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One of the most provocative relationship books I’ve read is Open Her by Karen Brody. Karen’s message to men is simple but challenging: become more grounded, own your masculinity and sexuality rather than being driven by them. Replace neediness with confidence, curiosity, and genuine presence.

Some of her ideas may sound controversial in today’s polarized conversations about gender. She believes men and women often experience love, attraction, and power differently, and that masculine strength and leadership, expressed with kindness, confidence, and respect, can be deeply appealing to many women.

Karen sometimes speaks broadly about men and women, and I think it’s most useful to hear those ideas as patterns she’s observed in her coaching work rather than universals about what every man or every woman is like.

In our conversation, we talk about sex, modern masculinity, why men and women so often misunderstand each other, sexual confidence versus neediness, and some parallels between her work and contemplative practice.

Whether you agree with all of Karen’s conclusions or not, I think you’ll find the conversation thought-provoking.

Introduction to Karen Brody

Scott Snibbe: Karen Brody, it’s a pleasure to have you on How to Train a Happy Mind. I benefited from your book Open Her and some conversations with you about how to put the ideas in that book into practice with my relationship.

Karen Brody: It’s my pleasure.

Scott Snibbe: To start out, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind telling me a little bit about your background and how you came to dedicate your life to helping men connect better with women, deepen their intimacy, build stronger sexual relationships, become a man whisperer, I guess?

Karen Brody: I think I was destined. When I look back on my whole story, I had a lot of wounding around men and sexuality, and then in my 20s, I took up this journey of trying to heal myself, reading hundreds of books, going to various types of classes and therapy. Ultimately, I came to a place where I realized that I actually had healed my sexual shame, which I didn’t expect I would ever do, Scott.

I started out as a journalist because my first passion was writing and dancing, and I did that for about six years. Then I went in different directions, trying out different things. You know when you know you’re headed somewhere, but you’re afraid to go there? That’s how it felt in terms of this work.

Ultimately, I went back to school. I got my master’s degree in counseling psychology, and I started working with couples. I worked with women, and then ultimately I settled on working with men because I noticed there was such deep healing for me in working with men.

So I came into it really thinking I had something to tell men about women, and I got my head turned around pretty quickly because I realized that I couldn’t get through to men in the beginning, the guys that I was working with, and I had to keep backing up and saying, “What’s going on here?”

I ultimately realized that men didn’t need to learn more about women, at least the guys I was working with. What they needed was to appreciate themselves, to appreciate their masculinity. That took me a while to figure out, and once I did, it was the key to men trusting and opening up with me.

I ultimately realized that men didn’t need to learn more about women. What they needed was to appreciate themselves, to appreciate their masculinity.

Once that happened, Scott, I noticed that I started to heal. All of the misperceptions I had about men started to fade away. I started to feel more whole. When you’re a woman, like so many women I see in the world today, who has a lot of anger toward men, it’s really painful. You can’t hold that anger and walk through the world and have it not affect you.

I would say it was about 10 years into coaching men when I knew I had to write Open Her, because I wanted men to see themselves the way I was seeing them. And I wanted men to understand why they were so attractive and so needed, because so many of the men that I worked with couldn’t see that in themselves.

Scott Snibbe: It’s very heartening to hear you say that these negative feelings about men and masculinity dissolved for you. But in society right now, it seems like they might have risen more than ever. The term toxic masculinity is quite dominant today, and I think a lot of people, when they hear that, they hear masculinity itself is toxic.

Could you talk a little bit about how you did that and how somebody can start to feel constructive about masculinity? I hate to say this, but it’s a hard time for men in the world right now, right? Isn’t it, with these attitudes?

Karen Brody: I think women are really hurt and disappointed when they don’t get the love that they want, and then it gets directed at men.

I think the way through this is for women to truly see men as they are. That was the path for me. Because I went through a period in my early 30s where I read all kinds of feminist books on why men were wrong, why men were the problem, and it had a really deep effect on me. I think if women are gonna heal, they have to decide that they’re gonna take the path of seeing men truthfully, because if that’s your mission and that’s your commitment, you can’t help but see that men are actually good.

