John Gray

Tips on Communicating with our loved ones

Aired On: May 2, 2025

Show Notes

John Gray is the author of one of the most well-known and trusted relationship books of all time: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.  He discusses his new book which discusses how to communicate with and support others, particularly loved ones.  Such communication differs for each gender (or persons depending on whether they are operating on their masculine (Mars) side or estrogen (Venus) side.)    He gives valuable tips on how to communicate with our partners and how to improve our relationships.

John Gray Bio

John Gray is the author of one of the most well-known and trusted relationship books of all time: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. USA Today listed his book as one of the top 10 most influential books of the last quarter century. It was the #1 bestselling book of the decade. Dr. Gray’s books have been translated into approximately 45 languages in more than 100 countries and continue to be bestsellers.

Dr. Gray has written over twenty books, the most recent of which is Beyond Mars and Venus. His Mars/Venus book series has forever changed how men and women view their relationships

John Gray

www.marsvenus.com

has blogs­

has written many books including

  • Men are from mars; women are from Venus
  • Understanding men. Bringing out best in man
  • Mars and Venus starting over. -when a relationship ends, how to heal the heart.
  • Men are from mars, women are from Venus” being happy with a man or without a man
  • How to talk to a man so he will listen

Male and Female Roles

  • Women and men were nurtured in a certain way: but these roles became too confining
    • Yet women need to express their male side
    • Men were restricted to the role of provider rather than spending time with their families

Balanced Roles

  • women
    • A woman to have general well-being and less stress, she needs to make about ten times more estrogen
    • When a woman has romantic feelings, her estrogen levels are doubling
    • Stress during day uses the male part of her brain
    • At home, she needs to be able to get into their female part of her brain which is achieved by discussing emotions with someone listening.
  • men
    • For a man to have general well-being and less stress, he needs to make ten times more testosterone than women
    • When a man has romantic feelings, his testosterone doubles

Unbalanced Roles

  • Women low estrogen and high testosterone: their brain thinks they are being chased by a tiger activating stress hormone
  • Women are stressed when they move away from their feminine side
    • With increased testosterone, women are more independent, detached, and competitive. They move to the space where they solve problems without help
    • Women can increase their estrogen by talking about their feelings
      • 90 % of patients seeing a therapist are women because women value having someone list to them talk about their feelings
      • When one sharing feelings of vulnerabilities with someone listening, it creates estrogen and lowers stress
      • Spiritual belief where the woman feels she is not alone can raise estrogen levels
      • When a woman shares feelings of vulnerabilities with someone listening, it creates estrogen and lowers stress
  • Men are stressed when away from their masculine side with lowered testosterone
    • For men increasing testosterone and decreasing estrogen lowers his stress
      • E.g. In his “Cave” 
      • Have goals that benefit other people

Men Producing Estrogen

  • Men being passive (sitting on the couch) produces estrogen/ decreases testosterone
  • Retired men
    • their testosterone is reduced to half of the testosterone of a normal man
    • His estrogen will go up because he does things he enjoys doing
    • Belly fat
      • Belly fat indicates estrogen is high and testosterone is low
      • Belly fat produces estrogen which further depresses testosterone and puts on more fat

Balanced Relationships

  • Men in masculine mode (high testosterone will attract a female in female-male (Venus) mode (high estrogen) and vice versa
  • For a romantic relationship, those hormones need to double

Unbalanced Relationships

  • A female in masculine mode can push the male to his female side
  • A man in his female side can push the woman to her masculine side
  • If a man does not have high testosterone, a woman can’t be attracted to him
  • If a woman does not have high estrogen, a man can’t be attracted to her
  • When a woman makes the man’s needs more important than her own and she assumes if she does these things, he will reciprocate
  • Nothing wrong with a woman doing a lot of things for her husband, as long as he is caring for her
    • If she does not feel he is caring for her, her estrogen goes down
    • A women giving to her husband, canlower her estrogen
    • Mothering nurturing hormones come out when there is a man or a child in their lives

Goal to Balance relationships

  • We can learn to have relationships where:
    • Help men stay masculine and develop their female side
    • Support women who want to be on their male side but help them come back to their female side
    • Imbalances
      • If men don’t find a healthy way to be masculine and connect with their female side, then men go to their female side in a dysfunctional way which weakens their male side
      • One way for men to go to their female side through addiction
        • When a man drinks too much beer, he is making female hormones
      • Women want to go to work but don’t open up and share their feelings because men don’t know how to listen

