Philosophy for Life

Why American Relationships Are TRASH with Mina Irfan

• Darron Brown • Season 3 • Episode 16

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What if you could redefine your understanding of femininity and self-identity? What if you could navigate modern relationship dynamics like a pro? Get ready for a deep dive into these topics with our guest, Mina Irfan. A spirituality coach and author, Mina helps women reconnect with their true selves. Her rich Pakistani heritage offers intriguing insights into the differences between Western and Pakistani cultures, including the traditional vetting process for marriages and the power of feminine energy.

Sometimes, society's definition of success can leave us feeling unfulfilled. Mina discusses how Western culture often pushes women towards career-driven success, sidelining the importance of personal fulfillment and femininity. She stresses on the different needs and expectations men and women bring to relationships, and the importance of understanding these distinctions. The discussion also delves into the often-overlooked guidance young men need to make wise decisions in relationships. 

Our conversation concludes with a fascinating exploration of rotational dating and its potential benefits in finding the right partner for marriage. Mina shares her unique perspective on the modern concept of boyfriends and girlfriends and their effects on relationships. Whether you are grappling with the complexities of modern dating, seeking to reconcile cultural differences, or yearning to rediscover your feminine identity, this episode is packed with invaluable insights and advice. So, buckle up and join us in this enlightening journey with Mina Irfan.

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Mina Irfan:

I was like they're so lucky, they get to have boyfriends and they can spend time, like all of this stuff. And then as I got older and saw the hot mess and the depression, the anxiety, the alcoholism, the even prescription drugs nowadays being given like to so many Right, so I'm like wait a minute, if they're so lucky, why are they so unhappy? I tell women to respect their bodies, to respect themselves the more. The more man a woman sleeps with, the less she's able to pair bond, and pair bonding is the ultimate test of emotional and physical health.

Darron Brown:

Hey, what's up guys. I have a great guest for you today. Her name is Mina Irfan. She's a spirituality coach. She teaches women how to Use their femininity to get the things that they want out of life and how to attract the perfect male. Um, mina, can you give yourself a short introduction?

Mina Irfan:

uh, sure, so I would consider myself a Spiritual mentor, a teacher, but, biggest thing of all, I'm a student of life. I have been through a lot of things myself that have forced me to go inwards and do a lot of inner work and, over time, you know, having had results in life. I started sharing that information and I realized, oh my god, other people needed this stuff as well. So Now I have this online youtube channel, a couple of books, over 60 courses, and I help women reconnect with themselves and find their own true voice and, kind of, I would say, also like unplug from the collective unconscious and the hot mess that is going on in the dating culture right now, in the relationship culture. So that's what I do in a nutshell.

Darron Brown:

Okay, so what is your? What is your background? Where are you from? What's your ethnicity?

Mina Irfan:

Sure. So my parents were actually from Pakistan and they're both deceased now, but they were Pakistani immigrants in the united states. So I was born and raised here but had a lot of like going back and forth between the cultures. Thank god, because, uh, I, growing up I preferred my american culture a lot more and it led me down a lot of mistakes and heartaches and a lot of suffering. And it wasn't until I reconnected with my eastern culture, my eastern values and, um, then, studying like evolution Anthropologies, I caused them like, oh my god, like everything my culture says it's true to how homo sapiens have evolved, like that's how we're supposed to live. So, um, I have this unique perspective from both cultures and I I try to bring that into my work.

Darron Brown:

You know, ironically, I'm actually seeing a Pakistani woman and she's from Pakistan. So I'm just curious, like, what is the difference between? What differences in relationships do you see between, um, pakistan and america, like what stands out to you?

Mina Irfan:

the. The biggest thing that stands out to me is that the Pakistani culture it's it's a modern culture but it's very traditional. So basically, they haven't conditioned out of like interdependence and human connection and prioritizing family and relationships and children, and they're very modern but at the same time, like their values are very much rooted in god and faith and surrender, and like marriage is everything. Um, you know, pakistani is mostly Islamic. It's an Islamic nation and in in Pakistani culture and in Islam it's believed that Marriage is half your religion. So, I mean, marriage is like this very sacred thing and we do not take it lightly. It's like it's very near and dear, it's like it's everything. So, um, I would say that if you're dating a Pakistani woman, you know she's gonna be all in like unless she's super westernized and she's prioritizing the western culture, she's gonna have the right values.

Darron Brown:

Okay, you know, um, she, the woman that I'm seeing, is actually not westernized at all, so it's different for me, but I'm enjoying it, I'm having a good time and, um, she's very, um, she's very respectful. I want to know you said you help women find themselves. What do you mean by that?

Mina Irfan:

I feel like the biggest thing for this is like Knowing what you really want and what you truly desire, versus what society's been telling you is important and what you should want and what you should prioritize right Like, for example, I work with a lot of women that are, uh, you know, hyper successful, high achieving they, they, they were the good girls. They did all the things Society told them to do get your degrees, you know, get your high paying job or your career, prioritize making money and getting all of these outward, very masculine Achievements and they did that. And yet they feel unhappy, burnt out, unfulfilled. And then, when they finally do go looking out later in life, they realize that Men don't really care about their degrees, men don't really care about all the things that they worked really hard for. In fact, they may have, lord, their mate value in some regards, because now they're looking at people that could be Really great mates for them, but they're looking down on them because, baby, they're not as successful as they are.

Mina Irfan:

So when I like I can't tell you how many women have come in my container in my work and they were like I, I don't want to be a mother, I definitely don't want to have kids and now they're having babies Because when they went inward and really unplugged with from what they were told motherhood was supposed to be like and started reconnected, they're like no, I do want kids. I do want to be in a happy, robust in our relationship. So Finding yourself Is really making sure that what you're choosing is what you want. I think feminism lied to women and convinced them that we all just wanted this like Overachievement in our life and that everything else was oppression. And that's not what we're wired to want, like our truest desires, our connection, our family, children being surrounded by people we love and so taking back to what they really want in their heart.

Darron Brown:

So what I'm getting from you is that the western culture has basically Stripping women other femininity and convincing them that they will get their. They will get fulfillment through a job, through striving and competing against men in the corporate world. To you, what do you believe true femininity is and what it looks like? I think at women.

Mina Irfan:

Female feminine energy. All of these things are connected and we have evolved to scientifically and then and also spiritually Evolved to prioritize human connection and relationships like family is really important to us. But and I know this firsthand because family was always very important to me and yet, growing up in the united states and wanting Nothing to do with my own, I was embarrassed of my culture. Growing up I I just wanted, like I my parents embarrassed me, like my lifestyle embarrassed me I would go back home, you know, to my parents country. We would go every year and I would see how much just love there was and it just felt just. I couldn't describe it as a child. But now I know I call like everyone's hearts were open and they were just welcoming and some of my real relatives had no money, like they lived in huts. My dad's side of the family was very wealthy and my mom's side of the family was not so wealthy and I, some of my relatives were really poor, like they didn't have a lot but they were, they had open hearts and they had so much love and there was just this feeling of belonging. And then I would come home here and like my parents were out working all day long and like we were home alone for days at a time. We would not see anyone for days, not talk to anyone, and it was just such a big difference like I never saw any of my relatives homes locked back home. People would just their neighbors would walk in and just spend hours talking. My grandmother's neighbors would come and take me oh, mina's here, she doesn't, she would. They would take me, feed me, shower me, tudor me, play with me and like send me home. You can't do that kind of stuff here, right. But then when I would come here, I would also receive messages from my parents. When I would come here, I would also receive messages of how, like everyone's oppressed over there and how that's a third world country and like it's unsafe. But like we would lock our doors here, but we would never lock our doors there. Like your neighbors and your extended family was your safety. Everyone was looking out for you.