It’s just impossible not to see it.

What do women most often misunderstand about men?

Scott Snibbe: You’re mostly about helping men understand women, but you brought this up, so I might as well start there: what do women most often misunderstand about men?

Karen Brody: I think one of the greatest misunderstandings is that men don’t feel, and I was guilty of this. And you’ll notice it in the way that women behave, in the way that with their partners they can become so critical and so pointed and so demanding. We do this because we want to be felt, and men are trained not to react.

And so when a woman is getting pointed and demanding and critical and loud, what she wants is for a man to feel her, but men don’t know that, of course, right? And so they put up armor, and women carry this story that men don’t care, that they’re impenetrable, that they can’t feel, and therefore they’re dense, right?

And because as women we look through a feminine lens, we expect men to act like women. And when they don’t act that way, we get scared, we get judgmental, we get critical. I also think women completely misunderstand men around sex. This idea that men only care about sex. I think men who are starved of sex, who are denied something that gives them a sense of belonging and confidence and connection, I think it does make men desperate in relationships, but men aren’t all about the sex.

I think in this way, women are most lost concerning men. I think if they were to see men more clearly around their sexuality, they would see how for a man to be met, accepted, deeply satisfied as a lover by his partner brings out the very best in men, and this is what women miss. I think we don’t understand how important it is to men to be good for us. I think women miss that all too often.

I think if they were to see men more clearly around their sexuality, they would see how for a man to be met, accepted, deeply satisfied as a lover by his partner brings out the very best in men, and this is what women miss.

What men don’t understand about women

Scott Snibbe: It’s a shame. I think, as a man in a long relationship with a woman, I’m thinking about my partner constantly, but those thoughts aren’t always resulting in the perfect actions that would bring her happiness, which is what you teach. I guess that turns us to the other side then, your expertise.

When you say men don’t often understand women, what’s the biggest misunderstanding you see again and again?

Karen Brody: Well, men, like women, are looking through a particular lens, the masculine lens, and therefore they have a really hard time seeing women as they are. And because they can’t see them as they are, they make all kinds of assumptions about women.

And so when I’m working with men who have been chasing their partner’s approval for years and years, it’s really hard for this kind of man to see that it’s his strength and his leadership that cause a woman to soften and to open in the way that he wants. So men become afraid of women. And particularly they become afraid of their anger.

How to build connection with your partner

Scott Snibbe: Yeah, I think this is one of the lessons that I learned most deeply from you, and it helped a number of my male friends too when they came to me with challenges they’re having with their partner. But how would you put that more practically when, for a man, when his female partner seems like she’s being critical, controlling, what’s the response that’s going to build the connection instead of disconnection?

Karen Brody: I think what men need to do is to see through it. What I teach my clients, and one of the things I talk about in Open Her, is how do you see a woman as she actually is? You keep expecting her to act in ways that are like you.

But when you start to see a woman clearly, you start to learn how to cut through the noise that’s on the surface of the emotion. Does that make sense?

Scott Snibbe: I mean, that’s what they say in general about all outbursts of anger especially, that underneath it, when you can get past it, even though it may take years, there’s some underlying need, right? Like a core need.

Karen Brody: When you see a woman’s vulnerability, you know how to tap into and help her to express what’s going on for her emotionally, which brings forward a softer woman and makes you, as the man, feel like you have an effect. So it, it’s really about being able to see what’s really there in front of you.

What makes a woman feel more open?

Scott Snibbe: You talk about softening, and I think that’s the promise of your book. Open Her is a provocative title. What makes a woman feel open emotionally and connected, and what tends to shut that down?

Karen Brody: This is kind of high level because it relates to a man’s sexuality. And I say that it’s high level because, like refining meditation takes time, it’s the same with a man’s sexuality. So a lot of the men that I work with are not the owners of their sexuality. And what I mean by that is their sex is kind of happening to them.

