Complimentary Aspects
“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” ~Susan Sontag
As I observe the dissolution of the prevailing hyper-masculinized paradigm, as our global culture begins to shed the proverbial snake skin, I question what impetus will galvanize a more balanced expression of feminine and masculine energy. Since the mass embrace of patriarchal religion humanity has experienced a cascade of segregation; most maliciously a segregation from self and nature physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Humanity’s segregation has promoted the dominating values of competition, conflict, control, and censorship. These over emphasized masculine aspects perpetuate imbalance and a negative feedback loop continuously pitting one segment of society against another. The result being entrenched fear mongering prostituted as the patriotic slogan “us versus them.” The successful reconciliation between feminine and masculine energy at the collective level is contingent on those aware of the power of compassion, empathy, acceptance, forgiveness, and love to create a space conducive to healing. The collective healing necessitates a profoundly personal introspective process that must begin with both women and men healing their own feminine aspect.
Feminine and masculine energy (or aspects) are gender neutral concepts that illustrate relational states of being. Women and men have both feminine and masculine energy; neither can exist without the other and the optimal state is to have the energies balanced. These energies transit through our lives in religion, think Yin and Yang; psychology, think left brained and right brained; and nature, think water and fire or light and dark. Characteristics typically applied to feminine energy include intuition, nurturing, healing, emotion, feeling, receiving, creativity, expression, dreams, and the unconscious. Additional terms that I perceive as representing feminine energy include connection, communication, consciousness, community, collaboration, and compassion. Characteristics typically applied to masculine energy include logic, reason, linear, literal, competition, individualism, thinking, and doing. These broad characterizations are intended to provide a segue into a more nuanced understanding of how these aspects present themselves and how they have been caricaturized in modern society. How are these aspects reflected at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and collective levels of engagement? How has the caricaturization impoverished us as individuals and as a global community?
When assessing feminine energy at the individualistic scale, it has been suppressed in both men and women due to a cultured perception that it is inferior and weak. How often have we been derided for being “overly” emotional, can’t you contain how you feel, be rational, why are you crying, boys don’t cry, no one cares how you feel, this isn’t the time and place for emotions, etc. Emotion is often disparaged as an unnecessary byproduct that needs to be shunted, shelved, suppressed, and stored for later. Yet, to experience emotion is to be human. Emotions are the embodiment of the water element; emotions are fluid, ebbing and flowing, adapting to circumstance and situation. Emotion is a profoundly feminine way of experiencing life because of the inherent vulnerability; how we feel, admitting to feeling, allowing ourselves to feel, and expressing those feelings is daring, exposing. Exposing our soft sensitive spirit is to risk, is to be uncomfortable. Our conditioned proclivity is to be comfortable and emotions are anything but comfortable. Emotions are messy, confusing, disturbing, irrational, jumbled, chaotic, uncontrollable, and uncomfortable. Even pleasant feelings can be uncomfortable. Yet, our greatest moments of connection, relating to another being are when we are willing to be vulnerable and share our emotions.
When we deny our emotions, dam the river, ignore the rising waters, eventually the torrent is unleashed and often times results in a catastrophic experience. Explosions of rage, tirades of unpleasant vocabulary, uncontrollable shaking or crying may be the biproduct of suppressed emotions. More oft than not even the deliverer of said outbursts is not even aware of the origin. Conversely, even if we manage to manipulate our emotions and suppress them, our emotional denial may manifest as a physical ailment. How often has a failure to give voice to a nagging emotional situation subsequently resulted in a cold, fever, sore throat, or perhaps something more debilitating? If we think of emotions as energy, any intense build-up of energy needs an outlet. Even “positive and pleasing” emotions such as joy and happiness need to be acknowledged and suppressed. How does it feel to be super excited to see a friend or family member after a long time and to just casually greet them or hug them? Definitely not satisfying when everything in your body is jumping up and down with ecstatic elation. Emotions are incredibly powerful and an amazing aspect of living life in a body. Emotions are testament to power of the feminine. Our aversion to our emotional experience and nature shunts us from fully embodying and embracing life.
