The Meadow Report

One of my favorite spiritual teachers these days is Mastin Kipp from TheDailyLove.com.  I subscribe to his emails, follow him on Facebook, and I recently read his book, The Daily Love:  Growing Into Grace.

The book was really good, but just a bit too Jesusy for me.  His website and social media stuff are not Jesusy at all.

Anyway, he did a video recently where he talked about how women (or the feminine partner in a couple) mostly just want to “give the Meadow Report,” and men (or the masculine partner) often don’t understand this.  (I think he got this idea from Tony Robins, but I heard it first from Mastin.)

Back in our hunter/gatherer days, women would go out into the meadow and look for berries and other edible goodies, and the men would go out and slay sabre-toothed tigers or whatever.  Then in the evenings they come back together, and the men are all, “I killed this meat for you, and you’re not dead, so we’re good.”  Meanwhile the women wanted to give the Meadow Report.

“So I went out on the south side of the meadow today, and Sally was there, and you would not believe what she was wearing!  And I said, ‘Hi,’ but she was too busy gossiping with Suzie to speak to me. Plus, they gathered up all the good berries!”

The caveman just wants to know, “What is the point?  What is the problem?  How can I solve it?”  He’ll start giving her advice on how to deal with Sally, or where else she could look for berries.  This just makes the cavewoman feel like he doesn’t respect her and feels like she isn’t capable of managing her own life.  Plus he obviously isn’t even listening, or he’d also be enraged at how horribly Sally and Suzie acted.

So, this is the agreement I had with my ex:  Basically, no matter what I say to you at the end of the day, an appropriate response is, “What a bitch!  I can’t believe she did that to you.”

Men, memorize this snippet, and say it if you don’t know what else to say.  Your partner will thank you.  Women, teach your men this little trick.  Also, you might preface your daily report by saying something like, “I don’t need you to solve my problem for me.  I just need to vent.  Can you listen to me vent for a few minutes?”

Now, I just need to find someone to share my Meadow Report with.  I’m fresh out of sabre-toothed tigers, but maybe he could slay the wasps that have taken up residence near my garage.