The Masks Men Wear

In this episode, Zainab and Saema are joined by Naila Qureshi to ask what South Asian men are carrying that no one lets them put down. The conversation moves from how boys are raised — rough play, "man up," no room for mistakes, the doctor-or-engineer pipeline — to why so many grown men have anger as their only available emotion, and no vocabulary for the rest. Naila makes the case that emotional intelligence is learned, not innate, and that men were simply never taught it while being handed the role of provider. Then the conversation turns to the part nobody says out loud: the role mothers play. Naila shares her own mother's double standard — pitying her for a husband who didn't help in the kitchen, then pitying her son for having to cook — and names something sharper still: that sometimes mothers emotionally marry their sons, raising a version of the partner they wished they'd had.

Auntie Please content is for educational purposes only and it is not medical advice. Please consult with your own doctor. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to the masks men wear and and why Pakistani mothers maybe to blame. Oh my God, I love this topic. I was waiting and looking forward to this one. We always talk about women but let's talk about our men. Yes. So we talk a lot about the masks we wear. But what about the men in our lives?

Do you think that they're carrying it, too? Well, I can only gather a lot from what my brother must be going through. It's a house full of women and very strong headed women. And, you know, I would really like to learn a little bit more about what he might be going through, and men like him, going through in our culture.

Yeah. Good to know. It's interesting. I have two brothers, two very different brothers, but I'm from a male dominant household I think. So it's very interesting. I’d like to hear what you think Naila, and Zee. Great, welcome back Naila. Thank you so much for having me back. So I'm coming from the same similar kind of situation. I have four brothers and 2 sisters.

So you can say that ratio is 4 to 2. So I you know I have like my personal experience and my professional experience. Which one do you want me to go first? Both. I think both are probably relevant okay. Both are probably representative of them. Yeah. So I grew up with four brothers and all four are different flavor coming from the same parents.

It all depends on the individual interaction with parents and some of them are your genetics. Also, you know composition like what you are made out of. We can go into transgenerational stuff if you want. We can talk about as an educator, I can tell you many times we are born with certain personalities and then our society and our, I would say, relationship socially, it shapes us the way we are.

So I saw my brother like my eldest brother, he is very much, I would say perfectionist because he. Whatever he does, he has to do it in a very, I would say, extraordinary way. My second one is very laid back because I think all the burden is on the first one’s shoulder. The third one is very free.

He does whatever he wants to do and the fourth one, I think he is amazing in his own way, which is totally different from all three of his brothers. So it all depends. And I have seen men in general now I'm going to come to in general it the way our society shapes them. We give them certain responsibilities, certain roles, whether they like it or not.

They submit to it because there are certain rules for women, which we talked about in our previous podcast, that we are conditioned to submit to the service for others and men. If you look at it, they are also submitting for the services and not knowing who they are. They in a similar way that their emotion have been suppressed.

So one, I would say women are conditioned to read others emotions and work accordingly. And men, regardless of the emotions, they take the role of a provider and role of the, I would say, ruler, more like a ruler of the family making all the rules and the women come into execute it. So they sometimes they don't want that.

But guess what? You have no other way out. Because guess what? You're born as a man. So man up from a very young age, you are told to be outgoing, assertive. You cannot show vulnerability because vulnerability is weakness. You can't show weakness because guess what? A leader of the house cannot be weak. Yeah, they have to suck it in.

I always find it interesting, you know, in professionally. Similarly you have to always think about it. I have no patience and I have to listen to their viewpoint. I always find every viewpoint which differs amongst every male patient that is so educational for me, because it gives me a glimpse into the vulnerability of a male.

And I always appreciate knowing that, because traditionally you're always like, oh, is the grass greener? Are they under the microscope, such as us? And I find that they are. And it does cause a little bit of conflict or a lot of conflict in them, and also causes a lot of health problems in the long run. What are some challenges men face that they've disclosed to you in carrying such a heavy weight of having the title of being the leader, the maybe sometimes provider, or the king of the castle per se.

