixty per cent of them rated men at good of getting rid of spiders. Fifty six per cent rated them better than women at barbecue skills (not the most useful skill considering British weather) and 73 per cent rated them competent at changing tires.

While women still rated men as good at home improvement projects—called DIY or Do It Yourself in Britain—almost half the men reported that they had hurt themselves while doing them.

Is there any hope? Can this be changed? Should men be used as sperm donors, tire changers and spider killers and then sent out to pasture?

The way out, as Douglas so often has found, is in taking an entirely different point of view. The Daily Mail aligns and agrees with the point of view of most women that men are useless. Is that true, or is it a judgment which limits both women and men from perceiving and receiving what men’s contributions can actually be?

All judgments, as well as decisions and conclusions, limit what we can perceive and receive to only the aspects of reality that agree and reinforce our fixed points of view. The Daily Mail article, which was titled, “Yes, men are good for nothing!” brilliantly expresses the prevailing point of view of women in this reality. But does having that point of view, or women having that point of view about men, actually serve either women or men? Does it contribute anything but discord and discontent to relationships between the sexes? Or does the assumption that if the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, but the man is still wrong, contribute to the destruction of the possibility of intimacy, caring, and nurturing between the sexes?

The key to getting out of this trap that judgment creates is getting out of judgment. The way out of judgment is to recognize no point of view is right or wrong, or good or bad, but merely an interesting point of view. This applies to other’s points of view, but it is most useful to apply to our own.

What if women were to question the very small corner into which they have painted men and into which men have allowed themselves to be painted? What if we were to use questions in relationships between the sexes instead of assumptions, conclusions and judgments?

Some questions that could be useful could be to ask, “What contribution can I be to this person’s life?” and “What contribution am I willing to receive from him/her?” If you wished to be really honest with yourself, you could also look at “What contributions am I refusing from this person?”

What if men, far from being as useless as most women assume they are, are really almost dying to be a contribution to the lives of women they love—if only women will receive them?

And men could ask themselves, “What if there were nothing wrong with me?” That would certainly fly in the face of the assumptions the Daily Mail article so succinctly presents. We tend to diminish ourselves and the value of the gifts and contributions we are when we attempt to give them to others, only to have them refused or not received. If men could realize that women’s refusing of their gifts was a reflection of the women’s judgments, not a wrongness in them, what wounds could be healed?

Gary Douglas, best selling author and founder of Access Consciousness^®, is the author of two books and numerous recorded classes on the relationships between the sexes and changing the paradigms of this reality.