Jennifer Granger - Feminine Lost: Why Most Women are Male

Copyright 2013 by Jennifer Granger

All the stories and case studies in this book are merely illustrations of composite situations that the author has experienced in her practice. They are not about any one specific client and no real names have been used. This book is not intended to offer any kind of advice as a professional service. Anyone who is experiencing any mental or physical discomfort should consult a medical or psychological professional. The author and publisher disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

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FIRST EDITION

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DEDICATED TO MY HUSBAND IGGY SOOSAY

AND MY SON ROBERT GRANGER.

THANK YOU.

Contents

SHE SAYS: LETS STOP AND GET DIRECTIONS.

HE SAYS: NO, ILL FIGURE IT OUTWELL DRIVE ON.

OUR FEMININE MAY BE LOSTBUT NOT FOREVER

Over the past sixty years, the lines between the sexes have blurred to such a degree that it is not surprising that we are not sure who is on whose team anymore. Women are increasingly competitive and combative, acting more like men in so many ways that it has thrown off any balance todays woman may have hoped to achieve. On the other hand, men are becoming ever more bewildered, not knowing when or where or how to act like a man. Going on a date is not a simple thing anymore. Who knows what is expected or how the other person will respond to a simple gesture? In the boardroom and the bedroom, its a new world out there. Societal changes have caused the traditional male and female roles to be eroded and transformed to such a degree that supposedly, anything goes! But in truth, very little is actually working. Just ask yourself, or any of your friends, Are you truly content in your intimate and interpersonal relationships? Or ask anyone in the stream of people who have come into my office over the past fourteen years.

Why use my office as a barometer? Well, during the past fourteen years I have been offering transformational coaching not just in my office in an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia, but over the phone and on Skype, connecting with unhappy, unfulfilled, and unsettled men and women all over the world. Ive worked closely with clients from Sydney, New York, Los Angeles, Monaco, Singapore, London, and all kinds of places in between.

Let me hasten to point out that while my clients have some things to resolve, they also tend to be successful and accomplished. Most of them are involved in creative careers, or theyre using their considerable talents as leaders within large corporations, charitable entities, or their own vibrant companies that they run as entrepreneurs. They come to me because they are struggling to make sense of their lives in these tumultuous times. They dont know exactly whats missing, but they know it is something important. They seek deeper meaning in their lives, knowing that material success is hollow if it is not partnered with a substantial knowledge of self and satisfying relationships at home.

Over the years, I have seen and heard it all. While my focus with clients almost always starts with what is wrong at work, very quickly we shift to their personal lives and end up doing most of our work in that realm. Nine times out of ten, their struggles seem to center on intimate or interpersonal relationships that are out of balance and creating havoc. Trouble at home or inside themselves bubbles over into struggles at work, and as with so many things, one situation needs to be fixed before the other can improve.

DEFINING A NEW WAY FOR MEN AND WOMEN TO RELATE

As clients explained the issues they were having, I began to see that they fell into different categories, or types of people, and when they described the challenges they were having with a spouse, friend, co-worker, or boss, I could see those people as types as well.

It was easy for me to be sympathetic to my clients and their struggles because I had run into many similar problems, finding myself up against many of the same difficult types of people during my corporate career. I had spent twenty-five years working as a director of marketing for a number of multinational companies, and as I traveled around the world for work I had met all kinds of challenging personalities, many bent on controlling everything and everyone.

Drawing on my years as a corporate insider and more than a decade as a transformational coach, I started seeing the dynamics between men and women ever more clearly, and a new inner male-female paradigm began to unfold. I came to understand why interpersonal relationships had become such a horrendous minefield, and why previous coping mechanisms no longer seemed to work for the men and women I was coaching. They needed a new way to understand and bridge the gender gap that was becoming a canyon. They needed to figure out how to deal with new personality types that had emerged from the seismic societal changes that followed World War II.

This book is my way of sharing what Ive learned. I will give you a bit more of my own story as we go along, but the focus here will be on how your life can and will improve when you start seeing the people around you for what and who they really are. This knowledge will help you get to know yourself and your own motivations too, because there is both inner and outer work involved in understanding this new paradigm.

LEARNING TO SPEAK THIS NEW LANGUAGE

New ideas demand new language, and I will be explaining my terminology more fully in . You will also see that the foundations for the new concepts I describe are as old as our most ancient civilizations. Over the centuries, spiritual wisdom and insight have shone a light on the true internal workings of the human beings that we are. When I take those universal concepts and overlay them on what were seeing today, much of the way men and women interact on a daily basis becomes clear.

As you learn about these archetypes, you will start to see yourself, your associates, your spouse, family members, and friends in a different light. Youll see a new way of understanding men and women and how they interact, and you may react in the same way so many of my clients do: Oh, that explains a lot!

OUR TRUE NATURE DOES NOT LIE

In my work Ive identified several modern categories of men and women in our world today. Other archetypes do exist but my focus is on the various types of male-oriented women and on taking a broad view of their male counterparts who are more femininely oriented than ever before. Its like a soap opera: what goes on between these modern archetypes! Bad behavior? Bullying? Manipulation? Playing the martyr? Its all there. You might wonder how some people live through each day as takers and fakers, but by the end of the book youll understand whats going on. You will be much more able to see through the freeloaders, the abusers, and the power grabbers. You will be able to identify someones essence when you first meet them, so you can pursue meaningful connections while avoiding a host of bad dates and unwanted heartache.