Yeah. They cannot make mistakes. That's huge. They cannot. They have no room for any mistakes from a very young age. First of all, how many men in South Asia, now things are shifting in America, but I'm talking about like a traditional because this podcast, I am assuming it's also for people who are living in some rural areas of Pakistan and some who are coming from a true traditional background.

How many men do you see who are not into doctor, doctor, doctor, engineer, doctor, doctor or doctor mindset? How many people you see that they show their creativity where they want to go into music? I will say like, you know, I remember when a loved one of mine chose music as a profession. The first thing was, so that must be your hobby, right?

What you really want to do in life, which gives you money to raise a family, there's no concept that, okay, they he can live based on what his needs are. His needs are not important. He needs to carry a legacy that he has to provide a big house. He has to provide food to the table. He has to show up as a strong man, his kingdom cannot fall apart and he has to do whatever he has to do.

That's so interesting because that's a lot of weight to carry. And it's also similarly that men are almost kind of shifted into a direction similarly to women. The directions are totally different. The roles, the obligations, the metrics may be different, but they're also forced down a pathway and being told that this is what your role is, this is what your job is in society, for our family, etc.

And it's sometimes we don't think about it that way. So I find that interesting. Yes. Any additional pressure you think that men carry that women don't know or fully don't understand? Yeah, that they're human. Men are also human. They have needs too. They sometimes are misunderstood for taking time for themselves, saying that, oh my God, he has no emotions.

Guess what? He does have emotions he doesn't know how to express. Some men. I'm not talking about all. Some men are. They want to show up as vulnerable, but they are labeled as not men enough or they're sissy. I have a question. Sure. I find when a man is conflicted with something, it turns into anger.

And I've seen that in my family. I've seen that in other families that I know of. And it becomes an anger issue. Right. So why do so many men struggle to express emotions other than anger? Very good question. So let's go back when they are children in sports, in playground. You see how boys play rough. And what do you hear from…your smiling?

I'm sure you must have heard. We're fighting bad guys a lot right now. There's bad guys being fought in my house with my three year old, so. Okay, I don't know who the bad guys are. I don't know where they from, but they're fighting bad guys. Yeah. So imagine the men are supposed to be fighters. Yeah. I don't know where he learned this from.

It's just. It's in our DNA. It's in our teaching them the society. I think it's society is. The toys are a big vroom, vroom. Yeah. So imagine how many Barbies do you see now? Things are shifting. I'm not talking about, you know, many viewers will say, but I'm seeing change. Yes.

You're seeing change on the surface because we have to sell things. Right. But if you go into playground, how many people do you see playing kitchen set? Kids like boys. How many? None. I don't have children, so I couldn't tell you. You can just observe. Yeah. You observe. I observed the other men in other families I know.

So from a very young age. If you if a boy I would say in my clients, when I was seeing young kids as my previous job title, I would say parents come with a lot of concern and I'm talking about concern. They come in and they say there's something wrong with my son, and it's like, why? He cries all the time.

Oh my goodness. Child is emotional. Yeah, but if we're if we want to talk to them and they don't want to talk. How do you make them talk, how do you with a male. I wonder if they don't know how to talk. You know, that my husband and I personality are very different and he tends to be a listener.

Needs to absorb if there's a conflict or a disagreement where I am, clearly you all can see that I use a lot of words and I have no shame in using all of them. But I've had to learn that when we were discussing something heated or there is a potential altercation verbally, or disagreement in something, I don't want to use altercation that sounds very violent, but like we don't disagree on something.

He sits, he becomes quiet, and we've already talked about how he is analyzing. He's thinking about it and the same about it from my perspective. And I am just throwing I'm just putting it out there. And I used to get so annoyed because I would say, why are you not saying anything? How have you nothing to say? But his approach is probably the smarter one, because he's analyzing it from both perspectives in order to deliver something that is helpful and constructive, whereas I am just delivering.

I will openly admit that I'm just delivering because my emotions are here. He’s probably here, but how he regurgitates them out is probably different. So it seems like he's silent. Finally he gets them out, but after he thought about them, whereas I usually don't think about them. So that's it. So what you are saying is more like a relational angle you're bringing in is an emotional kind of like a relational lens.

