'What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine'
Susan Sontag
Recently, the theme of masculine and feminine has been very current in my life … I would like to say I am not referring here to gender… I am referring to aspects of the psyche… energies within the self and my understanding of it which is based on personal observation, experience and reading that I have done.
The first time, I came across it was when I was into analytical psychology, Carl Jung and archetypes, Jung says that every woman has a male side that is called Animus and every man has a female side, Anima.
According to Eastern Philosophy, two forces make up the universe which is ‘Yin’ - passive feminine element and ‘Yang’ - active masculine element.
If we look at the theory of two cerebral hemispheres the right one is responsible for intuition and creation… here the ideas are born, the left one is responsible for analytical and logical thinking.
WE NEED THEM BOTH, IT IS NECESSARY!
When two aspects/energies are in peace with each other, we can move towards more harmonious development in our life.
Firstly, I would like to take a closer look at masculine and feminine aspects within the self and characteristic of these two energies. Then I will focus on what could happen when one of them is suppressed or out of balance and how it might manifest in life.
Last, not least I explain how the integration of two of them might help us in our life to live fully; I will share an example and offer an exercise which you can downloaded.
MASCULINE & FEMININE WITHIN US
Feminine within
It is the energy of creation, it is related to intuition, emotions and subconscious mind. This is where the ideas are born, it is this inner voice which comes from the depths of our being and tells us 'Come/go this way', 'Come here, trust me'... listen to it carefully it will be your perfect guide in your life. Feminine is stimulated by creative impulse and communicate it with feeling and masculine acts by the following command.
Masculine within
It is the energy of action, it is related to intellect, logical thinking and conscious mind.
It is about our ability to perform activities in the physical world. This is the voice inside which tells us ‘What is the next practical step! It is time for doing/practical move! That’s enough of talking! ... Very useful when it comes to implementing our ideas into a physical reality. It motivates us to take the next step and act.
OUT OF BALANCE
So what happens when these energies are out of balance?
In this case, each of these energies acts against us in a way that might be harmful, destructive to us and keep us stuck.
Masculine out of balance
When masculine energy is presiding and dominant, it suppresses and controls feminine intuition instead of developing and expressing it.
This energy desires to be in power and aiming for individuality and separateness at all costs.
It might be expressed in aggressiveness and violence, often is terrified by the feminine energy.
This might manifest in someone as very composed, emotionless... like a machine, cut off from feelings… often feel lonely and lost.
Feminine out of balance.
When feminine energy is dominant within, out of balance and not integrated with the masculine It plays out as a helpless victim, wants to be saved, can not stand up to life, can not face life. The person might live with ideas in the dream realm, unable to move on and translate them into action. Sometimes it might go two ways for individuals with imbalanced energy: they either become too passive (too much feminine) or become a tyrant, manipulative with outbursts of uncontrollable anger (suppress feminine)
IT IS ALL ABOUT BALANCE
We need them both and their cooperation in our life, we need to get to know them well and to make friends with them and in the process, it will help us discover the source of powerful inner strength.
I would like to share a simple example of feminine and masculine energies in action from my personal life:
The theme of masculine and feminine was floating around my awareness for while. ( I was revisiting them as part of my process) One morning I got up around 4.30 am and again this theme came to my mind.
Suddenly I had this idea: write the post on your blog about it, ( that's feminine) I put this in my notes (app under ‘Ideas') and I went to sleep again. In the morning I got up, I had my breakfast and cafe and I started writing without too much caring my English or grammar, it was effortless… and I finished (that's masculine).
EXCERCISE
I have got a free exercise which you can download, it will help you discover which energy is the dominant one within yourself and which one requires more attention and working on it - this is a very important first step in the process of balancing masculine and feminine within the self.
Hope you find this useful.
Thank you
Gosia
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