Does it bring up images of construction workers and shaving commercials? Does it make you think of particular men you have in your life, perhaps your dad, your husband, or a coworker? There are many different conversations to be had around what "masculine" means, and alllll it doesn't mean (like "macho") but I'm going to just hone in on one thing for today's topic: how you carry masculine ENERGIES in your life.
So let me be clear about a few things. This particular conversation has little to do with men, not in any direct way. I'm not talking about WHO you spend time with, or what you think of men (or women, for that matter) as much as I'm asking you to consider HOW you operate on a day-to-day basis in your world.
If you're like most of us in today's modern culture you've been brought up to be a fantastic taskmaster, thinker, and do-er. Which serves a purpose. Maybe you simultaneously "run" a business and a home, manage cool projects for your community, or keep lots of details constantly organized in your mind… in various ways you know how to get s#it done.
But the problem for most women in today's age is we've lost a certain balance between thinking and feeling, between doing and being. And we're paying a price for it. (I include myself in this category - I'm always learning & growing around this, too.)
You see, in order to be successful, especially career-wise, you probably have learned to run your professional life with a lot of what we consider to be "masculine energies"… with logic and intellect leading the way. There's nothing inherently wrong with logic or intellect, whatsoever. But ALL people - men and women alike - are meant to balance their internal masculine and feminine energies in healthy ways. When there's imbalance, you'll start noticing dis-ease in your world, and ultimately in your body.
In other words, when you consistently default to logic at the expense of intuition, or intellect without emotion, etc., it throws things off. Just like favoring one side of your body when you walk would, over time, cause "compensatory pains" on the other. (Remember when I broke my foot? The opposite hip and knee worked overtime for too long and eventually needed healing, too.) Think about the weather. On one extreme, the solar principle operating without the lunar balance would heat up, dry out the land, and wither up the plants parched for moisture. Or on the other end, an unmitigated lunar principle on earth would create dark, roaring, & tempestuous waters or swampy, murky pools.
Balance is the key.
When these various masculine/feminine dynamics are in balance, there's an air of flexibility available to you that allows you to move in and out of the energy best suited for whatever you're dealing with in the moment. Kind of like having both a fork and a spoon at dinner; without thinking, you pick up the fork for your salad, the spoon for the soup, and you might use both together to enjoy your spaghetti. One's not better than the other - both are pretty important. Luckily, no one is asking anyone to choose; in fact it's better if you don't.
Some people think of "the masculine" and they think toughness, sports, bravado, grrrr… not what we're talking about here. That'd perhaps fall in the category of "distorted" masculine energies. And women, let me tell you that you can definitely embody distorted masculine energies also, I'm sorry to say, even if you're into fashion, make-up, and the like. It just depends on how you've felt safest operating in the world up to this point.
So let me just give you a sense of what some other masculine/feminine energies are - these examples will help you see that all of us, both men and women, need to be able to flexibly move back and forth between the inner-masculine and feminine in our bodies and lives.
Masculine/Feminine:
Solar/Lunar
Land/Water
Thinking/Feeling
Doing/Being
Giving/Receiving
Hard/Soft
Structure/Flow
Intellect/Intuition
Linear/Formless
Edges/Curves
Control/Release
Clarity/Mystery
If you've ever used instinct to balance how you respond to statistics, or thrown your schedule out the window because it just wasn't working for you one week, you were striking a balance between the masculine and the feminine.
As it pertains to fertility, there's a lot more to be said on the matter. For now, consider these:
1 - When you're at work, do you operate primarily from the masculine or feminine?
2 - How about when you're at home? Do you feel more flexibility between these pairs when you're off the clock, or not so much?
3 - Do you have trouble even imagining how some of these could show up, more, in your worlds?
Send me a note! I'd love to hear your musings.