The first set of filters is the same for both genders (when I refer to "gender" I'm referring to the biological sex we are assigned at birth as either the female sex born with XX chromosomes or the male sex born with XY chromosomes)

The meaning we give to the event is based on our:

• Values – what’s important to us; someone who values family will apply a different meaning to an event as opposed to someone who doesn’t

• Beliefs – what we believe is good, what’s bad, what’s right, what’s wrong. Beliefs are an interesting thing because they’re all man-made. At some point in time, someone decided that this is the way it is and got other people to agree with them. For every belief out there, someone has the exact polar opposite belief. And they will both have EVIDENCE to support their belief …

If you had 2 women in a room, one has an abundant mindset, she believe that money is easy to come by and she has evidence to support her belief because she’s wealthy.

The other woman has a lack mindset and believes that there’s not enough money to go around, and she has evidence to support her belief because she is struggling to pay the bills.

So which belief system is right? 

Yet, we will defend our beliefs, fiercely … this is how wars start.

• Memories

• Experiences

• Language – the words we use

Men are naturally in peripheral. 

This is opposite to what John Grey says in his book however, what I'm talking about here is biological. Men have more M ganglion retina cells in their eyes. These cells mean that men are naturally in a state of peripheral. They needed this to make sure that when they were out hunting that they would be aware through their peripheral if a tiger was gonna jump out and attack them. The singular focus is to do with them having more grey matter in their brains. 

The way men perceive an event will also depend on what’s happening that day and how stressed they are; and their main hormone is testosterone which causes you to lean in and face problems straight on.

Our Focus is Specific

Women have more P ganglion retina cells (focal cells .... studies have shown that we focus 10%-40% more than males when looking at faces) and these allow us to see finer detail. 

This is why we know when something’s not quite right because we can actually pick up on the small changes in a person's face, primarily to read the cues given by our babies, and to also detect threatening, non-verbal cues from adults as a means of survival. It’s because we have more white matter in our brains, that allows us to multi-task and process faster. Having more of these P ganglion retina cells is actually why 4 out of 5 women hate goal setting. When you tell a woman to focus on a goal, because she's already naturally focused she then gets even more focused and that just causes stress because she can’t “see” anything else. 

We also have ingrained Gender Trauma – this is epigentics.

Science is now proving that we’re inheriting more than just the colour of our eyes and whether our 2nd toe is longer than our big toe; science is proving that we are also inheriting past stresses and traumas through our DNA; and if you think about what has happened to women over the thousands and thousands of years - 9 million women were killed over 300 years just for being women – is it any wonder we have this inexplicable fear of being seen? Feeling not good enough? We’re seen as the weaker sex because physically it’s a reality, rape was used as a weapon of war, there’s more domestic violence against women. 

It’s not just what’s actually happened to us as we’ve been growing up; we have a completely different set of filters purely because of our gender. 

If you think about when a girl and a guy go out on a date – he’s thinking, “I hope she likes me”; she’s thinking, “I hope he doesn’t murder me”. Now it may not be that extreme for everyone but there is a safety element for women and it doesn’t have to be because something bad has actually happened to her before; it’s already pre-programmed into our gender.

We’re Inferential - we put meaning where there is none whereas men are more literal. 

For example, if a guy is sitting there with his mates and says something like, “it’ hot, hey”, his mate will probably just agree with him and keep doing whatever it is they were doing. 

If there was a girl there, she would interpret it as, “oh, he must want me to get up and turn on the fan or open a window … do something to make it cooler”. And depending on how she's feeling in that moment, she might get a bit cranky at him … “lazy bastard, why doesn’t he get up and do it himself, why do I always have to do everything” and off she goes on a little rampage because she has misinterpreted a simple statement and put meaning where there was none … he didn’t actually ask her to get up and turn on the fan. 

This is where we get frustrated with men because they are so literal (and they get frustrated with us...). We expect them to know what we want without asking them directly for it because that’s how we operate.

Our main hormone is oestrogen and oestrogen in a negative environment ends in tears. We know that hormones affect our behaviour and emotions. Up until around 1990 they weren’t even testing on females. We were represented by boy mice castrated at birth. One of the biggest things that make us female was being discarded because it messed with their nice consistent results!

So where we are in our cycle is also going to affect the meaning we place on an event. You’re going to react differently depending on where you’re at. And it doesn’t matter if you have a period or if you don’t, if you’ve had a hysterectomy or are menopausal. Every cell in your body is coded female and you have a cycle whether you’re aware of it or not. Too much focus is given just to bleeding and being a moody b!tch when this is only a small part of a bigger picture.

• What's our attitude

• Are we already in a good mood or a bad mood

• What is our physiology (how we carry ourselves) – do you walk around with your head up and shoulders back or are you hunched over looking at the ground?

And if you think about how long it takes from the time the event happens to us reacting or responding – it happens in a split second. 

We’re placing meaning to the event based on our filters (our values, our beliefs, our memories PLUS our gender filters, epigenetics and how we are biologically different).

These filters determine our thoughts which invoke our feelings and result in our behaviour.

Women don’t always tell you what’s going on in their heads.

But, when you’ve travelled the same mindset path, you’ll know what she’s potentially thinking based on your own experience and on the experience of other clients.

Talk about the elephant in the room because she may not necessarily tell you if she’s having doubts. 

Raise the concern that you know she’s most probably worried about at this point in her journey because you’ve been there, done that and can relate to how she’s feeling.

She said she absolutely would go ahead with your program, but didn’t OR says she wants to run it past (insert name of important person) before committing

• This is code for, “you didn’t show me enough value in your program to commit right away and by saying I will do it / I need to speak to ABC person, I can get off the phone with you now”

She was really excited in the beginning but suddenly, stops all communication with you

• Her self doubt and negative head chatter has not only crept in, it’s turned up the volume so it’s impossible for her to ignore

She becomes too busy to spend the time needed on your program

• We all have the same amount of time and will prioritise it on what is important to us (it’s the same with money … we prioritise spending it on what is valuable to us)

• Often we’ll procrastinate or be so busy being busy because there’s a deeper doubt, fear or insecurity playing out that our unconscious mind is trying to keep us away from

  • For example: You want to meet someone and your relationship coach tells you to “put yourself out there”. The “pain” of being alone is less than the “pain” of being rejected so your unconscious mind will do whatever it can to sabotage your actions (because one of its jobs is to keep you safe), and so you don't "put yourself out there" .... Or it could be that you have an even deeper, unconscious fear that may have been passed on epigenetically around safety.

She starts your program but then doesn’t follow through on the action steps

• Our conscious commitment will only take us so far before the doubts, fears and insecurities kick in and our level of determination will dictate how long we last before succumbing to the excuses (that we will justify really, really well 😉)

1. Let her know that you understand her and what she’s going through …. “I remember when I was where you are now and I was (scared of, worried about…) so I completely understand if you feel that too … what I found though (insert the story of what it was like for you when you pushed through that doubt and what you have now because of that decision)"

2. Give her confidence in you that you know what you’re doing

3. Give her permission to speak freely

   • But you need to frame it in a way that she knows that whatever she says is ok and you will not judge her (and truly mean it). It’s simply a doubt, fear, insecurity or belief that she has and is not who she is as a person

   • The more open and honest she is with you, the better the results she’ll get because you’ll know how to help her through any difficult parts

Often our doubts don’t make logical sense but they are very real to us, and that’s all that matters.

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