They don’t feel any agency concerning their sexuality. Their partners tend to be in charge. Like she decides when and if it happens, how it happens, how long it happens, that sort of thing. And therefore, he’s jumping through all kinds of hoops to try to win her approval and get the reward. And therefore, he’s not really sexually embodied.

Like the sex isn’t his, and as I say, he’s not its owner. When a man decides to become conscious about his sexuality, and he decides to be conscious about the energy itself and not letting it leak, not letting it leak all over his relationship, his space. And by leak, I mean there’s such a lack of consciousness around the power it has to do good or to do harm that it’s just sort of spilling out, right?

And he spends most of his time looking for the openings, like when can we get together and all of these things. But when he reins that in, and he becomes really conscious of it, he’s the holder of it. I think in that kind of space, Scott, is where a man can be in constant communion with his partner sexually and keep her open because he’s not leaky and he’s not needy.

He’s actually harnessing the sexual energy so that he feels full, right? And a full man feels sexy and magnetic. A leaky man feels needy, and he puts pressure on his partner all the time. And through books like Mantak Chia’s book, The Multi-Orgasmic Man, men can learn how to harness the energy and really hold it as sacred.

And then the woman looks to the man with respect, because he’s a man who can control his sex. And he becomes something that she’s highly attracted to. A man in that state also can be very playful and enticing, right? So when a woman gets into her moodiness, when she gets into a stuckness around her sex or around her body, he’s confident enough that he has what he needs, he’s not needy sexually, that he can poke her.

And then the woman looks to the man with respect, because he’s a man who can control his sex.

He can play with her, he can move her around and cause her to open on a kind of daily basis. When a guy who’s needy tries to open a woman, she just shuts him down. Because typically his efforts toward her are just geared toward an outcome. Does that distinction make sense?

Being in control of your sex as a man

Scott Snibbe: It actually helped me a lot connect my spiritual life and my sexual life more deeply because in Vajrayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, sexuality, both kind of literally and figuratively, plays a really important role in being able to harness that energy without having to express it with another person… It’s so powerful that it’s part of the path to enlightenment.

From your perspective, you talk about embracing your own sexuality without necessarily having to fulfill it, right? Without having to fill it with your partner, with another person. Talk a little bit more about that, about how men do it, why that’s sexy, why it’s just fulfilling in general as a human being.

Karen Brody: Well, it’s fulfilling for the man because he’s finally gotten control of it. I’m not a man, so I can’t imagine how it feels. I can only empathize. But I know what it feels like to be out of control and to be dependent on someone else to fulfill something that you believe you can’t fulfill yourself, and how that raises doubts.

Not only that, but then resentments too, right? Because she has something you think you need, and you need her permission to have. But when you claim that as your own, you raise a kind of dignity that can’t help but magnify your confidence. And whether or not a woman wants to be with you, that confidence remains.

Now, I would never suggest to a man that he stay in a relationship where sex is not available if he’s a sexual man, and that’s what he wants. But that’s a separate story. I think for the woman, it’s hard for a woman to trust a man who is yanked around by his desire. In my book Open Her, I give an example of this with the dog park.

I think for the woman, it’s hard for a woman to trust a man who is yanked around by his desire.

You might remember that, where I give the example of one man who has his dog under control and the man who doesn’t, and how attracted women are to that man who has his dog under control. Women would be highly attracted to a man who’s a sexual monk, right? Because he’s made a powerful choice about his sexuality. He’s not celibate out of no choice. He’s celibate out of choice.

Women would be highly attracted to a man who’s a sexual monk. Because he’s made a powerful choice about his sexuality.

I think when a man makes that kind of choice around his sexuality, a woman can respect him because she knows that when he moves in her direction sexually, he wants to be with her. When he learns to control his sex, his ejaculation, that speaks to a woman’s trust as well because it says, “He isn’t just after release. He truly wants to be with me. He’s a man who’s full. He has what he needs, and yet he wants to move that energy with me.”

