Superhero stories call us to be greater.
Understanding the influences that are affecting your relationship, such as childhood wounds, coping strategies, masculine and feminine states can be fuzzy at first. Superhero stories often have characters that demonstrate these.
Here are some great superhero movie moments that help us to clarify what we need to do to call us to embody positive states that will enable us to create an amazing relationship!
#1 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Professor Bravestone “Smouldering Intensity”
Just like the video game characters of Jumanji, we each have unique strengths and weaknesses that we bring to the relationship. Understanding how to use these for the good of the relationship can be powerful.
Utilising “smouldering intensity” from a masculine state can make a huge difference to the quality of your relationship. When you’re listening to your wife each day, this is what she wants from you. She wants your full focus and attention and to feel like you’re transfixed by her.
When she feels this, she feels safe in the relationship. It may enable her to unload stress she’s been carrying, it may allow her to express her appreciation to you. Being her “Rock” – there for her, whatever emotion may arise for her, will allow her to feel connected and in love with you.
#2 Avengers: Age of Ultron
Black Widow and Bruce Banner – “I need the other guy”
In the “Age of Ultron”, Bruce Banner has been practising controlling his anger, to prevent him from turning into “The Hulk” at the drop of a hat, and hurting the people he loves.
Learning to control your anger, for both men and women, is important in a relationship. However, channelling it into passion, is a more useful way of doing this, rather than completely shutting it down.
Sometimes when you try to share your heart with your partner, you might catch him off-guard. He might see it as a personal attack and become defensive or aggressive.
When we were starting out in the masculine and feminine, I would sometimes preface my share with Tim, warning him that it was coming, to give him time to suit up and get into masculine state (passionate focus). I’d ask him if I could please get out some words about things that were on my heart and that I just needed him to listen so that I wouldn’t be holding them as resentment between us.
Asking for his help (even to share what’s on your heart) is a part of feminine state that calls him to be there for you.
If you do find that you’ve caught him off-guard and he’s taking it personally;
- Choose to love him the way he is. That ordinary guy who’s in life with you, day in, day out. Like Natasha Romanoff says to Bruce Banner, “I adore you”.
- Check your state and do your best to share from a state of vulnerability, rather than attack.
- Remind him that if you’re sharing anything, it means you feel safe with him, and you need “the other guy” (aka his superhero) to be there for you right now.
Alternatively, you could try pushing him off a cliff and see if that works!
#3 Thor: Ragnarok
Thor – “because that’s what heroes do”
I love how the hero of this movie doesn’t always get everything right. Sometimes it’s like this when we’re looking for the superhero inside our partner. All we see is the bumbling idiot. But notice that it’s not getting it right all the time or knowing exactly the right thing to do that makes Thor a hero. It is the fact that he keeps getting up and trying again, until he gets it right. His focus is set on the goal, and he doesn’t allow mistakes, embarrassment, or set backs to put him off.
Set your focus on the goal of having a great relationship today. Then, no matter how many times problems arise, you make mistakes, or your partner doesn’t respond the way you think they should, choose to keep coming back to the tools of a great relationship. If you’re a man, come back to listening without fixing. If you’re a woman, come back to sharing your heart vulnerably without censor.
You won’t get it right every time, but you will keep going until you obtain the goal – intimate connection with your partner.
#4 The Dark Knight
Batman: “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.”
At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman volunteers to take the blame for the deaths of people caused by Gotham’s hero (secretly gone-bad) Harvey Dent. He chooses to be rejected and hunted for this, rather than expose the real culprit, in order to preserve Gotham’s faith in humanity.
Men, you are The Dark Knight in your relationship.
When she’s unloading on you, in that moment, it may not make you feel like her hero.
But she does it because you’re the hero she needs right now.
Because you’re willing to be whoever she needs you to be – to be painted as the bad guy if necessary – in order to carry the weight for her.
Not because you did anything wrong, but because you can take it.
This is the ultimate sacrifice you make for her, it is the way you become her hero and win her heart.
#5 Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman – “Renounce Your Wish”
In this movie, the male character featured in the clip has discovered a way to grant one ultimate wish to every person on earth. The catch? He takes their most desirable possession/characteristic.
We each come up against a struggle between two desirable options. We want to hide in the security of our coping strategy that we’ve adopted to protect us from our childhood wound, AND we want to overcome our negative coping mechanisms and be there for our partner in the face of fear.
I’ve wanted more than anything to be impressive, to be captivating, get everyone’s attention and be somebody really great. This is what my arch-nemesis (coping strategy/ego) believes will earn me the love of people around me. But every coping strategy has a price.
Focusing on getting love in this way has caused me to belittle and criticise Tim in an attempt to outshine him. This has caused a lot of conflict and resentment in our relationship.
We each have a dark side to our personality. Something that would selfishly keep love for ourselves instead of giving it out to others. Our task, if we want a great relationship and a great life, is to shine a light on this part of ourselves. To acknowledge it, and understand the toll that using it is taking on our relationship. Then we need to choose, instead of aiming to get love (which every coping strategy does), to give love instead.
So take a long hard look at yourself and your relationship, and look at what your coping strategy is costing it. “You must be the hero. Only you can save the [relationship]. Renounce your wish, if you want to save [your relationship].”
This is the only true path to overcoming your wound. “You are not the only one who has suffered, who wants more, who wants them back, who doesn’t want to be afraid anymore, or alone or frightened or powerless.”
The way to find freedom from your wounded need to hoard love, is to choose to focus outside of yourself and give love. What can you give to meet your partner’s needs today, without fear that they haven’t met yours?
Learn Masculine/Feminine State Relating @ The Relationship Workshop!
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