That one person is dysregulated and the other one is being regulated, and he somehow creates space for you to go regulate. Yes, right. I'm talking about when it turns into anger. Yes. And what he is saying like in general, sometimes in South Asian culture, men don't know how to express their discomfort in a very healthy way.

Yes, I've seen that often. So they are labeled as short tempered. Say that like, okay, he has no emotions. So I'm not talking about like their healthy way of expressing your emotions and unhealthy, they're not taught how to express emotions, intense emotions in a very healthy and assertive way because they are way of communication. That's what I do as my current job, where people come in and I say, I can't get through to my husband or I can't get through to my wife or I can't get through to my boss.

So what we do, we see where the stuckness of communication is, where you are unable to express your inner feelings. And I have seen in majority of the men, whether professionally or personally, they don't have the vocabulary for emotion. The emotional intelligence needs to be developed because they are so busy in doing the role of provider. They are trying to solve problems and when they are solving problems, guess where?

Where you are in emotionally or physiologically, fight or flight? Yeah, it's also it may be learned behavior, learned building. You guys ever heard of PMS Punjabi male syndrome, right? Oh that's funny. That's funny. You know, but I wonder if a lot of it's learned to just like we micromanage details because our mothers micromanage those details. The men saw their fathers react this way or vocalize like this because all the emotion is whose responsibility?

Let me ask you, emotion, it's women's responsibility. And what is men's responsibility? Women don't know the outer world. Let me protect you. I'm going to be the front runner for the safety of the family. And when you are the front runner, guess what? What are you using? So let me ask you this question. You are talking about emotional intelligence.

Can men learn? Of course. It's a learned behavior. We are all born fully equipped to have logical intelligence, which is like, you know, we talk about IQ and we talk about artificial, I mean, emotional EI. When men learn EI, they are going to increase their productivity. Guess what? They not only know interpersonal like internal biology, but if they learn how other people are coming in front of them, then they can be a better leader.

It's like they are leading within them and they're leading outside. How could the people in their home, the women or other family members in their home support that? Like, how do we provide for that so that they have the safe space to learn their own emotional intelligence, even in that part of life? I'm not talking about young boys.

I'm talking about men, grown up men, Grossman's brothers, like, how do you get them to feel safe in an environment so that they can actually learn and, you know, talk and talk and and be supportive and feel supported also? Yes, it all depends. Right. Which which man is going to show up? Usually I'm not I cannot paint all men in one.

There's no one black and white rule that I can say, okay, women should do. That's not women's responsibility. First of all, it's man's responsibility how they want to show up in the relationship. Right? But imagine if I say that there's a man who is want to be vulnerable, but they are unable to express because the, you know, the partner is unable to hold the space.

So I would say when they come as a couple, I'm again, you know, when they come as a couple in front of me, I asked them like, what is your safety where you feel unsafe to be vulnerable? And most of the time I would say 90% of the time, or maybe more than 90% of the time, is like when men or women, they say when I'm one, my vulnerability is used against me as a weapon.

So imagine if a wife says, I want my husband to be vulnerable with me because it's so beautiful. I sometimes feel like that he has no emotions. And when I turn towards husband and I say, tell me where you would like, what would you like to say? And when they say I, the minute they start speaking and wife jumps in, this is not.

I want you to say, this is not how I want you to express. Then I said, then you see, why would he express? Yeah. If you're telling him how to express. And then you're also judging him for expressing him. I wonder if the female's trying to relay this and they can't, that your delivery doesn't resonate well with me emotionally.

And it's delivered wrong. Exactly. It's again, it's coming from it's also it's it's via a human. As human we are so complex. It's very it's not easy answer for me to say because I don't want to be hold accountable for what I'm saying, because it's a big statement I'm making that sometimes it all depends on like how you show up in the relationship.

Yeah, right. Women come with their own luggage and men come with their own luggage. I'm talking from the men perspective right now. And I'm saying like just understanding because any relationship in that start, you said like, how can a woman support their husband? First they have to ask, where did they start this journey together? What really you liked about this person?