How to communicate your needs as a man without being pushy

Scott Snibbe: Funny you say that a monk can be incredibly attractive, ’cause I know a lot of Buddhist monks, obviously. Some of them I’ve got very close friends with, and over the years I’ve often said there’s nothing sexier, for some reason, than a Buddhist monk. Like, the women are just drawn to them. And I’ve thought about it in different ways, but your way of describing it really makes sense because they, of course, are completely in control of their sexuality, and women know they’re safe, obviously, to be with.

Over the years I’ve often said there’s nothing sexier than a Buddhist monk. Like, the women are just drawn to them.

Although I have seen a few of them leave their monkhood to be with one of these women who found them very sexy. But then there’s a paradox, right? Because you can be totally satisfied with your sexuality and not need someone to express it with. But of course, we do. We do express our sexuality with each other.

How does somebody, a man in particular, communicate those needs clearly without turning those needs into criticism, pressure, demands?

Karen Brody: I’ve studied this topic of pressure for a very long time, and here’s what I’ve come to know. I think the best thing a man can do in terms of keeping the sexual energy alive between him and his partner is to be really clear about who he is sexually and where he’s coming from.

And what I mean by that is why would he stand for sex? What does sex mean to him? If she comes to him and says, “I don’t think this is very important. I don’t understand why you want it,” he needs to be able to make a case that moves her heart to want to be with him. When men are desperate, they’re not able to make that case because they haven’t really sat with it.

They don’t know how to hold their sexuality. They’re too busy trying to get it. But when a man learns to hold it like a monk would, a monk knows why he’s not moving that energy. He’s very clear about it. And I think a married man needs to be very clear, and he has to be able to make a passionate case for why they should be together and why not being together doesn’t work for him.

Scott Snibbe: Very subtle point, right? And it relates to power. Like how can you be strong without being overbearing or domineering? I can imagine some women listening to this and pushing back. I’m sure you’ve had this pushback in your career, right? Where this is making them very uncomfortable that… does this mean the man has all the power in a sexual relationship?

How do you respond to that?

Karen Brody: I think women, we know the truth, that we want a powerful man, and a powerful man who’s willing to stand for what he cares about, what matters to him. So he’s not saying, “You have to have sex with me.”

He’s saying, “I wanna be in a relationship in which beautiful sex is a component.” And if I were coaching a man, he would say to her, “I don’t wanna force you to do anything. I’m just telling you where I stand, right? I’m at my best when I can make love to you. I feel connected. I feel I belong. I’m my very best man, right? When we have that quality of expression between us, and when we don’t, there are doubts. I lose my focus.”

Whatever it is. If he’s really clear about why this matters, it can inspire her to wake up.

Power dynamics between men and women

Scott Snibbe: Yeah. These are all the basics of really good nonviolent communication, which is really hard. None of us are raised with it, and it’s not modeled in movies much and so on. There is also a trend in society to say there aren’t differences between men and women, quite a lot.

I think there are many millions of people who would say that today. What you coach and what’s so strong is you say that a man really has to embody his power in a non-overpowering way, which sounds like a paradox, right? And that women respond to that power when it’s expressed in a way where they have choice is really sexy and makes you feel really safe, right?

These seem like big differences between men and women, at least heterosexual men and women. How would you define those differences?

Karen Brody: It would sort of depend on how we are going to define strength. Men deeply crave, at least the men that I work with, they deeply crave a woman that would yield to them. And I don’t mean submit her power, but I mean yield in the way that a woman would yield to a man who’s leading a dance.

Men deeply crave, at least the men that I work with, they deeply crave a woman that would yield to them.

It’s a subtle kind of moving with or letting go, right? Men crave that so deeply. And as far as women, women respond well to directionality if they haven’t made a story about what that means.

So for example, when I thought I was a very serious feminist, I felt that if you would’ve said to me a woman should yield to a man’s directionality, I would’ve been deeply offended because I was holding a story that men were wrongly dominant in the culture.