The prevailing paradigm of separation and segregation persists because of an ingenious shellacking of emotion. Manly men are tough, don’t share their feelings, don’t cry, and beat their chests in a false sense of bravado. The only socially approved emotion for men is anger or rage. This is promoted in various violent outlets including video games, UFC, and glorification of military endeavors. Men who express their emotions and feminine aspect are often dismissed and demeaned as less then as well as subject to violent persecution. Equally, women masquerade as men having been conditioned to play the man’s game, be in the big boys club, and only concern themselves with quantifiable achievements (aka climb the corporate ladder). Women are taught that true leadership is strong, opinionated, aggressive, and uncompromising. Women who express their emotions and feminine aspect are often demeaned in association with the menstrual cycle, demeaned as being wallflowers, or are demeaned as sexual objects. The overarching cultural message is that emotion is a handicap and has no value in a competitive monetary driven society. Men and women are merely shells of our real truth because we deny an inalienable component of our humanity.
Concurrently, on a global scale the collective has relegated feminine energy to a sideshow act, an antiquated hiccup in the proverbial march to success, albeit only material. The collective mischaracterization and denigration of the feminine perpetuates the exaggerated unhealthy glorification of the masculine. Masculine energies dominate the modern technological, Capitalistic, corporate, materialistic, egoistic, competitive, conflict, control, scripture, and censorship driven world. Subsequently, masculine energy has metastasized into a cancerous agent (growth for growth sake) on a global scale that is contributing to ecologic, social, economic, and spiritual collapse. The disproportionate emphasis on masculine attributes is not only undermining the very fabric of humanity and the capacity of humans to be humans but it also undermining the capacity of the Earth to sustain life. Our behaviors are more akin to short-circuiting androids rather than those of beings capable of compassionate, cooperative, and collective relating.
From a personal perspective, in the past it was easy for me to identify with my masculine energy. I have lived my life based on logic, reason, the need to achieve goals and success whether material based or knowledge based, I have been driven to substantiate an outside perspective that in order to be I needed to do. In a misguided attempt to ascribe to the prevailing societal definition of success, identity based and not relational, I consciously suppressed my feminine attributes most notably my emotions. How I felt, why I felt, and the importance of feeling was denied because it was messy, chaotic, dark, uncomfortable, and irrational. The continuous denial of an integral aspect of myself was unconsciously contributing to my own self destruction. I had to reconcile within myself that emotions are an integral component of what it is to be human, like a raindrop in the sea they embody the human experience. Humanity does not exist without joy, love, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. Honest heartfelt connection with oneself and others cannot exist without emotion. Without emotion we are zombies, life degrades to the living dead.
How do we as individuals, families, communities, and the collective of humanity reintegrate the feminine aspect into our lives? The act of reconciliation is a profound process of mindfulness and compassion. Mindfulness, acknowledgement of the present experience without judgement, is the first step to bridging the chasm between the overemphasized masculine and the underrecognized feminine. When we bring awareness to what has been denied or suppressed (emotions, feminine aspect) we begin to remove the veil of illusion and open to the curiosity of experience. Compassion is genuine concern for our suffering and the suffering of others as well as a genuine desire to alleviate the suffering. Both mindfulness and compassion awaken and touch our most essential essence, the true goodness of our heart. To touch our heart is to be guided by the power of love. Both mindfulness and compassion are based on opening to the full experience of being human; mind, body, emotion, and soul. Opening to fullness of being human requires profound honesty, openness, willingness, vulnerability, and commitment. Mindfulness and compassion equally embrace both our unique natural talents and gifts as well as those attributes that make us fallible. The path of mindfulness and compassion is a life long journey, it is progress not perfection, and it is liberation. When we cultivate mindfulness and compassion we are not shackled to limiting stories of the past, we are not bound by old roles or ideas, and we are not zombies going through the motions of living. Mindfulness and compassion reconnect us to our feminine aspect and empower to live in the now.
How many of us yearn to express our truth? How many of us yearn to be accepted in our entirety? How many of us yearn to share our emotions with someone who is genuinely present and willing to hold space for us? How many of us yearn to be comfortable holding the space for another to express and explore their personal emotional state? Though oft repressed and ignored to our own detriment, the feminine aspect is an integral component of being a whole human. Assimilating our feminine aspect into our lives gifts of us with the capacity to consciously experience all the dimensions of the human form. Concurrently, cultivating a greater awareness of our nurturing, caring, and compassionate nature is essential to overcoming interpersonal, intrapersonal, familial, community, national, and international discord.