Because imagine if he was very bossy, bossy, bossy. You did not fall in love with that, that bossiness. And if you did, what did you see? Did you see like what attracted you? Like what? What was the some attributes that you like about him? And then if she says like, oh, before getting into all this, you know, signed relationship, he was caring.

He was caring. He would spend time. Guess what? Role changes. The people change. People change and accept that change in relationship. How I am, Gottman-informed coach. That means I'm using his method and that is any relationship. It's like a sound house. Sound house needs what we before building walls, you need to have a big, great, strong foundation and foundation cannot be built without communication.

And communication is very important. Commitment is very important. Trust is very important because this is generally how I see Pakistani women, right? I mean, Pakistani men in South Asian homes. Right. What is some of the things that you can do to help communication? Yeah. And by the way, the question I should ask is like, is this a common pattern?

You see, you know, in all nationalities, all nationalities that men, you know, all like, oh, it is. Do you think I have a question? I think so much of who we are begins from the early days. Exactly. We're a product of what we've been exposed to, and we've learned from it. I have two brothers, like I mentioned and a great mom.

But I always thought my mom loved my brothers more than me. Oh my God. Don’t get me started on that. Their relationship seemed just a little different. I am so happy that you're saying that. And I must say I love my daughter. But that boy is just sweeter.

But it's also an interesting point, because my daughter is exactly who I want her to be when she's an adult. Getting through that is going to be hard up until then. But if she's like, this is an adult, sure. I just have to, you know, roll with it. But my son is just sweeter and nicer.

And that just may be him. But I wonder what the relationship is between sons and moms and what I'm looking to add to this. Because, you know, we have two sisters and a brother and the youngest in the family. The words my mother uses for him Mera Shehzada, Mera Shezada, my prince. Those words have never uttered out of her mouth for the two sisters.

For the two daughters ever. Yeah, I know you know. And he doesn’t do half the shit that my sister does, but he gets away with this, you know, the Mera Shezada, on a silver platter. Why? Well, only your mom can answer that why she is doing that. But I can tell you in like what I have seen in unhealthy environment.

When growing up. Not my growing up. Like when at a very young age. Imagine if you have a healthy relationship. First of all, there is no difference between gender. A girl or a boy is they are just two beautiful human being. How we start condition boys to be different and girl to be different. I'll give you my own example.

My mom is passed away, so now she's not going to call me and say, like, why did you expose me? So I'm going to expose my mom. Sorry, mom. Okay. So I'm going to tell you. So I remember my mom coming home to visit me, and she sees me cooking in the kitchen and taking kids to the school, and my mom saying, your husband does not help you at all in the kitchen.

I feel so sad for you. And I said, yeah, she was. You need to talk to your husband. He needs to help you in the kitchen too. I said, yeah, you're right. Right. And then she visited my brother. She calls me and she says, I don't understand. My poor baby comes home from work and he's in the kitchen cooking.

You see? Double standard. And I asked her, I said, I said, okay, hold on. He's somebody’s son too my husband. And how come you have a different look for your son than somebody else's son, and you have a different empathy for me than my sister-in-law? And she said, but I said, no, but there's no but somehow.

Yeah. It's like, you know, just like my husband works hard, comes home if I'm helping him in the kitchen by telling him, okay, you know, you go, you know, freshen up, just come. That's because I enjoy cooking. It's not that my husband is putting a gun on me and saying, cook like this is something very much, we consciously choose our responsibility.

It's been discussed upon, like we sit and say, okay, this is responsibility I'm taking. We complement each other. Okay. You can't be present for school conferences. I'll go there. But then when I'm doing this, you do that. We share our responsibilities. So coming from the mother's point of view, somehow they and again, I am being very careful and I am taking full accountability.

What I'm about to say many people will not be happy. And it's okay because truth to be told, sometimes mothers marry their sons emotionally because whatever they did not see in their husbands, they want to create the mini version of the person they wanted to be with. I can see that. Wow. I do see that too. I can see that.

