A.A.A. - Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energy

Just recently I was having a conversation about masculine and feminine energies with someone new to the topic. The conversation was fascinating and it highlighted how confusing this topic can be.

It also reminded me of some of the cases I came across, where the masculine and the feminine were out of balance and created disruption.

MARY

Meet Mary (name changed to preserve anonymity). She is a powerful and successful corporate woman. Throughout her life she has fought hard to succeed and achieve.

She is fulfilled in her career and juggles her corporate responsibilities with being a mother, a wife and a lover. Mary is struggling in her roles as wife and lover.

Her corporate environment is strongly masculine and to succeed she has had to adopt the same energy. In fact, she often refers to herself as “one of the boys”.

At work she is in the masculine, she’s focused on execution, goals, control and power. When she goes home, she would love to get out of the driving seat, but doesn’t know what it would look like or how to do it.

JOHN

Meet John (name changed to preserve anonymity). John is a powerful and successful executive who has direct responsibility for a large portion of his employer’s balance sheet.

John is a sensitive man and has learnt through decades of corporate life that focusing on drive and execution will be rewarded, focusing on creativity and intuition will not.

He feels trapped into a way of being that is not fully him. Until recently, John couldn't pinpoint the source of his discomfort, but he now realises his craving to be in the creative and intuitive. Despite his realisation, pressured by external forces, he doesn't allow himself to move into them.

ADAM

Finally, meet Adam (name changed to preserve anonymity). Adam is a father of two, a husband and a business owner.

Adam is a modern man; he embraces all his roles and happily shares all responsibilities with his wife.

Adam was brought up to be always respectful, especially of women; he believes that his wife is a delicate treasure that must be handled carefully at all times.

Recently, he became acquainted with his inner “caveman” and is struggling to find ways to bring him to life. He secretly wishes to “ravish his woman” but is riddled with feelings of guilt and shame for even thinking like that.

MASCULINE AND FEMININE

Before exploring how we may go about redressing the balance, let’s briefly clarify what we mean by Masculine and Feminine energy.

There are many definitions, the one I like can be summarised by the diagram below (source: soulselfliving.com).

Masculine is the energy of Power (Strength-Weakness) and Feminine the energy of Love (Caring-Uncaring). I am not particularly bought into the percentage splits, but the quadrant is particularly useful in visualising this complex system.

We immediately realise that both men and women own and need both the Masculine and the Feminine. Regardless of gender, one energy would typically be predominant, and often they get out of balance.

REDRESSING THE BALANCE

When we get stuck on one or the other side of spectrum, we are effective in the areas that suit our predominant energy, but ineffective in those that require the opposite. Learning to move fluidly between our two sides can improve our lives, relationships and careers in many ways.

There are multiple ways to redress the balance, and to get us started right now, I want to offer three stages that you can begin by yourself:

1. Acceptance

2. Awareness

3 Action

ACCEPTANCE

Conditioned by the environment, uninformed about the nature of energy, and fearful of what it may mean in relation to their identity, many repress the less powerful energy's attempts to emerge.

We need both energies to be integral human beings. Accepting that we are made of both Masculine and Feminine will open the door to a fuller integration.

AWARENESS

The impact of repressing what wants to emerge often leads to our becoming deaf and blind to what is 'knocking on the door'.

Reconnecting to the here and now, and remaining alert to our experiences will sensitise us to the signals coming from within.

Recognising these signals provides the opportunity to address the need.

ACTION

Equipped with the opportunity to address our needs, we can finally take action.

The nature of the action is irrelevant, it can be big or small, short or long term, free or expensive...the most important aspect is that the action builds you towards your goal. Cumulatively all of the actions together will eventually amount to significant change.