Mina Irfan:

So I grew up in this like really weird kind of Dilemma. I wanted nothing more than to be american I. I wanted the Pakistani hyphen to be erased, like I'm just an american, right. But I felt so loved and like something was missing when I like wouldn't I would come back over here. So I did the american thing. I was married in my early 20s. I did it the american way, not the not the box anyway, where your family is involved in the decision and they vet the guy and there's a whole process. And that marriage ended Horribly. It was horrible. I was going through a divorce while I was pregnant with my first. I mean it was I did it the american way and it failed. And those four years afterwards that I was single, single mom, going to school, having my business, watching all my friends who were american also feeling, and then watching All of my boxani relatives, my boxani friends, thriving In relationships. But they were supposed to be the ones that were oppressed yeah.

Mina Irfan:

So it was like this whole awakening process the second time around I did it the right way, I did everything the boxani way and I am in a beautiful, robust, like secure relation, marriage of three beautiful kids, and Now I blend the two cultures. There's definitely things in the western culture that I really love that we don't have in the eastern culture. So I feel like I have a buffet that I get to choose from to make my perfect plate.

Darron Brown:

I hear you. I'm wondering. What I want to know is your first husband? Was he Pakistani?

Mina Irfan:

He was.

Darron Brown:

Okay, and was he americanized Pakistani?

Mina Irfan:

He was not, but he was seeing me for what I was, and it was a green card, what's in? I don't know if you're familiar with this. I think this happens a lot in other cultures too, but one of the things that can happen in my culture is that people that need green cards they target Women that are more americanized, or just american women, because I don't know what the their belief system is, that they're less than that there's. There's their, I don't know they don't. They almost don't even treat you like human. It's like you're someone that you can, you just use. You get your green card, you get your resources, whatever you can grab, and then you dump. And then he went back home, married someone Super Pakistani and like so. So I think it was never. I think and this has happened to a lot of other people that I know In other cultures too, but especially in the Pakistani and Indian community I think that when you're super westernized and you, when you're a strong, independent woman, you're actually a big target for fraud.

Darron Brown:

Okay, and why do you say that is because you don't have as many people having your back like what does?

Mina Irfan:

that happen. I think what I've learned over the years is that Feminine power it's very hidden. It's very strong on the inside but soft on the outside. It's very warm. Right, you have this containment of protection from your father, your brother, as your uncles, like your whole community, your tribe, but when you Claim and classify yourself as an independent woman, you start wearing that Strongness outside, which is actually a sign that you're weak inside. Because why would you need to showcase that I'm strong and independent if you were that right? It's?

Mina Irfan:

People can see that as a cope, they can see that as a mask, and I I've just learned, come to learn that that actually makes you a target, because I work with high, achieving, successful. I'm talking about researchers, scientists, ceos, like the most successful top 1% women of all cultures, and the one thing that they have across cultures is that they're in positions of power. They have money and, because they are independent, they don't value their dad's you know input they don't have men, you know vetting for them, and so they get themselves in situation where Some, like predators, look for these kind of women because you have now. You have money, you have power and You're independent, so you're not going to mess around too much, with your dad and your mom or your, your brother and all the men in your family vetting for you. So you're actually pretty weak when you're strong and independent.

Darron Brown:

That's a great point. You're isolated. Yeah, you're like that, okay.

Mina Irfan:

And you made that decision right. Like you, a lot of times you have your dad, we have your brother, but you don't value their opinion because I had all of those resources available. Like my culture does it that way. And the second time around, like my husband, had to provide my dad three years of tax returns, house papers, his passport, his bank statements, his like you know who his parents were uncles, aunts like the way is traditionally done. That wasn't extraordinary in my culture. That's just the way it is Like. That's just how it's done.

Mina Irfan:

There's an entire vetting process and actually this is my culture, didn't invent that. We never evolved out of it. If you go back to hunter-gatherer days, how did we you know? How did we choose mates? It was people from our tribe that we knew it might be. You know, the guy from the tribe next door that we exchange resources with. When we don't have enough meat, maybe we trade with them and we choose the best hunter from. So we used to marry into people that we knew for a long time and that we had relationships with. Our people knew their people right. This is the first time that we're just randomly choosing people and then we're like basing it off of chemistry and love and all of these fleeting emotions and not checking people for values, and not checking people for our evolutionary needs and what we were supposed to provide for each other, and then we're just, you know, praying that it works. It's funny.

Darron Brown:

You say that because I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I was telling him that you know, yeah, we don't have arranged marriages anymore, but women are still getting dating whoever their friends come to date, and their friends don't have that much dating experience, relationship experience at all. But their parents do you know? So if they're going to listen to their, if they're going to listen to their friends, they're way better off listening to their parents, ones that have life experience and they can actually help you make a better decision. I want to know how does the vetting process look like in Pakistan when a woman yeah, what is the vetting process like for both men and women? How does a man get vetted versus how does a woman get vetted in Pakistan?

Mina Irfan:

So again I'm going to go back to it's the way that homo sapiens have always done it, so we never. So I just want to clarify that Pakistani people didn't crack the code on something new. They just never evolved out of how we've done it. So Pakistani culture is kind of the hybrid between Middle Eastern culture and Indian culture. So we're like the happy medium. We're not very traditional, like as traditional as some of the Middle Eastern cultures and we're not as modern as the Indian culture is, but kind of like safely in the middle. And the way it's done is, first of all, we understand that men and women are different. So we never evolved. We were not modern enough to think that men and women are different. Like we understand that God created them differently. Like if we were to get a blood work panel done for you and me, like if and if the doctor, we switched them and we didn't tell them which, they would know that you are a man and I'm a woman, right, just from our blood work or scanning our brains, like they would know. So we believe that men and women are different and they bring different strengths to the game and they have different weaknesses as well and that together they actually create a whole. So in my culture what we believe is that male nature recognizes male nature a lot more than female, than women. Women are more emotional. We project our our like, the way we think, onto men and think that's how they think. But men don't think like women, think they're wired differently. So in the wedding process the men are very much involved, as if you go back to all of the ancient cultures that we have data on that that have been extensively studied by anthropologists men were very much involved in choosing partners. Like it was, like women might have been involved in more of the arrangements part the fun part but like the decision making was left to men. And there's a good reason for that because men recognize predatory behavior. They also recognize potential. They can see things that women cannot see because they're different. So the way men are vetted.

Mina Irfan:

So let's say let me give you examples from just my cousins a lot of my cousin's weddings, right. So let's say that a proposal. So a woman, when she's of age and typically this will be right when she's graduating from college she'll start getting proposals, and so you might get like four or five proposals from different men at the same time, and a proposal means that a man showed up to your house with his parents and his uncles and his cousins and like as many family members that he could fit in your living room, like that's usually the constraint because we come from large families. So he'll bring his family and then the woman's family is there and they will meet and they'll talk and the guy and the girl, they will see each other in front of everyone and if there's permission from both sides, they might be allowed to go on like a lunch date. But sometimes it depends on how conservative sometimes the cousins might go with or the married brother and his wife might go with, so it's kind of like that. So then the dad will say, okay, well, you know, thank you for the proposal and we'll need a week.