Yeah. So what happens is you are. And there's nothing wrong with that. As long as you're not emotionally marrying them. Because guess what? You want your kids to be the best version of yourself. If your mom is helping you become the best version of your husband. Absolutely beautiful. If you want your daughter to be a best version of you.

Beautiful as long as you're not interfering with their life. So for mother is marrying her son. Potentially. If some mothers marry their son to fulfill their emotional needs that may not fit with the son’s emotional needs. So you're almost pigeonholing them into something that may not work well for the son. Of course, you're putting a lot of responsibility that you are responsible for my happiness.

It's also setting the son up for a failed relationship. Absolutely. And that's very I mean, that's sad. And it's not uncommon to see that in, in our society. And then the wives are not happier with the son. Well, it becomes down to authenticity. I mean, if you don't know who if you're being forced to be some way and that's not who you are, and now you're bringing in another person to build a relationship or not, that is not going to work, because the person being brought in is assuming that this is who you are, and they have no idea that's who you are.

And I'm actually seeing this a lot. I have a lot of friends that I grew up with in the Pakistani community, that 4 or 5 of them that got divorced. And a lot of it is because, you know, the image they had of the son in their time of getting to know each other, whether it is dating or whether it was the traditional pathway where they only met a few times and conversed as much as they wanted.

But it wasn't your typical American lifestyle. They never knew the son. They're in a home together and they're learning about that person. I agree that you learn about a person throughout your life, but the person they were introduced to is not the person they're living with, and it's a failed relationship from the start. And I feel bad for both parties because sometimes the woman is to blame, you know, sometimes they've also advertised themselves as who they aren't, but it's a set up for failure and it's a setup for so much.

If you have kids in the process of this, so many hurdles to overcome throughout that, that one relationship that was built on lies and made up people is just a set up for failure and has such downstream effects that affect the both parties rest of their lives. I don't want I wonder if mothers and fathers, when they're kind of pigeonholing their kids into these pathways, ever think about how much destruction they cause too?

And everything that is happening, it's happening on an unconscious level. Yeah. No parent. I have never met like I would take that back. I have seen like I've used to work for a community mental health. Once upon a time I would say majority of parents don't wake up saying, today I'm going to make my son's life miserable, right?

Of course, whatever they are doing it, they're doing it out of love, out of care, out of fear. Right. So saying that there. Yes. Again, forgiveness. I have forgiven my parents for not knowing what they're doing. Because if they knew what they are doing, they would not do it. That's true. And that's how I am able to forgive myself for making mistakes with my own kids.

Right? Because I'm not perfect, I'm sure whatever I knew, I use those skills on my kids, and I tell my kids and I tell that to my many male clients when they come in and they say, like, you know, I don't know how to express. And I said, look, until the age of 18, you can blame your parents after 18 it’s your responsibility.

You need to see where you are unable to express yourself seeing. Then come, let's talk about it. Let's unstuck you. Let's help you communicate your emotion in a very healthy. Because intense emotion bring intense behavior. So here's my question across all of the clients that you have, the South Asian population, you talk about this. You know, how the communication, what are some of the things that you have coached them to, you know, utilize your strategy to them?

What has helped? Oh, I would say there are many. I wish we had more time to talk about. I can do the entire series of that, but majority of the time is like effective. Five Secrets of Effective Communication by David Bonds I I'm also teaching CBT tool is like yeah. So I use David a lot and I like I've learned a lot from David.

It's like five secrets of effective communication. And it's like knowing your own physiological arousal. A person knows when they are safe enough to speak and when they are not safe enough to speak. Because our body is very intelligent, it tells you signals that, okay, you need to calm yourself down. So de-stressing yourself is the first thing. When you know something is bothering you, take care of yourself first thing right and then find some truth in the situation.

Especially when men come and they said, I have no control over my anger. And I said, you're saying that you don't have control over yourself. That means you need to find some kind of self-soothing exercises and self-soothing exercises. The first thing, which Gottman also have, you know, explained and so did David. Physiological knowing your own thermostat. Yeah, that if you know that your brain is going to flip, you need to remove yourself.

