How The Masculine & Feminine Show Up In Friendships

How do these dynamics (giving/receiving, structure/chaos, protector/vulnerable, etc) show up in non-romantic friendships - in unhealthy and healthy ways? What is a true friendship? How can we experience deep connection with others? What do we do if it's unhealthy for either or both?

Transcript

So today's topic is all about how the masculine and feminine show up in friendships.

We often talk about the masculine and feminine within.

We talk about it in romantic relationships,

And we seldom talk about how it shows up in friendship.

So first of all,

In case you're watching the recording or you're just tuning in and you hear some weird sounds in the background,

That's our puppy Storm,

Stormy G,

Chewing on her big bone.

So just in case you hear weird background sounds,

We'll just pretend we're outside in nature and there just happen to be cool nature sounds around.

So why do we want to talk about this?

Why do we want to talk about the masculine and feminine in friendship?

Now first of all,

I'm not talking about the masculine and feminine,

How we might think.

We're not talking about masculine being burly and angry and strong and all this kind of thing or something,

And the feminine being demure and easy to get along with and loving and nurturing and all that.

This is sort of a stereotype that we gleaned from gender roles in the past,

And not even that all men are burly and angry.

But because we've lived in such a time of separation and domination,

Like this weird paradigm we've lived in for the last couple millennia,

That is what often happened.

That because there was such a separation between the genders,

Not everywhere,

But often,

The masculine sort of became this controlling,

Angry,

Whatever,

And they could kind of get away with anything.

And the feminine was kind of like,

Oh,

I'm so easy to get along with,

And I'm pretty and I'm soft and nubile or whatever.

That's not masculine and feminine.

It's not even male and female.

It's just a weird description of what happens when you're disconnected and you still are interacting,

And it becomes a power struggle.

That's something we'll talk about later,

Because that definitely comes up in friendships.

So it's an interesting thing to be able to see that old paradigm of disconnection,

Control,

Wanting to be easy to get along with,

And all that kind of thing.

That definitely is going to still show up in friendships,

Because it's part of the paradigm we're all living in,

And our parents lived in,

And their parents lived in.

But we're going to talk about that in a little while.

But the cool thing is,

If you imagine instead the masculine and feminine to be two sides of a whole,

And I don't mean like the yin-yang symbol of darkness and lightness and hot and cold and left and right,

None of that.

That's not what I mean.

Those are sort of the balance that says within the yin-yang symbol,

All things exist.

Things are either dark or light,

And things are either hot or cold,

And if they're balanced,

We have this sort of balanced universe.

The masculine and feminine that we're talking about is a dynamic relationship between two opposite poles.

This could be someone giving and another person receiving.

This could be someone protecting someone who's vulnerable.

This could be providing structure to chaos or providing chaos to structure.

These are dynamic experiences where the two sides play and dance,

And when they play and dance,

A magnetism is created until eventually there's actually like a bond,

And then in that bond,

We feel happiness and we feel bliss.

Now in friendship,

What's really interesting about this is everybody plays all sides.

It's not gendered.

It's not anything like that.

The key to a healthy friendship is that no one is ever always in the masculine side or always in the feminine side.

We all play all the time,

And in this way,

We create real connection with each other.

If you imagine the giving and receiving dynamic that if I really need help moving or if I really need help doing something,

Then I call a friend and I'm like,

Hey,

Could you help me do this?

And they can or they can't.

It's not like some obligatory thing that because we're friends,

You must always meet my needs,

But if they can,

They'll be like,

Yeah,

I'd love to.

Why would they love to?

Because there's love between us,

And we love spending time together.

Who cares what we're doing?

Who cares if you're helping me or I'm helping you?

We're not keeping track.

We're not doing anything like that.

There's just a connection.

So we just flow with whatever the situation calls for.