Mina Irfan:

And then the guy's family, like the girl's uncle, might happen to be in the neighborhood of the guy's job and he might just stop by and he might stop by and see you interacting with your colleagues and he you know the, you know your so-and-so's cousin might say, oh, I know his dad. Okay, well, he might go and hang out with his dad for an afternoon and the women in the family might go stand and spend an afternoon with the other daughters-in-law to see how they're being treated. Are they dressed well and what's the culture of their home. Do they cook? Do they have house help? You know, how are the women of the house treated, you know. Are they liberal? You know, are the women allowed to work outside the house, or so there's all of these things that the women look for, and then some things that the men, and then, at the end, you know, the family will, you know, voice their opinions.

Mina Irfan:

And then the girl will say, well, I, you know, I really like that one. And then the you know, the dad might say, well, you know, that one was nice, but you know, we did notice this thing at his work. So are you okay with that? And the mom might say, well, we went to their house, we did notice that they don't have as much help as we have. Are you sure you're willing to like cook and you're going to be okay with that lifestyle? And she might say you know, I really like him, I'm going to be okay with that. So that's how it's a process, but usually it's within when you're of age, within two weeks. Like it's done, like that's the process, like, because, because there isn't. You know, you didn't meet the guy on Tinder, so like you don't have to get to know him for 2000 years and he doesn't have to test drive you in all different seasons of life and do all you know, because it's like the whole family was involved on it.

Darron Brown:

The process that makes sense. The one thing that stood out that you say was that men know how to vet men, and it's the truth. Like men know when a guy is full of shit or if he has like dark traits, you know if he's like hiding something, and I can tell, just based off of Western society. A lot of how we vet people is all about looks. You know somebody dressed? How you? Are you in shape? How do you speak? Do you speak proper? And that just opens up the door for manipulation. Compared to Pakistan, like how do the women here, how would you say the women in the West, are incorrectly dating man, embedding man?

Mina Irfan:

So the number one I teach my students and clients is you have to involve men. I don't care if your dad's not there, involve a pastor, involve it should be an elderly man, and I'm not going to say like, like. When I say elderly I don't mean like 85. I mean it should be a man with experience, you know, at least I would say at least 40 and up, because typically by the time a man is in his 40s he's seen some things, he's experienced some things and he has worldly experience. And he's not going to be, you know, wedding the guy on how much swag he has or what his car is like. You know, like my 19 year old, you know, mom, he drives, you know, a cool car. You know he's not. He's not going to be doing that. He's going to be looking at deeply valuable skill sets that actually are helpful in a long term union and marriage. So my dad used to say that that when you know in our culture, when we buy a horse, we look at seven generations back. So you know that will give you the most like detailed look at someone's history, because chances are that if his dad was, you know, a provider, a protector, you know, a man of integrity. So was his dad and so was his dad, like that's in their bloodline. That's how they've been conditioned. You know he's got a family reputation For, for. And then the other thing that is so cool is that your family Supports you through that marriage. So, for example, I would never do this. But just giving me an example like, let's if I had a thing with my husband, like, let's say, we got into an argument, if I, my parents, aren't alive, but when they were, if I called them and if I said, oh, my god, you know you can't believe what you know. If I said, they're not going to be egging me on, they're not like a lot of people here, they, a lot of my clients will call their friends and their friends will be oh, he's such a loser, I never liked him for you, you're so much better than him. You know your family doesn't do that. They know you, they know human relationships and they understand like these dynamics and they might say, oh, oh, you know well, what did you say and how did you handle this? And you know this happens sometimes in relationships like this is something you're gonna have to learn to communicate like they will. They will.

Mina Irfan:

There's accountability from both sides, and this is very controversial. People always get mad at when I say this, but I'm sorry, shame is a very important component of society that we've had for millions of years and People get mad at me when I say this. But we have shaming, public shaming is like a real thing that's still very much used. So let's say that you know a woman's husband isn't doing right by her. Like let's say that he isn't paying the bills, he's not taking care of her and that's making her stress and she can't really be there for the kids. Okay, he's going to not only be shamed by her family, his own family will be shaming him and saying, oh my god, like what, no one's gonna want to marry your sister now. Like now we're going to be the family that is known for, you know, not being Upstanding husbands, and now no one's gonna want, like there is such an element of Accountability in my culture that you think a million times before you make decisions and I think that that's an appropriate way to be.

Mina Irfan:

For example, I was shamed for for getting divorced, and I believe that was a rightful thing, because it I should have been shit. I chose poorly, I didn't listen to my parents right. I didn't involve my brother and my dad on the decision. In fact, I went against their decision, and If I wasn't publicly shamed for that, my sisters, my cousins, everyone else would think well, this is just the way that we live now, this is what we do. I would have allowed a lot of other people's relationships to be ruined, but me being shamed through that process helped me realize the value of choosing correctly, of sticking with your family, and how making bad decisions has consequences for your family too.

Darron Brown:

No, it makes sense. You know it's funny. I told a friend of mine he's not Pakistan, he's actually Indian and I was telling him because he's seeing a woman and they haven't had a fight yet. And I said, man, whatever you do, when you guys do have that bad moment, make sure the people that you go to fight for her and hopefully the people she goes to fight for you, because you need a unit that's gonna keep you together. You don't want people, you don't want your friends trying to making things worse and then convincing you that your way of thinking is right and then, you know, ruining your relationship, which a lot of people do end up doing. I want to know a little bit more about your sisterhood. I saw on YouTube that you have this like sisterhood program or something like that, where women Meet you at you know various different places, like what goes on at those events.

Mina Irfan:

Oh, yes, my in person intensive. So Basically what I teach in my digital courses, it's similar to that, but there's just something about holding that space for Women in person. So one of the things that I've Realized is that collectively, especially in the West, we have this huge sisterhood wound, and some of it is generational, some of it is just comes from the mother line of our moms. You know, because if you really think about it, last couple of generations is when women went out into the workforce and that essential three-year period that the baby really attunes to the mother's needs and Start seeing her or his place in the world. That system was a broken and because of that broken system there was this lack of Mamta activation, and Mamta in the Indian and Pakistani culture is the word for your natural, god given motherly instincts. So every little girl and and a boy, boys too, in their own regard, but mostly women like girls, are Born this with this Mamta energy, this natural energy, and you notice little girls playing with their dolls and and feeding them. One part is there and the other part of this is Activated through your mom relating with you in a certain way, and then your sisters and your cousins and your aunts and your grandma. This is like maternal love that is Provided for you when, when, in the early formative years, and because a lot of us didn't get that I mean, I know I wasn't able to get that because my parents were the first ones here from both sides, so most relatives were back home and then my mom was working, so I never got that Mamta activation.

