Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships Podcast. I'm Michelle Panning, your host, intimacy alchemist, trigger queen, and founder of the connected woman. AKA your new go-to bestie for all things love, sex, and relationships that won't blow total smoke up your ass. I believe you deserve to have it all, to feel worthy, confident, and have a fulfilling as fuck love life. In this podcast, we're dropping the insecurity and doubt so that you can transform into the powerful, confident, and secure woman you know your destined to be. So, grab your favorite glass of wine and let's get to work because it's time to reclaim yourself or maybe. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to another episode. I'm really excited about today's episode because I've posted this on my Instagram stories a couple of times and every time I get DMs being like, "I feel so cold out, I feel so fucking seen." So I'm really excited to share this with you guys. On Instagram and social media in general and just out and about in daily life, I hear a lot of man bashing. And I'm just not here for it. So putting men down, calling them stupid, calling them lazy, calling them whatever you want to call them. You know, I'm self-aware enough to know that it comes from a place of hurt, generally speaking, of unprocessed hurt, and wanting to lash out and play victim and put it out on someone else. Okay. I get that. What I want to talk about is how in the same breath women are then like a hate man, they're all cheaters, they're all liars, and then are like, "I also really want a relationship with one." And I'm like, "Sorry, what?" Because you can't simultaneously hate men and want a relationship with one. Think about this for a second. If the roles were reversed, we would be up in arms about it. Okay, picture this. You're on Bumble. You have your glass of wine, you have a nice little cheese board laid out, you're gonna like, go through all the men on Bumble, you're excited, you're feeling optimistic about this, swiping. Oh, yes, I like this one. No, not so much on this one. And then you come across this profile. Really attractive man. And then he says, "I'm really looking for a relationship. I want a deep, fulfilling, loving relationship with a woman." And also, I hate women, women are bitches and cheaters, and they're awful. Would you be like, "Oh, okay." Well, he's hot. You know, like, please know. I hope your answer there was immediately swip left, and that's a no. Okay, because if you were like, "Oh, well, he's hot, and you know, we could work through that. We got bigger issues, girl." But you would, I'm assuming, be like, "I don't want that fucking energy in my life. Like, why would I want to be with someone who has such resentment and disdain towards me?" And not just you, like, your whole gender, right? So this is what happens when we make huge generalizations about men. I understand that you're hurt, and I am not shaming anyone at all. I'm not shaming you, because let me tell you, I was that girl. Okay, I would make it a sport for me to bash men after every stripping job. Pretty much. And I honestly, I'm not proud of this, but I would get off on belittling men to their face now. In hindsight, I can say it was because I felt threatened in some way, not, like, physically threatened, but it's pretty scary being on your own and being in a group with, like, 30 dudes in the middle of nowhere who are all drinking. You know what I mean? So, like, obviously, my nervous system felt threatened, and when we feel threatened, we tend to emasculate. Okay, and this is a huge thing that I go into in the understanding men module in the connected woman. But just so I can break it down a little bit, right? That's what happens when we feel threatened. We will emasculate. So, I'm not saying this isn't coming from a good place or it's coming from a place of hurt or, you know, pain or fear or whatever. That's fine. But let me say this. Your beliefs create your reality. Okay? So, we have an experience which then creates a belief, and then we reaffirm this belief with our thoughts over and over and over again. And then that's what shows up in the world. Now, this is my favorite thing to talk about because I love anything kind of sciencey. But basically, you have this part of your brain called the reticular activating system. And what this part of your brain is responsible for is looking for things that are of importance to you and showing you. Now, let me break that down in an example. If you go to a car dealership and you test drive a red Ferrari, you then notice that there are red Ferraris everywhere. Okay? Now, maybe you might be like, Michelle, that is very specific. Okay, let me break this down then. You go through a breakup and then you see your ex's kind of car everywhere. When I went through my last breakup a few years ago, I saw black jeeps everywhere. It was like they were following me. Like, they were haunting me. I was like, why are there so many fucking black jeeps on the road? I don't understand. Why are you torturing me like this? Okay? If not that there were more black jeeps on the road, it's just that my brain was looking for them. I was hyper aware of it. Okay? And this is what happens with our beliefs. So we say, all men are cheaters. Right? Now, you may have the self-awareness to go, well, Michelle, that's silly. I know not all men are cheaters, but a vast majority of them are. Okay, cool. If you're going, well, some men are or most men are, why don't you just go and generalize them and say, all men because that's what your brain is doing. Right? Because you might meet a nice guy and then you're going, like, yeah, but I bet he's got a sinister little secret where he loves to cheat on people or he's lying about something. Or I just can't trust him. Right? I know you're sitting on the other end of this, like not in your head or laughing, being like, oh my god, it me. So your beliefs are creating your reality. So it's that hyper awareness. So what happens is you are seeing all the examples of where men do cheat. It happens. Men cheat. So do women. So do people who are non-binary. Humans cheat sometimes. It's what happens. That doesn't mean the man that you're dating right now is going to. Right? That doesn't mean your ex did. You know, obviously if he told you he did, he probably did, but if you're just suspecting it, you know, maybe he didn't. That's also a possibility. So you're looking for examples of where this is true because we want to confirm our beliefs because we want to be right. Yeah? So let me give you an example. I've had this big thing about wanting to be