The Yin and Yang polarities which are explained in Chinese philosophy are represented in every human in unique ways.
Regardless of our biological gender, we all have a mixture of masculine energy and feminine energy, and we need both in our daily life. According to ancient hermetic philosophy, on the path of becoming your best self and living your very own and unique paradise on earth, you have to balance the masculine energy and the feminine energy within, which means to include all elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) and use the alchemy of understanding when the fire burns very strongly, the water can temper it in order to use its strength rather than its destructive energy.
The idea behind becoming your best self also means to balance the masculine and feminine energies. I can help you with that during my retreats – during dance therapy & sound therapy sessions – we discuss how our energies come to the surface during our sharing circles/group coaching sessions if this is your theme. We embody both energies in the metaphysical world.
We live in a world in which strength is perceived as power, achievements and success; oftentimes softness is misunderstood as weakness. We can change these perceptions. If we all embrace both energies, we will understand what true conscious leadership needs (not only strength, logic and rationality, but also support, empathy and understanding).
Instead of creating masculine masks, we have to balance both energies and show the nature of both in our true authenticity so as to change ourselves, thereby changing the world around us.
In the private life….
Usually, when we have to fight for our place in our family, we develop a very strong masculine side. When our parents overprotect us, our feminine side will become stronger. It has nothing to do with gender; it has everything to do with our past experiences, beliefs and our own idea of who we want to be.
If you have a strong masculine side, you might be very attracted to someone that balances this. Probably you will fall in love with someone that has a stronger feminine side, which gives you a feeling of completion. I wouldn’t say this is wrong. From my experience and after working with people who experienced this, real joy is in achieving a reasonably balanced amount of both energies. If you balance Yin and Yang, it gives you harmony and balance from within; as a result, you feel a sense of completion.
Suddenly, you feel you and your soul become one; you live from the heart and attract what really suits you.
During my retreats, I often see that not finding this balance makes people feel unbalanced. It makes people feel empty as if something is missing. Therefore, it is very good to be aware of it and to take this as a subject during a retreat to work on or to have therapy sessions.
You are already half way when you realize that you want to change yourself. Diving into yourself for five days will take you somewhere else energetically, so you will feel how transformation works and you’ll be able to use the right tools to get there.
At work:
“I can’t survive in this environment without losing myself”, a client told me recently, “I’m working in a masculine environment and I don’t get the way it works. It feels like I have to become someone that I’m not to feel balanced again.”
This often happens when we are forced to change because most companies are still dominated by men nowadays.
Women believe that they should behave and communicate like men so as to get respect from their male colleagues and then they can have successful careers or at least manage to have jobs (to thrive or survive). I have experienced it myself at some companies that I worked for and I’ve also heard it from clients who have come to my coaching retreats/healing retreats – these clients also worked for such companies.
What’s more, men who are balanced in their masculine and feminine energies suffer from this, as they feel the pressure to hide their feminine side – everything has to be about the “goals, rules, and vision of the company”, while the overall success is to become a conscious company in which everybody is happy and free to be themselves. I’m sure happiness comes with a great business result. It’s not one or the other when companies become more balanced in both energies – we will all feel more nurtured, supported and happier.
So, instead of changing yourself to use the masculine energy more, you have to embody the feminine energy that you naturally have within yourself. For instance, if you are creative, supportive, vulnerable and compassionate, just use these qualities in your very best and balanced ways. Not everybody has leadership, logical and rational tendencies, which is completely fine.
Identifying and understanding masculine and feminine energies:
Masculine energy has core energetic characteristics as following:
- Rational and logical
- Strength and leadership
- Direct and practical problem-solving
- Direction-oriented
- Productivity and focus
- Competitive and action-driven
- Powerful, encouraging and taking responsibility
Feminine energy has the following traits:
- Creative and intuitive
- Softness and support
- Investigating and nurturing
- Empathy
- Devotion and commitment
- Flow, ideas and team-driven
- Sharing, vulnerability and understanding
In other words, some energies are seen as masculine, whereas others are seen as feminine. While we all have these energies inside of us, we can be strong and true leaders (masculine energy) in a balanced way. But if we have wounds, we will experience too much of the element fire and express it by being manipulative, dominant, arrogant and aggressive. If we can also soften the strength and support others (feminine energy), we can be both strong and supportive.
If you are creative and intuitive (feminine energy), you can be a very good story teller. However, if you haven’t healed your wounds, instead of a beautiful wave of storytelling, you might express yourself by dramatizing things like a tsunami.
Vulnerability (feminine energy) can be seen as a very beautiful airy skill, yet if you are wounded, the air becomes a thunderstorm or even a tornado and it can lead to oversharing emotions and getting stuck in victimhood.
Caring and support (feminine energy) can lead to sacrificing yourself and excessive attachment if you don’t heal your wounds.
Direct, practical and problem-solving masculine energy can lead to indifferent, judgmental, cold and distant behavior when you carry wounds with you.
The first step to change is to realize this and also when you change, the whole world changes around you. In addition, no matter what kind of unbalance you have, you would be well-advised to come to a retreat and dive deep into yourself for a few days. You will get answers from your unique experiences during inner journeys.
My own experience:
My energies are quite balanced; I can control them. Nevertheless, it wasn’t like this in the past. As a young girl, I grew up in an environment where I had to be strong and that made the masculine energy strongly developed. As I had my first corporate job, that experience even made my masculine side grow stronger. I thought I loved the competitive energy which I felt burning inside of me – that created a flame in me and made me unstoppable to achieve my targets and feel validated. Obviously, that wasn’t harmonious, balanced or beautiful. Nonetheless, I was successful. I felt that this had to be my position: While I was craving for success (always wanted to be right and win), I was also very judgmental and critical towards people that were not goal-driven. Later on, I learned that those were wounded masculine energy signs. Truthfully, after my own inner journey, I have realized that if I balance both energies, I can still do a good job – I can still be successful in nurturing and caring ways. Actually, it is the only way to true mastery of myself. I have learned that being judgmental and critical simply doesn’t lead anywhere. Healing your unbalanced energies is the best way to become your true, best, authentic self.