You need to calm yourself down, take deep breaths, because guess what? You are right now? Your you know, the anger management. Anger management is one of the top rising issues and have been issues in the South Asian community. Yeah. Tell me about that. What question I have for you. You know, mental health is such a stigma, you know, in our communities, right.

How can we convince our men to use that as a source or as a tool to, you know, because if they can't communicate with women at home, their mothers or their sisters or their wives, they should have an outlet to go do right. But how do we get them to see this as not, you know, to you, you just need help.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you said the word. Yeah, because I tell my male client what happens when you have some site information or, you know, issues when you are unable to see the picture clearly. What do you do? Where do you go? They go to the eye doctor. Yeah, right. They get lenses done because they don't want to see people wear like they're wearing glasses.

They wear. And I said, look, okay, if your thoughts are having issues where you need to go find a coach, and I would say it's been studied in corporate world leaders who go for coaching. They have seen 80% of the, you know, result coming back that your performance goes up. Yeah, your relationship goes up. So I would say it should be mandatory.

Again, I'm using the word should in our system. It's a system from a very young age. We need to bring empathy. We could encourage our Pakistani South Asian men to use that as a pathway to express themselves, to open up communicatio. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Before I think that's very important. And I think that before they get to that point.

How do we allow them to personally and maybe publicly acknowledge they’re allowed to be something outside of and what the culture has made them feel they need to be? Yeah. Just that comes before taking the steps to implement. Yeah. Well, see, Brené Brown is doing such a wonderful job in bringing vulnerability because in the past, vulnerability was seen as a weakness.

And in my, you know, professional and personal life it is the the first step for bravery. Because I asked my young male clients, I said, how many times have you raised your hand when you don't understand anything in the classroom? And they said, we don't. Why? Because we don't want to be seen as stupid. And I said, imagine if this is the fear and if you raise hands, who is the bravest?

A person who raised hands or person who leave the classroom without understanding? And they said, the person who raised hands, that tells you you need to raise your hand, that I need help. Yeah, I actually love that analogy. That's something I could use. I will be using probably. I ask you, please take that. And I think this, but I'd like to know both of your opinions.

I think men sometimes may feel weak and allowing themselves to be vulnerable when there's females in front of them, if that's their, you know, you know, their preferred. Yeah. Because they have their armor right. Yeah. So how can we make them feel that it's okay and this is normal and let's get through this. How can we kind of break down the expectations we may have of them that we're unconsciously, you know, implementing on them to allow to provide them with an environment that allows them to grow individually and to break down barriers they had already world like in a traditional environment and nontraditional environment, too.

If you see your husband or your son or any male figure losing their cool, instead of judging them, ask them, is there something I can do to make things better? Just allowing them to slow down? Because slowing down means you're allowing your, blood flow to go from your limbic system to your entire, you know, integrated part of your brain that they it's not that they don't know how to express.

They need the space to express. Again, we can talk about communication styles. That's a different topic. But I would say allowing them to be messy. Yeah. Allowing them to understand then ask like I have seen my husband sometimes when he comes home and he has a lot of stress at work and they are not allowed to show that stress at home.

I say, we are partner in crime this right? So when he comes home and I see, I can sense I have awareness of myself and I have a where he's like a little bit jittery, a little bit like short, you know, like seeing a little bit irritable easily. So I asked them, I was like, do you want space to land where you can unload your stuff?

Because right now that means you're bringing home your work? Yeah. So allowing him to give him space so he unload himself on his own. So he shows up as a husband. He shows up as a father. So here you're talking about the thing, and I'm so glad you brought it up, because my follow up question to you would have been, do men really understand that?

You know, the way they cannot be seen as weak women go through the same thing because that's how we're conditioned, you know, for from the early onset of our lives. Right. So that's that. And then do they understand what it cost the women in their lives, in their homes to go through and put up with their attitude and whatever that is, the lack of communication or the anger management, whatever that may be.