So this creates incredible connection with people around us,

And this is really,

Really important because as we keep doing this,

And then all of a sudden,

My friend introduces me to another friend who they're really close with,

And all of a sudden,

I know this person,

And then I know this person,

And very soon,

We have a community.

And being part of a community is really important to our soul,

Even if we are declared introverts.

Being an introvert is awesome.

I have lots of friends who are introverts.

A big part of me is actually quite introverted,

As much as I extrovert most of my life and thoughts and feelings,

As my introvert friend would tell you.

But they love being part of community.

They love the give and the receive and the protector and the vulnerable and the caring,

And they love all that.

Whether we're introverted or extroverted has nothing to do with it.

Someone might be naturally introverted,

But what's really happened,

The reason they actually isolate themselves from community is because they've not gotten to experience true friendship.

They've experienced relationships in separation,

Where people are always controlling them or trying to give them advice or expecting them to do things or doing something with an expectation that they're going to do something back for them.

And eventually,

This is exhausting.

And if your natural joy in life is to be introverted,

You don't want to put that energy out to try to go find a different friend because you're like,

You know what?

Nine times out of 10,

They're probably just going to be controlling like the last 40.

So you know what?

I'm happy.

I have a happy life.

I'm good.

Don't you worry about me.

An extroverted person will likely still kind of go and join dance classes and go and do this and go and do that.

And there's a chance that they'll actually find a genuine person or a person who wants to genuinely connect and not be controlled and not be needy and not be all these things,

Which again,

We'll talk about in a minute.

So having real community is so nourishing to our soul.

But in order to do this,

We have to understand how to be masculine and feminine in relationship,

Because you can have a friend and you can say,

Oh,

I love going on holidays with this friend.

I love going out for dinner with this friend.

I love watching movies with this friend.

And so on some level,

You're like,

It's not really a masculine feminine thing because we're going to Jamaica together.

But what's going on when you're in Jamaica?

How do you make choices about how you're going to,

What are you going to do today?

What's your conversation like?

Is it unbalanced?

Is one person always talking at the other person?

Because I'll tell you,

If you're really good friends,

And you're not just acquaintances,

You just put up with them,

Or they're the only person that was available to go to Jamaica with you.

But if you're really good friends,

Inside of that trip,

You'll have beautiful conversations,

Where one person's talking and the other person is deeply listening and integrating what the other person is saying.

And you actually have this beautiful shifting from the masculine and feminine in conversation,

Because the masculine is talking and the feminine is listening.

But of course,

This is in connection with the other person.

This is an empathic connection.

So if I'm talking to you,

I'm only telling you something that you're interested in.

I'm not just repeating a story I've told 100 times,

Unless it's cool and interesting,

And they like to hear it.

But I'm not just talking to fill space.

I'm actually considering that my friend is here.

And do they want to hear this?

And of course,

When we're really good friends,

That is what conversation's like.

It's this beautiful back and forth where we take turns being the masculine and feminine,

One person's talking,

The other one's listening,

And vice versa.

And the hours disappear.

And all of a sudden,

The week is over,

The holiday is over,

And you're like,

Wow,

That was epic.

Or maybe,

You know,

It's a protector and vulnerable dynamic,

Where you know that this other person always has your back,

That no matter what's going on,

That if you're feeling vulnerable,

Or if something bad's happening,

And you're out and about on holidays,

The other person will step up for you,

If needed,

And vice versa.

So this is really,

Really important.

And all good friendships have this beautiful back and forth.

So the other foundation I want to talk about before we get into the actual dynamics is in a good friendship,

There's always safety.

And what I mean by safety,

It's like soul safety.

And of course,

On some level,

That's a silly thing to say,

Because our souls are eternal.

Our soul can't be damaged.

Our soul maybe has been around for as long as time,

And maybe it,

Who knows what the,

How,

What a soul really is.

But when we really open up and we're vulnerable with someone,

We can really be hurt.

And that's what I want to talk about today.

We can really be hurt.