How to deal with conflict while recognizing our gender differences

Scott Snibbe: How do these tendencies, these differences show up in conflict and communication repair at their best and worst? Obviously more than half of marriages end in divorce. How do we deal with those conflicts in healthy ways and recognize our gender differences?

Karen Brody: If I had to zero in on what I see are the reasons for these persistent conflicts between men and women, it’s that we’re not seeing each other clearly as we are. So women aren’t seeing how much men are trying. Like you said, you’re thinking about her all day, right? What does she need? What does she want?

How can I make her happy? I’m amazed at how few women really understand how men are wanting to be good for them, and therefore they’re just sort of overlooking this entire effort and not offering appreciation. So a man is coming into a fight feeling like all of my efforts go unnoticed, and I’m not appreciated.

And then a woman is coming into the conversation feeling that she’s not truly heard. Her words are heard, but because she’s disappointed and angry, she’s not able to get into the deeper layers of what she’s feeling and what she’s needing, and so she ends up staying at this top level of irritation, which feels emasculating and irritating to her partner.

And then she comes into the fight feeling like, “You don’t even know me. You don’t hear me, you don’t care about me.” And so I think if men could see how vulnerable women are and how much we need you. And if women could see the valiant efforts that men are making and how much they want to make them happy, I think most fights would dissolve out of existence.

If you just get into the fights, I think women have a lot of power. I think if women were to be more specific about how they feel rather than pointed about what’s not working and critical about what they’re not getting, they would bring out the best in men.

I think women have a lot of power. I think if women were to be more specific about how they feel rather than pointed about what’s not working and critical about what they’re not getting, they would bring out the best in men.

Whereas if women were to come and say, just get right in their emotions and say, “I’m hurt, I’m disappointed, I’m sad,” they would garner empathy from men rather than anger and resistance and stonewalling.

Do you really understand your partner?

Scott Snibbe: One of the things that kind of opens my heart, but also makes me confused about how to respond, is when my wife says, “You don’t understand me.” Which is often very true. But I have to get to much more specific questions.

And then yeah, I do get some good guidance.

Karen Brody: I love that example, Scott, because what I notice so much in coaching men is how few questions men ask because they think they should know the answer. But that was a beautiful example of a woman saying, “You don’t understand me.” What she’s saying is, “I’m hurt. I want to be known by you, and I don’t feel known by you.”

And I think the admission that you don’t understand is such a powerful one because we already know that, right? And to say, “You’re right. I don’t understand you. I would like to understand you more. What would you like me to know?” kind of breaks through the story. The woman’s story is that “I’m never gonna be understood by you,” and it also helps the man break through this wall that he has around asking or admitting, “There are things I don’t know about you. I don’t fully understand you.”

What to do if your sex life has fallen flat

Scott Snibbe: And also things I used to know aren’t true anymore too. I’ve known my wife for 25 years, and big things have changed in every aspect of how we relate to each other, in every dimension.

So I don’t need to feel embarrassed about not knowing and not understanding my partner, ’cause she’s also changed over time too.

Well, let me get to this. You do talk a lot about sex, and just to be really blunt, if a couple’s sex life has gone flat, which is what a lot of your guidance is for, where does someone begin? Where do they start?

Karen Brody: It really depends on the stage of flatness. What I notice that a lot of guys do is they notice, okay, sex has gone flat. I’m gonna reinitiate dating her. You know, going out on dates every week or going for coffee in the morning and things like that. I think, and it could be the population that I work with, but generally that doesn’t work, and the reason is if it’s gone flat, there’s probably something pretty meaningful going on.

And not necessarily something bad, right? We go through stages, you know? The first five years, the next five years, et cetera. And I think it’s something worth exploring. Most of the men that I work with are terrified to talk about sex because they’re terrified of discovering something like she’s finished, you know?

She’s not attracted to me. And I think what men need to understand is that attraction for women is always shifting. It’s not entirely physical. And it’s really more determined by what’s going on between the two of you. So when that point comes where things go flat, there’s the opportunity to explore, like, what’s here for us next?