Mina Irfan:

And it creates this distrust With other women where you feel like you can't. You want to so badly have female friendships and connect with them on a deep level. But there's also this feeling of can I really trust her? And, and you know, is she jealous of me? And so what we do is when we come together, we try to bring that Mamta energy to each other in a safe place so we can start restoring that feminine bond bonding where we're looking out for each other, where we're giving each other kind advice.

Mina Irfan:

And I used to get a lot of hate for this, but people understand now at least my community that if you come to me complaining about your husband, I'm not gonna. I'm gonna say I want more details, give me the entire situation right, like, because, like if you're triggered right now and you're telling me this thing and I add fuel to the fire. I'm just ruining your relationship. I'm adding spark to it. Next day You're gonna make up with your man, but like I didn't get that opportunity, so now I'm sitting here hating your man when he's a good, kind person, and you guys just had a moment right. So we create this safety and trust among women, so we can start restoring this Mamta energy in each other.

Darron Brown:

I Wanted a little bit more about relationships. So on your YouTube channel you really you mentioned how women choose crappy, basically loser men. You know these high achieving women that you, you work with, like how do they end up with loser, like losers, in the first place?

Mina Irfan:

Because they're basing it on chemistry and looks. I think that Human beings have always had really strong guidance. That's where religion came from, and I think some people really like there's all. There's two types of people in my eyes. Like there was a type of people they're like you know, even when I share like dieting advice, for example, right, there's some people there I'll just mention a few things and then they'll go and study it and they'll customize it. And then there's people there like Tell me exactly what to eat, when to eat it and how much quantity. Like you know, they want the entire plate and like their time set up and that there's a lot more people like that.

Mina Irfan:

And so religion and and then like tribal knowledge that was passed down generation to generation provided this guidance. Right, women didn't have to work too hard to choose a mat, like me. Right, like you Were born and then by the time you were, like you know, a teenager, your parents probably had their eyes on like a couple of people from your tribe you don't have 800 options on websites Like there were a couple people that were like in your age group and, like they, they chose someone and then you were married and then you were given a certain guidance. This is his role, this is your role, this is what we do. It was easy. There was not that much decision fatigue. Well, now we don't have any guidance. We don't trust our parents to choose from us right? We can't trust our hot mess friends, and so the only guidance is choose a high value man. Well, what does that mean? What the hell does that mean?

Mina Irfan:

Okay he has to have a Mercedes and a gold watch and dress nice Well. The truth is that most men who are working really hard, who are providers, who are, you know, trying to get their degrees and save up money, don't know how to dress well. They don't know how to take sexy selfies of themselves and make the best profile Profile right.

Mina Irfan:

They're going to be the ones that Tinder doesn't even promote. They're the ones buried right. My mom used to say that boyfriends will always be more exciting than husbands. Husbands are so boring because they're worried about your health, they're worried about your 401k, they're worried about paying all your bills and they're pretty annoying because they're trying to keep you safe all the time. A boyfriend will come along, sleep with you, you know, have fun with you and leave. He's fun, he's so exciting. Well, that's what women are choosing partners on the fun and the excitement. And how is he dressed? Because who wants to save guy that's trying to balance your checkbook.

Darron Brown:

I hear you. I mean, I know that that's true. A lot of women are vetting guys based off of sexuality sex. How hot is he? What do they, friends, think? What do you think women in the West should be? How should they be vetting their men Like? What trait should they look for?

Mina Irfan:

So let me just go strictly scientific, because sometimes I get lashed back. People say, oh well, you know, isn't Pakistani culture, this Isn't Pakistani, and they're like, oh, or that's your culture, right? The thing is that I try to take the best of every culture right. There's things that I've learned from the Japanese culture when I was studying the blue zones, right. Like I'm like oh, that's what they do to live to 100. Let's do that. Pakistani culture and Indian culture they have a lot of hot messes, like every culture, in their culture.

Mina Irfan:

The one thing that Pakistani culture gets really great, like our divorce rate is 4%. It's like over 50% in the United States. Like the one thing that I would say Pakistani culture excels at is relationships. They're so good at it and if you study it, it's because they never evolved out of our evolutionary history, like I said. So now science, which is only 500 years old, is catching up and they're doing these studies and what they're realizing is some of the things that were considered like outdated values and outdated like ways of being are actually scientifically sound ways to see if a marriage will succeed.

Mina Irfan:

So the two main things I would say is number one is, they say, growth mindset. So what they found is that people who have beliefs, that people are generally fixed like you are, how you are, you cannot be changed and our marriage is doomed because you can't be changed. Like that's just how you are or that's just how I am. Fixed mindset. People have difficulty in relationships because they tend to think that they don't see their marriage as a living, breathing document that's ever evolving. Because they can't see themselves that way. So that would be number one. Secondly, it would be shared values. So you have to have some kind of a commandment system or something that you agree with, whether it's religion, it could be gender roles, it could be something.

Mina Irfan:

Now, when I say values, a lot of people don't even know what that is and they think hobbies, like no, it's not about hobbies. So, for example, my husband and I both agree that the man is the leader of the household, that he is the provider and protector. Whether that's right or wrong, it's completely irrelevant, because we both agree that it's true. We both agree that moms need to stay home with the children and raise them themselves. Whether that's wrong or right, the fact is that we both agree to that. Now, both of those things are scientifically also sound because that's how we've evolved, but we have the foundation so right that it, like my husband, loves cricket. I don't know if you're familiar, but the rest of the world, yeah, it's like so obsessed with cricket. Right, you can't put a gun to my head and make me watch cricket right.

Mina Irfan:

We don't have a lot of hobbies in common. It doesn't matter. He does that with his friends, so hobbies don't matter as much in the long run. But values are everything, and because we don't have religion in the West as much anymore, we don't have gender roles. We're also getting rid of gender, which is super weird and super scary. So then, what are we supposed to base it on? Like, who tells us? Who informs us? What should I be looking for? Well, if I don't know, then I'm just going to choose the hottie on Tinder.

Darron Brown:

Makes sense. You talk a lot about women changing, I guess women saving themselves for marriage. Like, how does a woman in the West do that? Because we have sex everywhere. Women are being encouraged to have multiple sexual partners and if you were to, you know, go against that message. Basically you're being a part of the patriarchy or you hate women. So how do you get a woman from the West to want to date somebody, to vet somebody and to save herself for marriage?

Mina Irfan:

So I've done this with hundreds of thousands of women. So, interestingly enough, I think women innately know this. I thought I was going to look like I have two heads if I showed up on YouTube telling women save yourself for marriage, right, and I you know I'm not coming at you from a very religious dogma kind of place, like I'm talking about it from a scientific perspective. I've actually had a really huge religious organizations contact me saying we love what you're doing because people have lost religion and so they've lost the important things that religion was teaching. And you teach it in a way that's not like sinful or like shaming people in that way so they can understand it. So I thought that was like. I thought I was losing my mind because I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe that they actually appreciate that. So the only women telling women to sleep around, the only people telling women to sleep around, are predatory men, which is a very, very small subset of the human population. It's very loud, especially right now, and they get a lot of attention. So it seems like that's most men, but it's not. It's very easy to think it's most men if that's what you're involved in and playing with, because then you start informing your beliefs around that. But you know, I would say it's like 1%, maybe probably less so predatory men, right like. We know that the whole sexual revolution was one of the biggest like men supporters of that was Hugh Hefner. Why would Hugh Hefner be interested in my sexuality? Who are you? Why are you so interested in my birth control and my sexual rights, unless you're gaining something from that? Because men don't like. Men don't want women to sleep around. Men actually look down upon women. That's like they don't want that for their friends, they don't want it for their sisters, they don't want it for their mother, they don't want it for their daughters, they don't want it for women, they wouldn't want it for any woman like. Healthy men do not want women to sleep around. Okay then then who else is informing you women who are doing that? Because they're they've done it, they've made that mistake and they're so invested in it and misery loves company. And because they've done it.