Our personality,

Our feelings can be hurt,

Which can easily make us shut down.

So the question becomes,

What does safety mean,

Actually?

So the foundation of this is love.

And if you've read my book,

Tantric Intimacy,

And you're interested in reading more about love,

It's the whole first section is all about love.

And the foundation of love is what the Greek would call,

Or the ancient Greek would call,

Agape.

And agape is this foundational love between all people.

And what it's all about is love,

And it's about respect and kindness.

And what respect means is that I respect that you are on your own soul's journey.

I know that I'm on my soul's journey.

We don't have to agree.

We don't have to make the same choices.

We don't have to see the world the same way.

I respect that you are on a unique journey that even you may not understand the breadth and the width and the depth of this any more than I understand my own journey,

Or my own truth,

Or my own next step.

I fully trust that you are on a unique path.

That kind of respect is so epic,

Because it means that you can talk about anything.

You can say,

I'm having the craziest idea.

I mean,

I might be crazy.

And then you share it,

And they can look at you,

And they can smile,

And they can go,

Wow,

That does sound crazy.

And you can laugh about it.

But no one's like,

You're crazy.

You're a loser.

You're making a bad choice.

It's nothing like that.

It's like,

Wow,

That does sound crazy.

What an adventure that would be.

And I might even ask for advice and say,

Do you think that's a good idea?

And they'll be like,

I don't know.

Because how would any of us ever know?

They might say,

Because maybe they've known you for a long time,

And they'd say,

I don't know,

Like,

It kind of sounds a lot like your last relationship,

Doesn't it?

Or they might be able to give you interesting input into,

I don't know,

Maybe this is kind of an old pattern,

But maybe it'll be totally different.

How do we know?

Because they fully respect that no matter what they say,

You're going to go away into your place of contemplation,

Meditate upon it,

And go,

Yes or no.

No one's attached to anything.

It makes no difference the choice you make or you don't make.

That's respect.

And that is an incredible level of safety.

Because in friendship,

One of the greatest things we can do is be fully vulnerable.

And vulnerable doesn't mean weak and crying,

Right?

We might end up being crying in a weak moment.

But vulnerable just means,

Here's what I'm really feeling right now.

Or I'm having this deep knowing that I need to leave my job or this relationship,

I've got to leave this relationship,

Or I've got to dive into that relationship,

Or I'm going to marry that person,

Or whatever.

It's not always leaving.

It's often because that's often what we have a harder time with the new things.

But that's a vulnerable thing to say.

And you don't want this other person bringing it up later and saying,

Well,

You know that moment you said this thing and you're like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

That was just me sharing an inner thought.

That wasn't necessarily my truth.

It wasn't necessarily what I want to do.

It wasn't necessarily what I believe.

That was just me sharing a vulnerable moment,

Which means I don't necessarily know why I'm saying this.

I don't know what the outcome is,

But I'm going to share it anyway because I think I just need to hear myself say it.

It needs to be in the ethers so I can play with it.

That's a huge deal.

And this is where kindness is the next big part of agape.

Because kindness says that no matter what happens,

You always treat the other person with kindness.

So instead,

If I say I've got this really weird idea and here's what I'm thinking,

The other person goes,

Are you kidding?

And you can hear that tone.

That tone is not kind.

It is condescending.

It's like,

Really?

That's not kind.

But to be kind and say,

Wow,

That would be a scary thought.

I can imagine.

I can imagine that that's pretty unnerving for you.

So kindness is a huge deal because every time someone isn't kind to us,

It pushes us away.

It just creates a little energetic barrier.

And it's not because we have attachment issues or something like that.

It's just reality.

If someone punches you,

Your body naturally takes a step back if it's still actually taking care of itself.

Sometimes if we've been beaten down too much in life,

We just stay for another beating and we don't actually protect ourselves anymore.