What’s going on here? What’s keeping us kind of stuck? Why are we on this plateau? And what wants to open up here? Which requires talking. So I would say if you’re at a… if you sense you’re at a pretty meaningful stage where things really need to shift, I think a talk is required, and I think it’s necessary to look at where are we sexually? What are we going through right now? And have a very “we” conversation about it, and what might be wanting to open up here?

Scott Snibbe: Esther Perel has some counter warnings that over-communicating can also deaden eroticism. What’s your perspective on that?

Karen Brody: I don’t disagree with that. I actually agree with it. I think what she means when she says that is processing too much. Like getting your partner to just listen to you and listen to you and listen to you, to the point where energy is completely drained, you know?

I think there’s not enough talking about sex, right? Nobody is gonna say they talk too much about sex. They may talk too much about their work and their kids and their parents and things like that. They’re not talking too much about sex. But I do agree with Esther Perel that just too much talking instead of touching and being sexual is not great for the relationship.

Too much talking instead of touching and being sexual is not great for the relationship.

How important to a relationship is knowing yourself?

Scott Snibbe: I’m curious how much of relationship success you think depends on understanding your partner and how much it depends on understanding yourself, you know, your own mind, your own triggers?

Karen Brody: I think it’s probably most important that you understand yourself, because if you don’t, how can you communicate what is needed? How can you communicate what are the deepest things within you? But I also think understanding your partner is important, because how else do you serve them?

You’re never gonna fully understand your partner. But I think it’s important to make it your mission to know them, and to not live in assumptions and stories about who they are, to continuously be curious. I work with a lot of men whom when I ask key questions about their partners, they don’t know the answers.

Like if I said, “Which kind of date would she prefer if I gave you these choices, A and B?” “Oh, I have no idea.” “What would her perfect day be?” “I don’t know.” “What’s her biggest dream in life?” Sometimes they just don’t know. If you feel like you really know your partner, maybe that’s a red flag. Maybe it’s time to actually get curious and interested.

If you feel like you really know your partner, maybe that’s a red flag. Maybe it’s time to actually get curious and interested.

Sex as a ritual

Scott Snibbe: Sex is a kind of ritual, right? In a lot of life, we’re missing rituals today. If you cook dinner, that’s a nice one. But I’m wondering what are some of the rituals that you think couples can do today in their relationship and in their sexual relationship to stay connected?

Are there simple daily practices that you encourage people to do?

Karen Brody: I think for really busy couples, it’s really nice to have a time where you do an emotional check-in. Some people don’t like things that are this formal, but I think if you’re busy, you schedule the things that matter most, like sex or connection, et cetera. So I think having a container where it’s 20 minutes, for example, where you do a check-in weekly or every other week, and you say, “How are you? What’s going on for you? What are you needing? How can I support you?” Simple questions like that are huge because they keep each of the partners from holding onto things and from moving apart from each other.

If you’re busy, you schedule the things that matter most, like sex or connection, et cetera.

I think that meditating together is great. I really do. I think getting quiet is underrated. And it’s hard for me to convince my clients actually how deep I think soul gazing is. You know, if before you were to go to bed, if you were just to look into your partner’s eyes for three minutes, the masks would fall away. You would be looking at each other more deeply. You would feel a deep connection. You would sleep more deeply. I think these kinds of rituals are very powerful.

Scott Snibbe: That’s probably the thing that’s had one of the biggest impacts on my wife and me, is that we do schedule Sunday night to have a check-in. We don’t stare in our eyes for three minutes, though. I would quite like that. I don’t know how much my wife would like that, but it’s worth a try to see how it works.

And you mentioned meditation, of course that’s the main topic of this podcast. But if you are leading a meditation or would lead a meditation for men in how to embody some of the ideas we talked about today, what kind of things would you include?

Karen Brody: This isn’t my image. I can’t remember exactly where it came from, but it could be Margo Anand, the tantra teacher. Whoever this person was talked about the penis as a wand of light. And I think this is such a beautiful image for men to heal sexual shame. I think if you were to meditate on igniting that inner light within the wand and just holding that meditation for three minutes, and then carrying that energy throughout the day, I think it could be really powerful.

