While there may be minor gender differences that I list below, effective communication with the same or opposite sex depends largely on the level of consciousness development, the perspective, and the feminine or masculine energy of the person you want to talk to (his or her Kosmik Address). Unless you already know, you first need to ask questions and listen. Is he or she focused on survival, safety, respect, order, rationality, sensitivity, functionality, or transcendence? Is he or she relating from a first-person “I”, second person “we”, third person “it”, or fourth person “its” perspective? Is he or she focused on the big picture or details, and connection or autonomy? When it comes to gender differences, we need to be careful not to stereotype. In certain vulnerable situations, females may be more fear-based and males more shame-based. It is therefore important not to scare women or “emasculate” men, otherwise you may go down the fear-shame spiral. Males may rather win the argument while females may focus more on maintaining the relationship. Males tend to interrupt more often and ask more clearly for what they want than females do. Males may tend to fix things when they sense that there is a problem, while females more often listen empathetically and show understanding and compassion. Males may be more focused on maintaining their status and independence while females may focus more on fostering connection. Research also shows that females use more facial expressions to convey feelings and emotions and make more eye contact than males do. In my experience, gender differences are very fluid and play a much smaller role in communication than differences in our “Kosmik Address”.