Mina Irfan:

And I always say to my clients and students look at their life, zoom out a little bit. Because that's what happened to me. I idealized American culture growing up. I was like they're so lucky they get to have boyfriends and they can spend time to like all of this stuff. I got older and saw the hot mess and the depression, the anxiety, the alcoholism, the even prescription drugs nowadays being given like to so many. So I'm like, wait a minute. If they're so lucky, why are they so unhappy? And if Eastern women are so impressed, why are they so happy and provided for? And, like I saw my aunts and my cousins live in their home with their kids, have help, have someone cooking for them, cleaning for them, receiving shopping money, like and these weren't wealthy people, this was just like average people and so but these women are supposed to be oppressed.

Mina Irfan:

So I tell women to respect their bodies, to respect themselves. Like we know from a just DNA perspective that the more, the more man a woman sleeps with, the less she's able to pair bond, and pair bonding is the ultimate Test of emotional and physical health. So if you wanted to know if someone is healthy in every sense of the word from a scientific perspective, do they still retain their God given, evolved scientific ability to pair bond with other people? And if they do not, they something has broken that because they came into the world with that ability. Something happened in their life where that chain was broken. Okay. So, like in a zoo, if an ape or a tiger, some some species, stops behaving out of its nature, they will call an experts and they will have that expert, study it and see what was disrupted in its environment that is now behaving out of its nature. Women sleeping with multiple partners and not being able to pair bond, suddenly not wanting to be married, not being able to keep a marriage, not wanting to have kids is homo sapiens behaving out of nature? That's, it's never happened before. So something is disrupted.

Mina Irfan:

So if we call in experts, if we call in people and give them authority to speak the truth by the way, in the anthropology, evolutionary psychology community, there is a lot of fear about speaking up about this. I don't give a damn, so I just say it but people, there's people that have been canceled for saying things. There's so many people that are learning stuff scientifically with data, yeah, and they talk about it amongst each other and they are terrified of bringing this because of the repercussions. It basically coming to people and saying, haha, sorry, you know how we said about the sexual revolution and all of this. Yes, sorry, we like screwed you up really badly and, like you know this is going to keep impacting future generations. So the we are now behaving out of human nature. We need help.

Darron Brown:

You know they don't talk about this a lot. They always say a man that can get a bunch of women, he's praised. This is a high status male. But honestly, men sleeping around like that, it affects them negatively as well. It affects them spiritually and messes up their head when it comes to actually having that monogamous relationship.

Darron Brown:

One thing to you mentioned was a high value man. I mean the narrative is just crazy. How easy it is to manipulate people. But the narrative on the Internet is that a high value man is a man that has fancy cars, has sleep with a lot of women, he's six over six feet tall, he's jacked. But it has nothing to do with that person's character, Nothing. And I'm just like, your value comes from who you are, not from what you own. One thing that you do mention the whole your videos. That that cracked me up. You said that. What did you say? You said no man's check out. Check out a man's assets, but don't show him yours. Like what's that all about? I mean, I thought in the marriage you're both combining your assets.

Mina Irfan:

So sometimes you have to say, you have to speak the language and say things in a certain way to attract people that need your help the most. Right, and I wasn't good at that before, but I have a new social media manager so I'm getting a little bit better at it. So, however, I also do believe that I would never say something I didn't believe. So a man and a woman brings different assets to a relationship, right? A man that's been raised to be a provider and a protector. I have two sons and a daughter, so I know this firsthand. They start very young, like my son. When he was my oldest one, who's now 19, when he was nine, he started mulling over what he was going to study so that he can provide for his family in the future. When he was going to university it was a whole thing. He interviewed every cousin of his that had gone to college. I'm not going to be able to buy a house with this, and if I do this, then at this age I can get married and then my wife can have kids by this age. So they're trained to be providers since birth. They're born with that in their DNA and then it's activated by other men in the community.

Mina Irfan:

Men raise men, women don't. We know single mother households have a lot of problems, because we need men to raise men. So that's why I'm trying to retrain these women to not look for these faux signs of wealth Nice car, a fancy wardrobe they're looking for these things that anyone can finance on a credit card. Right? $2,000 limit on a credit card can get you your first month's car payment and a nice wardrobe. But if he's actually marriage ready, he's been working at it since he was seven, eight, nine years old, right? So my 19 year old has a business now and he saves every. He budgets himself, he saves. He's starting to think about buying a house, paying it off before he gets married.

Mina Irfan:

So the mindset of a provider is very different. He's coming at it with assets, with something he can provide. That's going to look different. You're coming with your character, with your femininity, with your ability to share your MAMTA energy, with your ability to pair bonds and emotionally keep everything intact. So I say he brings the money, you bring the honey.

Mina Irfan:

And I'm doing this to help women get out of this 50-50 relationship thing, because what they're doing is they're meeting, neither here nor there, men or predatory men and then paying for themselves to be in that relationship and then sleeping with them, and then, years later, the guy has been proposed, he hasn't married and your biological clock is ticking. I can't tell you how many Zoom calls I've sat on, with women crying their eyes out because they're trying to freeze their eggs at 39 and they realize it's too late. Or women in their mid-40s realizing they wasted all their time and they might not have. So I'm like flip, you have a different timeline than a man's and there's a certain things you need to be looking for. So a man that's asking for, like my husband verified my family background right, like he needs to see who my dad is, who my sister is, who my brother is, and he's not going to be looking at my bank statements because that's not what I'm bringing to the table. So that's why it's not going to be the same.

Darron Brown:

Yeah, I get it. I get what you're saying. Basically, both sexes, they look for different things. They have different needs. You know, a man doesn't need a woman as a provider. He already brings that to the table. He needs somebody else that brings, like you said, the honey. They bring a different type of energy.

Darron Brown:

I like what you said about your son. He reminds me of myself. I actually purchased my first property. I'm looking to pay it off, just like what he said. And yeah, just as you were talking, I'll just think it back to myself when I was his age, planning out things, and you know I'm doing a lot of things I said I was going to do. I want to know what advice do you give your son, because I honestly think it's harder and I could be wrong. I think it's hard for young men to find a quality woman in today's day and age, especially when he's that young, because it's like um, there's just sexes, sexes everywhere. It's all over TikTok. I'm sure your son knows about it. He sees it, do you? What do you tell him to watch out for?

Mina Irfan:

So in my culture, uh, you know, there's criteria that a man is given and before that you, you don't consider getting married. That's why he's still focused on his criteria. Okay, I got to have a house, I got to have this. I got to have this because we have to take the proposal for him and the guy's family will refuse to take the proposal If he's not ready, because he's not marriage ready yet, and so he already knows that he has to have certain things in order before we're even going to take the proposal, and without us taking the proposal, there is no wedding. So he's already been raised. He's very much against the hyper sexualized American culture and he doesn't subscribe to that at all.