Male and Female Operating Principles

  • Females
    • The operating principle between women is reciprocity
    • In a community of women, when one gives, the other automatically wants to give back
    • When two women talk, they tend to use the emotional part of the brain. They resonate with each other
    • When women have moderate stress, they produce five to eight times more emotions than men
    • Women see more and react more to smaller problems e.g. things around the home
  • Males
    • The operating principle is efficiency
    •  The operating principle for men is efficiency in achieving a goal which goes along with testosterone.
    • Will do the least amount necessary to achieve his result
    • Need a higher stimulation threshold then women to react
      • The dopamine function in men is different than in women because men have been designed to be able to handle dangerous problems
      • Men wait for the danger to react; they won’t do anything if they don’t need to

Women’s reaction to 100 roses is similar to the response to one rose

  • Because of the above operating principles, men were trained if you do bigger and better, you get bigger and better awards
  • On the female side every action of caring and sincerity is equal to other actions
  • Men expect giving 50 roses to a women will get him a lot of points.
    • But he will get the same response if he brings one or two roses
    • That response is a surge of estrogen where she is happier being with him

Male/female communication

Female

  • When she does not feel heard, she goes over to her male side, making testosterone
  • When a man or woman talk about their feelings, they make female hormones
  • If women can feel they can’t express minor stress because men will typically say, you are overreacting which gives her no space to talk about the day’s seemingly small events.
  • If she cannot share their feelings, she will automatically suppress it
    • If she does not turn off adrenalin, she will release cortisol which causes health issues.
    • cortisol increases blood flows to prefrontal cortex leading to pessimism
      • This can be measured
    • When not stressed, she can see things that are bad and good
      • “Yes, there is a problem, but there is also something good”
      • If in cortisol won’t see good part, (be pessimistic) wiring
        • Brain negates a good thing by remembering a bad thing
        • “He cleaned the room but left his socks.”
    • When not stress, can negate bad things by remembering a good things

Male

  • When a man listens, he can’t resonate that much because he does not have a female hormone system
    • He will resonate with 50 % and another part of his brain will think what can I do to help her
  • Research shows when the man is emotional and he does not feel he is being blamed, his brain resonates with her emotions,and his mirror neurons (defined below)open
  • He listensand doesn’t need to do anything and he can feel what she feels.
  • If a man can feel what she feels, he can be on his male side listening and connect with her feelings
  • The man has to resist the male approach of trying to solve the problem. This takes him away from the emotional part of his brain, his mirror neurons shut down
  • If she says I just need you to listen, create a space for me to talk and need to know you are listening, his mirror neurons (definition below) will stay open, he is not blamed in any way, he is not supposed to solve the problem, another part of his brain becomes activated, and his prefrontal cortex becomes activated

Men when stressed/ angry should not talk

  • If a man is stressed means estrogen is too high and testosterone is decreasing.
  • Are no talks where a man talks and a woman just listens
  • When men upset tell them not to talk
    • Contract ab muscles, testosterone goes up

How to talk to a man so he will listen

  • Man’s brain operates differently from a woman’s
  • Mirror neurons
    • Allow us to be happy when see someone is happy; be sad when someone is sad. It is how children learn; they copy
    • Mirror neurons allow you to feel what the other person is feeling
  • When a man is mildly stressed, confronted/ or perceives a message “he is not a good guy” in any way his mirror neurons shut down
    • He will not be able to feel what the female feels
    • He will not be able to feel anything
    • This can be measured with brain blood flow to the emotional part of the brain associated with feeling
    • When a man makes adrenalin (from feeling confronted), blood flow stops to the emotional part of the brain
    • Examples of confrontations that may shut down his mirror neurons
      • “Let’s talk about the relationship,” “How could you forget to bring home the milk?”
  • For women don’t use words not to change the other person but share what is inside
  • Don’t use words such as “I feel hurt when you….”
  • Rather use phrases such as, “This is what makes me feel very good
    • Men can feel happy is they know how to make the woman feel happy)

Rewiring the Brain

  • The brain wiring/ reaction to stress can be changed (neuroplasticity)
  • To reduce pessimism,
    • when one remembers the emotional pain associated with something terrible happened, recall the good outcome
    • This can result in the belief that when bad things happen, there could be a good outcome
  • To rewire a man’s brain  
    • approach him, “ I am going to talk about feelings that have nothing to do with you and I need you to listen.”
    • The man sits back and does nothing
    • If he says anything, it interrupts the process of changing the brain, he will say “It will be alright/ why are you upset?/ You should do …”
    • This should be done in less than ten minutes to avoid going to the cortisol state where endings are not seen as happy.