chosen. Right? Thank you, Disney. Disney has given me a complex where like I want to be the princess who gets chosen and prince charming and all of that, which I'm going to do an episode on that because we have a lot to say. But anyways, I have a thing about being chosen, but I believed that men don't choose me. That I'm not the girl they commit to. I'm the girl that they have fun with. I'm the girl that they sleep with. I'm the girl that they will fall in love with for like a month. And then they flip on me. And let me tell you guys, this has happened more times that I care to admit, more times that I can count where things were going incredibly well for like four weeks. And then all of a sudden they would flip and I would be lost. Like all of a sudden they were like actually, I'm not really feeling this anymore. I could feel them pull away. They would shut down. Right? Now I will say that I contributed to this because my belief was I never get chosen. Men flip eventually. Men never stay. Okay. So I was looking for any tiny little hint of them pulling away. And I mean tiny. So it could have been they didn't respond to my message within three hours. And I'm like, it's happening. It's happening. They're pulling away. Oh my god. So then I would freak out. And my energy would shift. And I would become really, really anxious and really frantic. And even if I wasn't expressing that, you can feel it. You know when you can feel someone's energy shift. Even if you're not with them, you can just sense this like, I feel something has shifted between us. That's what was happening. Okay. So then they would pick up on my franticness. And then they would pull away. And then it would become a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy. And then I would just put it on to men again and be like, oh my god. Men are so fucking non-stop.
They can't make up their goddamn minds. They always say one thing, but they mean another. They're such liars. They don't know what they want. They need to go figure it out. I'm a woman who knows exactly what I want. Lies. Okay. Are you seeing how this plays out? So whatever you keep reaffirming to yourself will keep reappearing. Yeah? And sometimes this is what I hear in my courses. And I've probably said this once or twice, but it's the thing of, I'll believe it once I see it. And I'm like, no, you have to believe it before you can see it. So it starts with you. It starts with shifting your beliefs about whatever the thing you want to shift your beliefs around. So in this episode, we're talking about our beliefs about men. So start shifting those. Okay. I'm coming in hot to tell you something super, super exciting. I'm feeling a little bit fancy. And I want to give you a chance to win a free spot in the next round of connected woman. You guys know this program is the fucking shit when it comes to taking you from feeling anxious about your love life to feeling actually confident, worthy, and secure. Not doing this overly dramatic neediness or completely shutting down your needs and your desires. No more people pleasing just for a teeny tiny little crumb of love and approval. It's just confident standards. All the way from here on out. Okay. All you have to do is leave a review and then screenshot that and send an email to
[email protected]. That's it. Okay. I'm super, super, super stoked to be giving away a spot to one of you. So don't be fucking lazy and turn the damn giveaway. Okay. All right. Let's give back to the episode. I want you to make a list of all of your beliefs around men. Okay. You could put positive and negative whatever you want and then go through them one by one and ask yourself. Is this serving me? Huh. Men are really kind and generous. Is that serving me? Yes. Yes, it is. That's a belief I would like to keep. Well done, Michelle. Men are all cheaters and liars. Is that serving me? Is that the kind of energy that I want to show up in my life? Probs not. So okay. What am I going to do? I'm going to shift that belief. I'm going to choose to believe something different. Now I wish it were as simple as just being like men are amazing. Oh, well done, shifted. You know, it's like I love mirror work. It's wonderful. I think there's a little more to it. If you have a lot of self hatred, you don't just look in the mirror and say, I love myself. And then your brain is like, yes, we do. I'm so glad we said that out loud. Well done. Like it's a little more involved than that and takes a little more effort. Okay. It takes practice and it takes being repetitive about it. Okay. So if we go to all men are cheaters and liars. Okay. Great. What else do I choose? Okay. Well, men are really great at committing to me. Men want to commit to me. Men want to choose me. Men see me as special. And your brain might be like, the lie detector has determined that is a lie. Like, I fully get that because it's not in resonance with your unconscious mind yet because your unconscious mind is playing out the men are evil, men are awful kind of thing. So that's cool. Now start to look for examples of where that could be true. I spoke about this in the last episode, Byron Katie, looking for examples. So what I did when I wanted to shift my beliefs around men, I started to look for examples of healthy men everywhere. So I would go to bunnings, which if you're not in Australia is just a home improvement, massive super store. So like, Home Depot or Home Hardware, like, you know what I mean. So like a sausage fest, really. And I would go in there and I would be looking for something and I would just wait. I would wait for men to help me because I wanted to see men are really helpful. Men want to help me. Men want to provide for me. Sure enough, I'd have like five different dudes be like, can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Do you want to find anything here? Let me help you. And I was like, amazing. I would also follow really beautiful men on Instagram. And I don't mean beautiful as in like physically attractive. Some of them were, but that wasn't why I was following them. I mean, beautiful hearts. So I would find examples of men who were, you know, relationship coaches or sexuality coaches or, you know, whatever. And I would just find men who posted really beautiful and inspiring things. And I would be like, wow, that's so beautiful. I love how vulnerable he's being in this, right? This was the big game changer for me. I wanted to see how shifting my energy would impact the men around me. So I would go to these bachelor parties or these bucks parties. And I used to because I was threatened, right? Because it's a sketchy