Mina Irfan:

But again, it's the, it's the family culture growing up. He understands it from a scientific perspective, he understands it from a spiritual perspective and I told him at the end of the day, like I will respect you know, he's a grown man, he can make his own decisions and he's allowed to make his mistakes and learn from them, but he's like no. But when I already see that he follows a lot of like healthy, like level up men's channels and things like that too, he's like no. Mom, I'm already seeing the consequences of men being addicted to video games and men. My son used to play video games up until 17 and then he quit. He's like no, I need those two hours a day to build my business, to work out, to do this. So I think whatever the culture of your home is and whatever your prioritize, that becomes your children's standard. But if you're not having these conversations at home, if this isn't, it's not like a part of your family culture, then your children will have to lean on learning from their friends and their friends don't know.

Darron Brown:

Yeah, exactly.

Mina Irfan:

Like where are they getting their information from?

Darron Brown:

You know yeah, yeah, I'm. I'm wondering. I know that you said your son he's free to make his own decisions and then you know if he makes his mistakes you know he'll learn from them. Are you guys pushing him to date somebody that's traditional Pakistani, that's in Pakistan, or do you not even touch that? Because I would think that I would think that if he does start looking for a woman when he's in his mid 20s, late 20s, 30s, and he doesn't have dating or relationship experience, he could be just like women that can be taken advantage of by predators when they're high atreving. The same thing can happen to men. There's women who are hunting for certain things and you know they could take advantage of your son. So what do you do you guys push any kind of like cultural? Do you do you prefer him to be with a traditional Pakistani woman or American woman, like where you pushing directly now?

Mina Irfan:

So he himself is very traditional, and he he does. Funny thing is he doesn't even find Pakistani women as traditional anymore, like he. His criteria is so high. Can I speak to something else?

Darron Brown:

Yeah he's in.

Mina Irfan:

Romania recently and he's like mom, romanian women are even more traditional and more feminine than Pakistani women. I'm like, I'm offended by that, but he's like no mom they are. They're even more so. I'm like, so his standards are even higher. The thing that I want to say that I want to touch on and we could do a whole talk just about this my husband and I don't understand this. This is so much a part of the narrative, and you just said it. So there is this huge belief system in the West that you need relationship experience to be successful in relationships.

Darron Brown:

That is a lie.

Mina Irfan:

It's a myth. It is not true. In fact, the more relationship experience you have, the least likely you are to be successful. So in my culture you have no romantic relationship experience, no sexual experience when you're going into a marriage. You have relationship experience by relating to your mom, your dad, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, your grandma, your grandpa, your neighbors. You know your neighbors, kids, like there is a very tribal looking out for each other relationship bonding.

Mina Irfan:

You understand relationships, but having experience in romantic relationship is not a good thing. That's actually quite a bit of a negative thing. In fact, there's new data emerging of this that they're actually afraid to release here that I'll speak to just a little bit. I might get in trouble because they're afraid to actually release this information. So they are now finding and they accidentally found us through other studies that when the more relationship experience that especially a woman has, the harder time she has pair bonding with a new partner. So and this is like this was found in her brain, like this is a brain thing Her standard for what she now requires for her body and nervous system to allow her to pair bond gets totally screwed up. It's such a it's very controversial so they're afraid to actually even release this because they know what's going to happen. It's like you told us to sleep around and now you're saying that we're destroyed because of that.

Darron Brown:

I was just about to say that. Does it? Do they distinguish between somebody that's dating and somebody having sex? I do believe that the more sex partners you have, whether you're a man or woman, that does impact you negatively when it comes actually finding a partner. But I get the point that you're saying, because you guys have history, you have a culture that basically proves that point.

Darron Brown:

I think that it depends on how you date, like I think that if you, if you're intentional about your dating and you're serious about it, I think after dating a few people you can tell that you have a good idea what's out there, what's not out there.

Darron Brown:

Like you know, like for me, for example, I know I was a college athlete, you know thought I was the shit, you know, I thought I had a lot of options and I was like, oh, I need to be with this type of woman had nothing to do with her character I had to do with. Like I thought I had to be with some super model. Then I had that experience and just wasn't fulfilling for me and what I realized is that after dating and trying to figure, find a superficial type of person is like there aren't that what I wanted, doesn't really exist, pretty basically, and that because I was intentionally dating and trying to find a wife, I realized, like what you know, what a quality partner actually looked like. I think that probably that's the thing that I think that's the thing that hurts American culture compared to Pakistani culture, because we don't have those elders helping us. We really don't have an idea of what a good partner or a good relationship would even like would look like until we have that kind of experience.

Mina Irfan:

So we learned that from our parents. So, for example, my son says all the time that you guys are my models of what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like and my models of what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like. We're all my aunts, all my cousins, all my Pakistani friends, my Indian friends, my Middle Eastern friends. So that actually burning your hand isn't the only way of learning. I think you can watch someone else burn their hand, be like, okay, don't put my hand over there. So if you're surrounded by healthy people in a healthy society, then you don't have to date a lot of people. And I hate the word dating now. Right, because dating means going home to someone's house and Netflix and chill from meeting them on an app.

Mina Irfan:

You know, courting was keep all his parents to your house, right, that's traditionally. Or you went to dinner with him in a public place where you weren't doing things in private. So nowadays, yes, where we have no healthy role models and we're not putting ourselves in those rooms, people don't go to church anymore, they don't have healthy married friends, they don't have connection with their aunts and uncles. So if you had a lot of healthy models, you would know oh my God, I love how my uncle treats my aunt and, oh, okay, when your husband says this, this is how you talk back to him. This is how you respect your children Like you just learned that these are not things that we had to learn from experience. We learned this from our family units, from our tribe.

Darron Brown:

Now I agree, I've read something similar that within a book. It said that basically a lot of people people who grew up in healthy households, they don't have a problem choosing to help finding a healthy partner, and it's completely true. What I'm wondering now I want to you said that you mentioned this a lot on your channel as well. You say that you're really against boyfriend slash girlfriend's. Like what do you, what do you, what do you hate about that?

Mina Irfan:

Everything. It's not a religious status, it's not a legal status, it's not a spiritual status. There is no evolutionary history of boyfriend and girlfriend's existing and what it does is it starts the pair bonding process without the safety and sacredness of marriage. So if, if you are spending time with someone alone, you're giving this person a title they're supposed to be your person, but not really. I can break up with you anytime. I can leave you. I'm not really responsible for you. We're not a unit yet. So it's like it's what it creates, the dynamic. The dynamic it creates for women and I'll give you the male part too is it would.

Mina Irfan:

It's like if your mom hadn't decided if you, when you were born, if your mom hadn't decided if she was going to keep you or not. It's the closest example of that to our nervous systems and our evolutionary history. Because when we came in, we had a certain level of safety and certainty through our mother's attunement to our needs, and then our mom, you know, had our dad containing her and providing for her so she could be relaxed and and be with us. But if our mom every day was like half in, half out, and sometimes she'd be really loving, but then she was also unsure. Every time you know you were fussy or anything, it would be like I don't want to deal with this. I don't have to deal with this, right, you're not my husband, you're not my wife.