Right? How do we get the men to understand that, you know, women go through this too. And then when you behave this way, this is what it cost people around you, right? And you already started doing that process, bringing awareness, having these conversations when men hear it, when women hear it, even if there's a book by Sue Johnson like One Can Tango, we used to say that it takes two to tango.

Now we say there's one. You need only one person with awareness, and then they can model that behavior. I wonder if we're not the greatest at saying this is making me feel uncomfortable. The response from the male is, so it's going to affect us in such a negative light. I think that we should be better at saying, I don't like how you deliver.

Absolutely feel this way. Absolutely. This to me, it lasts a lifetime. But our women are also afraid to say that they would rather maintain harmony in home than actually express it and communicate it, because they're afraid of the reaction of them. No, the father, brother, husband, you know, it could be anybody, right? So that's what it is.

The thing is, like, do men understand that women are also weak like them? You know, they also condition the way they got their condition. And these men can actually have real, lasting impact on women with their behavior. Well, I would say instead of saying that women have to create that space, I would say men and women both need to create space for each other.

So how do they come in a point where families understand how to create this communication? Awareness is the first thing. Awareness, bringing awareness. It's a long process. There's no like overnight change cannot happen. I would say change happens. If you're talking about 50 year old man, it will take longer time to reverse the process. And I believe and that's what I believe, that many times I have heard my colleagues say that you have to unlearn and learn.

No, you have to just keep learning new skills and soon your old pattern will be taken over by new pattern. Love it. If you don't have any other questions, I would love to see what your auntie please permission slip would be for our viewers today for. Yeah, so I would say for especially for men, I would say allow yourself to be human.

Allow yourself to be messy, allow yourself to be vulnerable and look into the communication skills. What is the difference between being assertive, being passive, and being passive aggressive? I would give you one small formula. Whenever you are having a communication, you know if you're being assertive or aggressive speaker. There is a formula. I say any difficult conversation is a HARD conversation.

H is start from being honest, A is for being appropriate. R stands for be respectful and D is for direct. If these four elements are not in your communication, definitely either aggressive or passive aggressive. I absolutely love that. So it's very simple. Just remember HARD. Honest. Appropriate. Respectful. Direct. I love that. So many aspects of life.

You can really really apply that to. Yeah definitely. So what is your Auntie Please moment. So my auntie please moment is when my husband comes home from work and the kids are all over the place and he's had a stressful day. I've usually picked up the kids and I've already been there for an hour of stress. I think recognizing I think we need to talk about maybe us taking turns of, you know, we do usually do 50 over 50 the household, but allowing him to unwind for a bit so he can show up as his best self because usually I wait for him to get through the door and I'm just like, okay, that's it.

You know, I need my two seconds. But allowing him to unwind because if he doesn't unwind, he can't be the best for his kids and it's going to come out in a bad way in terms of like, it'll be messy, you know, and be frustrated. So giving him the wind down time like you do and asking him if he'd like some time before he gets into the mess of the chaos of the family, and then also telling him when I need my time instead of just being like saying just, you know, I the kids have been really tough for me the past couple of hours.

I know that's a luxury to only have a couple hours and a blessing in many ways, but to instead of the the body language showing it, I want my words to say it absolutely. Is that the long one? I think, build the communication skills we need for the longevity of our kids and our family. Absolutely. When you are not self-regulated, you cannot show up.

The words are very important. But he can read me, can read my body, can read my face. But now you have the formula. Yes, yes, there we go. That's exactly what I would implement. I think mine is very similar to yours. Also, I've become very observant of men around me, not just South Asian, but men in general. And I feel like when the conversations get difficult and sometimes I do have difficult conversations with men, I leave them be, you know, and then I tell them, when you're ready to talk, we will continue the dialog, you know?

But I don't want to get into a position where they are defending themselves or are they getting aggressive or they're not liking what I have to say because they're not meeting me where I am ready to meet them. So I take a step back and I said, we will talk, will resume. So that's my moment this week. Well, yeah.

Wonderful. Thank you for joining you so much for having me. And I hope, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you.