situation to begin with. I would walk in with this like hard masculine kind of shell of being like, put your fucking phones away because if I see a phone, I'm going to throw it in the toilet and I'm going to make sure that nobody takes a photo of me. So what do you think happened? I would get people crossing my boundaries all the time because they're like, fuck you. Going in with your like bitchy attitude, you know? So I wanted to see what would happen if I shifted into a more feminine energy and was just a little bit softer and more vulnerable myself in my approach. So I would come in and say, hey, I would really love it if we could keep our phones in our pockets because it just makes me feel really unsafe and really uncomfortable. So I would really love that. And I would rarely get anyone crossing that. I would have men coming up to me. There was like usually at least one in every party who would come up and be like, if anyone fucks with you, you come talk to me. Great. With the wanting to be chosen thing, I would look for examples of where do men choose me, right? If a man wanted to go out with me on a Saturday night, I took that as an example of him choosing me. I'm sure he has a lot of options. I'm sure he has a lot of different things he could be doing. But he's choosing to go out with me tonight. Okay. So it might not be the literal. He's chosen to make me his girlfriend. He wants me to be his wife. We're getting married. He wants me to be the mother of his children. It might not be that yet. But where does he choose me? Okay. Where does he commit to you? Where is he being honest with you? You're looking for examples to shift your beliefs. Start to look for the sensitivity to men. And honestly, like if you have a belief that men can't open up and men can't be vulnerable and men don't feel one, I want to say that is absolute bullshit because I've seen it time and time again. That men feel just as deeply as women do, but they have been conditioned to not express that because they've been told to grow the fuck up. They have been told to grow up, be a man, get over it, be a big boy, all of that since the time they were two years old. So that's another story. But really, if seeing the vulnerability and the sensitivity to grown adult men feels too much of a stretch to you, then look at little boys. Look at how sensitive little boys are. How much they want their mama and they want to be held and they want to be told how much they are loved and how special they are. Start to look at little boys as the example because little boys are just small men, you know? And that was something that really shifted a lot for me. So if you want a healthy, beautiful relationship with a man, you have to start to love men. But just one man, all men, this in itself will shift your relationship with either your current romantic partner or your future romantic partner, of course, but also your friends, your brothers, your cousins, your fathers, your sons. It's really big work here. And I want to take a second to really acknowledge you and celebrate you. If you decide to embark on that journey of wanting to love men because you have to undo a lot of conditioning, babe, there's a lot of conditioning that has told us that men are evil and men have it out to get us. And yes, we can find examples of where that is true. They are fucking everywhere. What is that what you want to create your life from? Or do you want to start to look for examples of where there could possibly be beautiful men out there? Because I would argue that that is going to get you better results and get you what you want a lot sooner than looking for the exact ones.
and validating your truth of where men are evil. Because no matter which way you look, whether you decide that men are great or men are awful, you're gonna find evidence of that. So I would urge you to look for examples of where men are great, especially if you are wanting a relationship with one. This is the work. This is the work. My heart feels so full recording that. And speaking about this topic because it's something that is really near and dear to my heart. I've come a long way. I laugh because I think about people that I used to strip with five years ago and they'd be like, "Are you seriously telling other people about this?" So if you're in a position where you currently have a lot of negative energy towards men, that's cool. That was me. That was me a few years ago and it doesn't have to always be that way. I promise you you can shift. I've seen it in myself. I've seen it in my client's time and time and time again. Yeah, the understanding men module and connected woman goes into this and so much deeper. It is beautiful and magnificent. And I've seen women who have been like hardasses and been like, "Man, I'm the worst." I've seen them break down in tears on this call. In that module because it's so, so, so impactful. And I have been brought to my knees, bawling my eyes out, thinking about this. Because when we don't feel safe with men, we am masculine them. And I have done this to my partners. I have done this to my bosses. When I worked with men, when I had a boss. I have done this to my dad. Right? Wanted to make him feel small and created, you know, if I'm treating my dad poorly and then wanting a beautiful relationship with a man, like that's a reflection. I have to clean up my energy there. So, I could keep talking and talking and talking. Let me know if you want to hear more on this topic because I have a lot to say. So, I'd love to hear about some of your beliefs around men. How has this episode impacted you? What have you taken away from this? You can email me at
[email protected] if you want or you can DM me on Instagram. I love hearing from you guys and I would love to hear if and how this episode has impacted you. Okay, I'm going to go have a bath because my heart is bursting with love. And I will speak to you in the next episode. Love you, love you, love you. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Unfuck Your Relationships podcast. I hope that this episode has helped you regain your self-work and reclaim your power. Remember, you deserve to feel safe and secure in your relationships. If you love what you learned, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss a future episode. And we've reviewed a healthy, rich, more passionate women just like you who want to deal with relationship patterns so they can have real intimacy with men. Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories and tag me @meshellpanning. See you back here in the next episode.
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