Mina Irfan:

That it's like this really weird kind of disruptive process in the psyche where you don't know where you stand, because in in our evolutionary history, homo sapiens have been monogamous for 3.5 million years. And this, what's fascinating about this to me, is that if you study the the, the of the cultures that we've studied, up to 85% of them allowed polygamous relationships and yet no one did them. Very few people did. I come from Pakistan, which is a Pakistan is a Islamic state, and in Islam, polygamy is allowed, and yet in my 43 years of existence on this planet, I've only heard of one family in a country where it is legally allowed. How come only one person is doing it?

Mina Irfan:

This fascinated me that 85% of cultures allowed it, but no one does it. No one does it.

Darron Brown:

Is that associated with wealth? Reason I access because I have a lot of middle eastern friends and I've been a Qatar and I do know how traditional it is and for what my friend has told me. Yes, people can marry multiple women, but typically it has to do with your income. If you can't afford to have multiple wives, then you don't. I guess you're not allowed to have multiple wives, but does it work? Something similarly in Pakistan?

Mina Irfan:

You have to be able to provide for them equally and the first life has to give you permission. But even if you adjust for that, there's a lot of wealth in Pakistan. It's just distributed the way it's distributed everywhere. They don't do it. They don't do it. Even I know situations where the man should have done it and he was being encouraged to do it and he didn't do it. And the reason for this is because we pair bond. If you even remove Islam from it and look at those 85% of other societies where they allowed it, how come only few people did it? Because homo sapiens pair bond. We like, we want to just be with one person.

Mina Irfan:

Now there is a cheaters gene in our history. You know there is, it's actually been identified. There is a cheaters gene that is guessed that maybe half people, half of the people, have. So there are a few percentage of people that cheat and their wire to do so and of course they can choose not to, but they do it. But mostly we're monogamous and we enjoy that. So what happens in boyfriend, girlfriend situations is we start pair bonding, sort of, but the safety is not there.

Mina Irfan:

So it's like a broken process and then for the men is really dangerous because in all of our evolutionary history, men have never had this type of open access to women. They've had to prove themselves, they've had to become somebody, they've had to show their character, their strength, their providing, protecting, in order to win a mate, in order to earn the right to be a father and a husband and all of these things right Earn the man card, as one would call it. And now we have these men that have not earned that within themselves, going and sleeping with multiple women, having multiple girlfriends, or even if it's a good guy, it's going to switch his conserve energy switch on, which men have more of than women do, and he's going to say, well, if I can get it with the least amount of effort for just looking cute, well then I don't have to get my college degree, I don't have to work hard, I don't have to do all these other things right. So it's dangerous for society, for people to be in these full relationships for men and women and children.

Darron Brown:

I agree. I want to talk about monogamy a little bit because you said that, like we're talking about tradition, and I heard I think it was Esther Perrell she mentioned monogamy and historically monogamy from what she has said, I haven't done my own research Said monogamy was you were with one person for the rest of your life didn't necessarily meant that you had sex with one person for the rest of your life. So do you think, I want to know, do you think it's normal for humans to be, I guess, to have sex with just one person for the rest of their life?

Mina Irfan:

I believe it is and this is what I've seen, Like this is the norm in my culture. Obviously there's bad people in every culture. There are people that cheat, there's people that do all kinds of things, but I see people thriving and not wanting to, even men in my culture that have the status Like when you talk about the right to marry multiple partners being wealth. It's not wealth, it's being able to provide equally. Provide means, housing, food and clothing. Like you know, we're not talking about Chanel and like Mercedes, right Like now on social media it's been blown out of proportion. But providing is this basic evolutionary survival needs, right? Most men that can do it. They just don't. They don't. They prefer to be with one pair bonded partner.

Mina Irfan:

I think right now, if you look at if there's a person that's never been outside of the West, this is all they know and they see this hyper sexualization of society on social media and everywhere around them. I know they can't wrap their heads around this, but people in healthy, committed relationships have no desire to step outside of that. Like it doesn't make sense. It almost invokes a disgust response, Like there is absolutely no need for it. My husband and I were having a conversation about this years ago and he said that this is what separates you from an animal he's like animals just go in and they have urges and they just go meet their urges and they do whatever they want. We're part animal, but we're not all animal. We're also part divine right. We're created in the image of God and we have consciousness and we have awareness and we can separate our animalistic urges from our heart and our emotions and our consciousness. So right now, what's happening is not normal for us. We're behaving like animals.

Darron Brown:

What I will say is this is that a man that is focused, that has purpose and is driven is way less likely to cheat on you to sleep around than the guy that doesn't have anything going on.

Darron Brown:

Most of the guys that I grew up with, friends that I've had from college, the guys that really aren't doing anything in life all of them were like fixated on chasing women, and they're still like that to this day. So any women listening, that's a good tip on how you can vet a guy. I want to know I have a few female friends that I've had fell into this pattern. They'll be in college, they'll meet one guy and they'll put all their energy into this guy and then after five years they're still dating, they're still in the girlfriend phase and that guy still hasn't married them. And most most likely I'm fortunate a lot of times those guys end up leaving them down the road, but occasionally a guy will propose eight years down the road because he couldn't find anybody else. I want to know how long should a woman stay in a relationship before moving on? How should a woman date?

Mina Irfan:

I teach rotational dating, which is a. I've taken the Eastern concept of the way it's done in my culture with the proposal system, the way it would have been done in our homo sapien history, and then modernized it Because obviously these days we want to go out to dinner with the guy, right, we don't want our uncle coming up with us on the date or whatever. So with the rotational dating, what you do is when you're ready for marriage, which I recommend women get married in their 20s. You can have your career in your 90s, right. You can build a business in your 80s. You can get a degree when you're 55, but you can't do certain things at that age that you want to do earlier. So I recommend you start getting you know, prepared for marriage in your 20s, but you can. I also have clients getting married in their 40s, 50s and 60s. So start wherever you are. But what you do is you let everyone that you've ever met your happily married friends, your uncle, your aunt, your pastor, everyone in your church, family, everywhere that you go there's healthy family people like people around at work and you say I am ready for marriage and I'm looking for someone you know that's godly, that's you know, has this, this and this, and I would be open to you setting me up, and I believe that we need to get off the damn apps and go back to the tribal ways, just because the algorithm of the apps has changed too recently I met my husband online on a matrimonial site actually, but that was 15 years ago and my, my mom and my cousins, like they, were introducing people and then I also created that profile. But in 15 years things have changed really rapidly and we have these really sophisticated AI and situations now. So go the old fashioned way. That way, you also don't have to work as hard as vetting someone, because whoever's introducing you is taking half the responsibility. Like they're not going to introduce you to someone that they, at least partly, don't know, right, it's their reputation on the line.

Mina Irfan:

And now already you have this built in vetting process and then what you do is you date three or four men, and when I say date, let me clarify you are never to go to his house. He's never coming to your house. You're not laying down, you're not even going to a movie theater. You are meeting for coffees, ice creams, lunch, dinner. You're seeing him in situations where you can have a conversation to find out his values and how close he is to his family, how he's been preparing for marriage. And you can, you know, show, show your values. And you do this until one guy on your rotation proposes to you.