Because a lot of men are feeling a sort of dark energy in their sex center, kind of like, “That’s not mine, I can’t go there,” or, “It’s ruling my life, pulling me around.” So to sit and to imagine it as a wand of light, and also to take that then into your lovemaking, can be pretty incredible.

Not feeding into the anger in the world

Scott Snibbe: I like that advice because I think on this topic, it’s uncomfortable for a lot of people to hear that. But there’s a lot of shame, obviously, around our bodies for men and women, and then also if there’s not, then it’s just kind of ridiculous crass humor, which is funny, but where is that sacredness?

You see it throughout history, throughout most of human civilization: extraordinary sacredness around our sexual organs, our sexuality. In Bhutan, I think one of the things people most comment on is all the penises everywhere, which mean many things, you know. That’s really, really good advice, and it’s surprising.

It actually, I wasn’t sure what your answer would be, I’ll have to think about whether I could guide such a meditation. In Vajrayana Buddhism, we have more secret practices where you imagine things like that, but you have to be sort of initiated into them. So that’s actually one of my great interests in life is how you can make secular some of those practices, which it sounds like you’ve made some headway towards.

Well, a last question for you. The world’s changing a lot, right? The world just keeps seesawing between like ultra-progressive, ultra-conservative, Me Too, DEI, incels, looks maxxing. Have any of these big swings in culture changed your views on intimate relationships in any way, the advice you give men, how you respond to criticism from women or feminist perspectives?

Karen Brody: It hasn’t changed how I work with men, but I’ve become really aware of these energies, like the manosphere, for example. I just wanna say to both men and women, let’s just not feed the anger. It’s an energy that we don’t want expanding, and what I’m feeling is this expansion of hatred and anger between men and women, and it’s sad because I thought we had made so much progress. So I just suggest turning away from it. It’s not gonna help with the kind of intimacy you want to create in relationship if you’re holding it that way.

Scott Snibbe: My mother used to always tell me, “When you get angry, you’re the one that hurts the most.” And then when I became Buddhist 25 years ago, we learn very deeply how destructive anger is for yourself. Not everybody believes in that, but not everybody accepts that. Many people find it a force that’s important for fighting injustice and maintaining their boundaries.

What do you say to someone who pushes back about anger being constructive in some way?

Karen Brody: Well, I’m not saying that anger isn’t constructive or necessary. What I’m talking about is the activation of the finger-pointing, the blaming, the divide that’s happening between men and women online in certain communities. And I just think it harms relationships. I think our path wants to be seeing each other clearly, like we started with in the beginning.

How do you see a man clearly instead of through all these judgments and assumptions about who he is because he’s male, and vice versa? I say let’s just not live in the assumptions about each other, and let’s investigate and truly be with each other and see what’s really there.

Scott Snibbe: Karen, you’re really an extraordinary thinker, writer, and coach. I really appreciate you being on the podcast and speaking with me. For people who want to learn more about your work, Open Her, I highly recommend it. Thank you so much, Karen Brody. Really appreciate you spending time with us.

Karen Brody: Thank you for having me.

Thanks for joining us for this conversation with Karen Brody.

Whether or not you agree with every one of Karen’s conclusions about relationships, I hope this episode encourages all of us to look more deeply at ourselves and the people we love.

One of the ideas I most appreciated in our conversation is that embracing and sharing our own feelings and desires—from our own side, without demands—can deeply strengthen the connection with our partner.

Karen’s book, Open Her, is available wherever books are sold, and you’ll find links to her work and other resources on the webpage for this episode at trainahappymind.org.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you might want to check out our Train a Happy Mind community that meets every Sunday morning for live meditations and discussions, which you can also learn more about on our website.

Thanks to Isabella Acabal for producing this episode and ably managing our marketing and social media.

Check out Karen’s website, coaching community, Substack, and book, Open Her.

We wish you a wonderful day.

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