Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energy

In today’s post I wanted to talk about masculine and feminine energies.

I think this is such a crucial topic that really brings everything else we learn together, because whatever practice we do comes back to balancing these masculine and feminine sides to ourselves.

If you’ve spent any time in the spiritual community you’ve heard reference to masculine and feminine energies.

Usually this is in relation to the masculine and feminine energies we all have within us regardless of gender, but at times it appears to be a substitute for ‘man’ and ‘woman’.

In my own work balancing masculine and feminine energies I’ve seen that it’s both metaphorical and literal.

We have to get in tune with these energies in their wider forms and other times we have to look at traditional gender roles and how we relate to those.

In a metaphorical sense we are looking at the polarities of energy: intuition and logic, flow and form, light and shadow.

Doing & being

The easiest way to identify these energies within yourself and develop them, is to pay attention to the times where you have to just be and just do.

When you have to sit with yourself, notice the resistance you feel to just being.

When we have to be in doing mode, notice the procrastination or anxiety that arises.

In a very broad sense we can get an idea of how we are managing these two polarities within us.

We notice where we are avoiding either the feminine or masculine polarity, where it feels uncomfortable or new to us.

We need both approaches in life and so it is helpful to practice them regularly. Consciously set aside time to sit and be, notice when you are procrastinating and take action a little quicker than you are accustomed to.

Healing our masculine & feminine energies

How we manage the masculine and feminine energies also has a lot to do with how we relate to our parental figures, because this is one of the main ways we initially conceptualize these energies. 

Prompts: 

• The role I expected of my mother was
• The role I expected of my father was
• The example I received for masculinity was
• The example I received for femininity was
• I can forgive my mother for
• I can forgive my father for

We have an idea of what being masculine and feminine means in relation to male and female, as a result, what we expected of our parents or parental figures.

Where they did or didn’t meet those expectations can create an appreciation or aversion towards these aspects. 

The anima & animus

Carl Jung talks about the concept of the anima and animus in many of his writings that apply really well here.

The anima is the unconscious feminine within a man, and the animus is of course, the unconscious masculine within a woman.

Regardless of our gender or sexuality, connecting to both our masculine and feminine sides can be helpful in many areas of life both energetic and practical, and provide a lot of grounding and balance.

I’ve always been more of a ‘feminine guy’ at least compared to my peers. The way I talk, think, act are often seen as slightly more feminine. As a child this was quite an uncomfortable association, as an adult, I feel much more comfortable in it.

However, in a lot of ways I took for granted how much I still needed to connect with and understand my feminine energy.

For many men connecting with the anima means learning to trust the Universe…or here we could say Mother Nature. For a lot of men, being able to succeed as a ‘complete’ individual and without obvious support is a sign of masculinity.

Trusting the Universe requires letting go of some of the pride associated with this mentality.

So how do you start trusting the Universe, and connecting with your anima as a man?

It’s one thing to be able to hear the Universe and receive the messages that are coming through, but another thing entirely to trust the Universe deeply.

It’s like any relationship; just because you are aware of someone or can hear what they are saying…doesn’t mean you believe them.

The main issue people tend to have isn’t that they don’t believe in a higher power on some level, but that they haven’t nurtured that relationship enough to feel supported.

When this is the case, you might experience frequent synchronicities, feel the presence of guides or have deep meditations – but don’t notice your life changing for the better in any way physically.

Each night I set intentions or pray before bed. Sometimes I focus on something concrete but other times I am just giving thanks in general.

What I notice is that when I wake up my mind is sometimes expecting to see a huge change overnight, and when there isn’t I can start leaning into a more rigid, masculine energy.

However as I come back to this practice each night, even when there are no physical results each day, less and less of that rigidity comes up.

Eventually your focus isn’t on what you are asking for, or what you are affirming, but on the practice itself.

Of building an undercurrent of energy, deepening this relationship, which starts to show up in endless subtle ways throughout your day over time.

Here are some words I shared on Instagram recently about developing this trust:

These last three months have been tricky to navigate, not in a bad way or because anything is wrong, just very different.⁣
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About a month ago I was prompted in a meditation to call God by the name ‘Mother’. A week ago, again in a meditation, I saw my intuition take on the appearance of a woman walking in a forest.⁣
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Carl Jung talks about these unconscious feminine (anima) and masculine (animus) aspects of the soul that can come up quite directly, in a form like this, when we need to integrate them.⁣
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I have been prompted to get in touch with my feminine energy and this has been HARD (for the mind). I’m not taking about mannerisms or outward behaviors, but approaching obstacles/problems while continuing to let go.⁣
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To the mind any time we make things easier for ourselves in one area, we make things more difficult for ourselves in another – it’s always a zero sum game. ⁣
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To embody more of this feminine energy, we have to continuously give our mind examples of where making things easier for ourselves or letting go, makes things easier overall – so that our body can ease into this energy too.

There isn’t some trap waiting to snare us out of sight…if we do things with awareness.⁣ We can trust the Universe to catch us.