Mina Irfan:

So I teach women to have the no girlfriend talk. If they want to become you, let them know. I'm sorry, I'm dating for marriage. I don't know what, what. I'm sorry, I'm not understanding what girlfriend means. Could you explain that to me a little bit more? Like it doesn't. It's not a legal status, is not anything right.

Mina Irfan:

So you keep dating multiple men and until one proposes, and when you, when you accept the proposal, he has to go to your you know, if you're you are okay with it, he goes to your dad or your brother or your uncle and then the vetting process starts. And then you, then you, you, you put tape on your mouth and you shut up, because men are better at vetting men, and you let your dad do his thing, or the pastor or wherever you're appointing, and let them go through that process. And then, if that works, then you say yes and then you get married. And then you have sex when you're married, like the way it was supposed to be and then you pair bond with just this one person because you haven't messed up your brain with pair bonding these full ways with all these random people that don't care about you.

Darron Brown:

You know you shocked me when you said the movie thing I love. I love movies. That was something I used to do with my mom growing up. We just like going to the driving movies. But I understand why you say that you can't get to know somebody.

Mina Irfan:

You can't, and Stark and you know you he doesn't like. You don't want to be anywhere where there's a groping touching like these. These are not. You shouldn't be exchanging energy that starts the pair bonding process because that person hasn't earned that yet and he will respect you for that too. I feel like healthy men don't want to jump into bed with you like they want to wait. So I think a lot of women are used to dating those type of men and so they think that you know every man wants that, but they don't.

Darron Brown:

You said that a woman should rotate guys. What if the guy that she doesn't? Because usually when you're dating multiple people there's gonna be somebody you like more than the other person. But what if the guy that proposes isn't like? That's her last option, that was like he was the last on the list. Should she still choose that guy?

Mina Irfan:

Yes, because chances are. If you have trauma in your past or you are bad at choosing relationships are based on chemistry, the one that you were most chemically attracted to was probably not the best one anyways, you know. For women, the interesting thing is that men know right away. My husband proposed in two weeks. We were married in two months. He said he knew the first day. Like they like when they're grown. They know what they want. They know their values. They see their values.

Mina Irfan:

They're like this is it right? They don't take a long time, they'll. You know, if you want to allow them to do certain things, they'll keep doing it. Like they'll conserve energy. But they know right.

Mina Irfan:

For women, trust is a longer process. For us it takes a lot for us to shut off our worry. Gland are on guard gland. For with a man, so, especially if he's a healthy man and he's not like chemically kind of distorting our emotions and our rational thinking skills, it's going to take time, right. So I've had a lot of clients are like but I just don't like him. And then that's the one that they're happily married to and having kids with and fully provided for and living their best life. And because it's like, by the eighth day they're like, oh my god, I've never been treated this way and he's treating me so kindly and we have these amazing discussions. I'm like, yes, because you never let it get that far.

Mina Irfan:

Because the good guys, healthy men, don't typically have the best communication skills. Like men are not supposed to right. Like we know scientifically, women use 20,000 more words than men. Do we speak earlier. We mature early emotionally. Men are not supposed to be great at communicators. They learn this over time. So to me, the biggest red flag is a guy saying all the right things and like coming at you knowing exactly what to say. Like that's shady. Because like who have you been practicing on? So the nice guy, it takes time. It takes time with the healthy guy, especially if you're not used to healthy men being around you.

Darron Brown:

Gotcha, we're going a little bit over, but I want to ask you two more questions. The last one you have a book called Lady Balls cracked up when I heard that title. Could you talk a little bit about your book?

Mina Irfan:

Yes, it's copied up on 11 11 2003. I'm sorry, 2023, I keep saying 2003. Lady balls overage. So I talk about in the back of the book. In the back cover I talk about how women these days we've been talked to represent ourselves using male narratives, right. So like men, where their power on the outside, right it, shows up in their physical body on the outside. And the female balls, the feminine balls, are overage. They're hidden. They're so hidden that I had to explain to some of the people freaking out over my books title that women do have lady balls. They're called overage. They didn't know. So I'm like our power is so mysterious and so hidden that we have forgotten it.

Mina Irfan:

So in this book I talk about that innate quiet, more knowing, more mysterious feminine power. And I also talk about how good, kind-hearted, healthy people need to be dangerous. They need to be savage to predators that what's happening is there's a lot of predatory people right now making the headlines late, taking leadership positions because they haven't evolved out of that dark energy. And then there's all these other kind-hearted people. They're like turn the other cheek and you know people pleasing and appeasing each other and we know from studying predators that they target weak family units. So when convicted serial killers and rapists were asked how did you choose your victim, all of them said weak family unit. They can smell trauma, the lack of a father, the lack of a family structure and containment on you. I'm a victim of child sexual abuse, so this is especially important to me because I go back and I'm like, oh my god, if my dad wasn't emasculated and, you know, being an immigrant, whatever he went through like. I'm not blaming them. I know they had a very hard life, but I wouldn't have been a target if my family was presenting itself as a stronger family unit.

Mina Irfan:

So one of the things I'm really committed to doing is restoring, first of all, feminine power so we can choose wisely. Right, because a good mother starts before she chooses her partner. You don't become a good mother after you have kids. You become a good mother with the man that you decide is going to be your husband, right, the man you're going to lay down with. And these days we're just.

Mina Irfan:

You know like I cannot even, coming from my culture, conceive of a person like in my 43 years I've never heard of a Pakistani woman having a child out of wedlock never. Maybe it's happened somewhere once. I don't know. I've never heard of it in 43 years. Yet in the US, most, most of the people I know here have kids out of wedlock right. So what that's what you're doing is you're already setting your child up to be a target. You're already putting a sign on their forehead that makes them super attractive to predators. So restoring that feminine power to choose wisely and then allowing men to be men in our household, letting dads be dads, and then letting our field that we create in our family unit be so strong that predators not only choose to skip our home, they choose to skip our neighbors home, because we are all looking out for each other, and my biggest message with this book is that we need healthy people to step into their power to choose wisely, make better decisions and then take care of each other and and preserve that family unit.

Darron Brown:

Me now. Last question always asks my guests is at the end what is your philosophy for life?

Mina Irfan:

I would say human connection. That's the biggest sign that you are healthy and that's the one thing that took me the most inner work to do, because I had lost that through my trauma. So I would say, if you have the ability to pair bond with at least two or three people in your life whether it's your mother, you know, your husband and a friend, you're healthy. Like, use that as a gate, and if you have no one that you're ever pair bonded with, then that's a sign that there's inner work to do. And go and do that inner work, because life is more colorful when you have people on your team that are looking out for you and that you're looking out for. And I think that's what we're here to do, that's what we're wired to do, that's what makes us spiritually happy. So I would say human connection is my philosophy.

Darron Brown:

Nina, thank you for being a guest on the show. This was a great interview. It went by, honestly, time went by fast and I learned a lot about the dynamics between America and Pakistani culture. Thank you for being a guest on the show and any last words, thank you for having me.

Mina Irfan:

I really appreciated this conversation and you're right, it did go by really fast. I would actually love to have you on my channel as well, whenever you're ready.

Darron Brown:

Definitely. Just let me know we can make it happen.

Mina Irfan:

Awesome, thank you.

Darron Brown:

Alright, take care, have a good one. Bye.

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