Healing Relationships

  • The man’s brain
    • will become optimistic to think he can do something to help her
    • If he can feel what she feels, he can be optimistic, want to help
      • This is called compassion
    • Talking so a man will listen helps to activate compassion same compassion he wouldfeel if his child is in danger and he has to risk his life to save the child
    • He is wired to give their lives for people they care about
    • That part of the brain is not activated unless he is motivated unless the emotional danger is so great to enter a burning house to save a complete stranger
    • Typically, when a woman complains, he does not get the message that he is supposed to open his mirror neurons
    • He can help her come back to her female side bylistening
  • The Woman
    • can activate that by sharing her emotions a little bit stronger
    • The woman needs to feel her emotions
    • She needs to learn about her feelings in a way that the man can hear and will listen
    • Even if he is positive all the time, she has to open up her vulnerability to him that is what awakens am man’s dopamine and motivation to please her
    • In the beginning of the relationship, dopamine is high due to the newness of the relationship
    • Later, the couple is left with the natural hormonal balance that initially they were able to overcome
    • This will rewire hisbrain

Sex

  • Only have sex with a woman in love with and committed to
  • If committed and in love, man produces prolactin
    • Married men have 400 % more prolactin than single
    • Long life, happy, less sickness, reported being happy
    • The average for all married people even the less happy relationships
  • Porn destroys testosterone
    • No porn, no fooling around

Healing a broken heart

  • A wound takes time to heal
  • Need to heal the wound
    • Don’t forget the person; remember them with sweetness and love, and don’t feel pain

Raising children

  • Children live in imagination  (theta state/ dream state) all the time
  • When in a dream state, brain produces theta
    • Their mirror neurons are on all the time we absorb everything from our parents
    • Children automatically learn to read interact all the time children absorb all the knowledge
    • It is good to let kids live in relationship to parents all the time
      • Currently who knows who the teacher and other children are
      • The child will absorb these values
      • Children need to be with parents if want children to absorb parents’ values
    • Studies
      • mother sits silently next to child when watching sesame street, children learn more
      • Chile study:
        • when children were mandated to go to schools, gangs developed
        • They went to schools where they were taught what to remember,
        • Kids were not taught to think.
        • Kids became dysfunctional

John Gray is developing an app since 1994

  • His App converts feelings into emotions
  • The App asks what feeling/ thinking are.  The App will convert feelings to emotions of disappointment, frustration, fear, regret, etc.
    • This is how he does therapy understand their feeling
  • Underneath every emotion the APP clarifies what they are wanting and needing.
  • The App gives them what they need in an imaginary format
  • The App writes a letter to someone I am upset with; with emotions and will write a response from that person verifying, validating, emphasizing, supporting what is needed
  • The App will tell you what your reaction would be
  • The App will give affirmations you can use to anchor self and get into that positive state
    • For example, “I love my life and I look forward to a wonderful life”

Summary

  • For a man to have general well being and less stress, he needs to make ten times more testosterone than women
  • A woman to have general well being and less stress, she needs to make about ten times more estrogen
  • Women low estrogen and high testosterone: their brain thinks they are being chased by a tiger activates stress hormone
  • Women are stressed when they move away from their feminine side
  • Women can increase their estrogen by talking about their feelings
  • Men are stressed when away from their masculine side with lowered testosterone
    • For men increasing testosterone and decreasing estrogen lowers his stress
      • E.g. In his “Cave” 
      • Have goals that benefit other people
  • Men in masculine mode (high testosterone will attract a female in female-male (venus) mode  (high estrogen) and vice versa
  • A female in masculine mode can push the male to his female side
  • A man in his female side can push the woman to her masculine side
  • If a man does not have high testosterone, a woman can’t be attracted to him
  • If a woman does not have high estrogen, a man can’t be attracted to her
  • The woman can get her needs met of being listened to by approaching the man in a non threatening way
  • The male can help her return to her feminine side by just  being present
    • listening without interrupting or commenting.
  •  When men are stressed, their talking pushes them to their feminine side
  • If she says I just need you to listen, create a space for me to talk and need to know you are listening, his mirror neurons (definition below) will stay open, he is not blamed in any way, he is not supposed to solve the problem, another part of his brain becomes activated, and his prefrontal cortex becomes activated