How Gentle I Go

“Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.” - Brene Brown

As a follow up on masculine energy in our psyche, I am still sorting this all out.  I thought to share my thoughts on negative masculine energy and how to find the gentler symbiotic relationship between it and our feminine energy.

Right now there is, it seems to me, to be a huge gender problem happening in society right now.  On the far end of the scale we have the Me Too movement.  On the other side we have the American Misogynistic attitude from the Heartbeat movement to the morally decrepit political scene across the border.  (Look at Alabama and Georgia new proposals of changes to law).  There is much about the Patriarchal privilege going on that truly offends and causes our feminine hearts to rise.  

Consider the nurturing aspect of feminine energy/psyche.  Consider how we use our intuition.  Consider how our receptive feminine energy can be attacked by reason to bandstand.  Consider how passivity becomes 'versus' emotional reactions.  Consider how we might become aggressive versus protective.  I have a true life story around such as just this:  assertiveness versus aggressiveness.  

When my youngest daughter was in Junior High, she was exposed to a neck rubbing male teacher.  This rankled her big-time.  She had strong boundaries against anyone ever touching her, from the day she was born, actually.  Well, she complained with body language.  She complained verbally.  She told me and we met with the Principal and the teacher.  The teacher started off saying, "She is too aggressive for a girl."  Well, freshly out of University Women's Issues Courses, I rose to this like a madman.  How dare he say such, especially to me!  I was rankling, myself, over Patriarchal, masculine, aggression and was very staunch about my body not your body.  I am sure I got the light of chaos in my eyes and I straightened my shoulders and had a very good, logical, appropriate talk about how this should not even enter into the conversation, ending with "You meant assertive, for a girl, I am sure!"  The meeting ended on her being taken out of his class.  It would be a lifelong battle for me.  Sometimes I was all masculine energy in my reactions to such.  A principal once called over the loudspeaker that staff meeting was starting for all the 'meatballs, and guys, in the library.  Holy crap!  How dare he... oh, yes, previous catholic school principal and had all the misogynistic used-to-be-a-sports-jock mentality.  I was chided for being too sensitive. But, in part, I know I can be too defensive.   Really?  

We are a long ways off of the reinforcing of 'a woman's place' but I feel the resurgence happening.  We have long tried to counter this mentality.  This mentality hurts all.  The New Age Women view that tends to denigrate masculine energy, hurts all of us.  Somehow, oh, I do not know how, there has to be a balance in our societies.  We all, men and women, need healing.  How do we, women, in the midst of this entire 'smack', find a balance?

Women need to really look at their own balance of masculine and feminine energy.  The elders have long said that women will heal Mother Earth and its peoples in the 7th generation.  Are we there yet?  So, it is a huge responsibility.  Ranting and railing is not going to work.  Education will help.  Knowing ourselves so we are healed and can then heal others has to happen.  We must deconstruct areas in our lives where we are not balanced energy.  Otherwise, we will weigh more heavily on the anger of the masculine negative energy and/or slip into the passive/victim energy of the feminine negative energy.  No matter who we are, where we have lived, how we have lived, who we have lived with and around, we have been harmed by Patriarchal negative masculine energies that have been learned and have been conditioned into our brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, sons....  Life seems to be one long recovery act but recover we must. We are all sacred beings... yes, even my greatest dislike... in that there are lessons to learn.  I am talking to the sisters here, and, thus, I shall empower you.  It is for the men to empower themselves just now as we heal ourselves in order to be balanced energy.

Look, we have been, generationally, in fear , trying to numb, suppressing our feelings, denying, attempting to assimilate, and all those things that are there because we have been brought up in fear of our gender and thus become controlling, manipulative beings.  Yes, yes, we do and can be.  As long as we remain weak energies, we will remain victim to negative masculine energy. Somehow we have to heal and find ways to use our balanced energies to deprogram and reprogram.  We simply cannot thrive without balanced energies.  We are still, as I blogged earlier, rewriting our story every moment of every day.  It is time to rewrite some new areas of our lives. 

How do we react, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to all that life offers us?  What feels good?  What feels true?  We react from an emotional point of view.  We often project our own POV on what masculine is, what we desire in masculine human beings, for instance.  Taking a good long look at our view about men we choose and what it is about them that we want, and then we begin to see what we unconsciously react to.  Wow, that is an eye-opener for me.  

Do you realize that we can be the walking wounded in our masculine energy levels as well?  Of course we can.  We have been conditioned to accept the battering of our femininity, and we have been put down for being "such a girl".  Of course we pack around the toxic environment of being ashamed, of being shamed, of inherent anxiousness, of being too anger, of being...Woman.  We can, sister-friends, act out in anger from a wounded masculine energy within us.  Somehow we have to learn to trust ourselves so that we can trust others.  

I am a firm believer in asking the WHY of things, people, places that might have affected me negatively.  It is not an easy task because it is psychically easier to just be angry.  There have been injustices in our lives due to this energy 'stuff'.  We will work hard on shame and woundedness at many levels in our lives.  We are always in need of forgiving (not forgetting, not denying, simply freeing our self of others' stories) and the one to forgive the most, is Self.  Why do we hurt others, if, in fact, we do?  Because, hurt people hurt people.  Why do we think we deserve disrespect and how do we EARN respect (not DEMAND it)?  Why do we suppress our truths?  How do we go from FEAR to FREEDOM to be who we are?  Good questions to contemplate, indeed.

This year I have been working on my own body shaming.  It was a New Year's resolution for me to work on me in that area.  But, beneath that goal is this huge deal about masculine and feminine energy because it belongs within that realm as well.  Listening to my heart, recognizing and affirming my belief systems and then healing that, is a huge bulk of work.  Again, we can rewrite our story.  We deserve dignity and grace, of affirmation, of being listened to, of being a living witness to change.  We are accountable.  We are healers.  We need to heal ourselves now so that we can ever be a healing in this societal mess we are in.

Be brave, sister-friends.  Be Brave!

©Carol Desjarlais 5.17.19