But assuming we're actually in a healthy state,

That we're actually honoring our yeses and our no's,

If someone hits us,

Whether it's with words,

An attitude,

A tone,

Or a hand or a fist,

We are going to step back.

That's it.

It would happen in the animal kingdom.

It would happen in us.

That's just the way it is.

So kindness is a huge deal if we actually want to have this beautiful connection.

The other thing about respect is that we trust that we're all connected to the same source.

However you understand that,

Whether it's whether you call it God or consciousness or the universe or galactic wisdom or whatever,

We all know that we are fully connected.

So suddenly if you choose to do this thing,

Then hey,

I know that that's your calling and that's awesome.

And you know that if I choose to do this,

Then that's my calling.

And we don't assume that we know better than the other person.

That's a huge foundation of friendship.

So let's talk about the dynamics a little.

So one of the most common dynamics in the masculine feminine is giving and receiving.

So this is really obvious.

You know,

You're going along in your life and everything's good and suddenly you need help.

And you call a friend and you say,

Hey,

Can you give me a hand?

And they say sure.

Or they say,

Oh,

That's too bad I can't.

And that's it.

Maybe they come and help you.

You have a good time,

You play some music,

They help you do whatever it is going to do.

And then the experience is over and you go on with life.

And one of the most important things about that is that there's no even Steven.

We have this even Steven complex in the world because we've been trained that if we give out of obligation,

We give because we should,

We give things we don't want to give.

And so then we keep track.

Well,

I helped you move,

So you should come and help me do this thing.

It's like,

If you didn't have joy in helping me,

Then you shouldn't have done it.

Because this is one of the most strangest thing or the coolest thing about the masculine feminine is they fit together like a whole.

There is a need and someone has whatever that person needs.

You come together,

It satisfies the situation and it flatlines.

There's no need for then the receiver to give to the giver.

You did it out of joy.

My daughter is moving.

She's just moved into a new place.

And if she said to me,

Mom,

You know,

Can you come and help me paint?

I'm just going to go help her paint.

She doesn't owe me.

I'd love to go help her paint.

I'd love to hang out with her.

And she needs someone to help her paint.

It's that simple.

So as soon as we find ourself in a situation where people are keeping track,

We have to really be aware.

We have to be aware that the other person may not actually want to be doing what they're doing.

They actually probably should have said no when they said yes,

Because otherwise they wouldn't be keeping track of this.

I mean,

If I said to you,

Hey,

Do you want to come and do this thing with me?

If you want to do it,

You can do it.

But if you don't want to do it,

You can't.

You don't want to do it.

You come and do it.

It's joyful.

It's done.

And then you just go on to the next thing.

You're not keeping that in your head like,

Okay,

I did that thing.

I did that thing with Katrina.

I did that thing.

You're just off doing the next thing because I just provided something for us to do.

It's funny,

Even like giving and receiving,

Like I'll go out for dinner with my friends a lot,

Or lunch or whatever,

Or breakfast.

And we go out and sometimes one person says,

Oh,

I'll get it.

And then the next time someone might say,

Oh,

I'll get it.

And you're like,

Wait a minute,

Did you get it last time?

I don't know.

That's always the conversation.

No one ever remembers who got it last time,

Because who cares?

It's just money.

It's not important.

And again,

There's a huge difference between someone who expects you to get it all the time and only is ever the one that is wants to be in the receiver and all that kind of thing.

And we're going to talk about dysfunction in a second.

That's a completely different thing,

But in a true friendship where the energy flows,

This is what I mean.

It's so important to that you're flowing to the masculine and feminine all the time.

It doesn't even matter.

And then,

Okay,

Who cares who got it?

Whether I go into my wallet or you go into your wallet,

Unless people are really hurting for money and it's a huge sacrifice,

Well,

Then they shouldn't be getting it anyway.

We have a lot of really weird programming around things.

Another huge example of the giving and receiving is talking and listening.

Talking and listening is almost the number one way that we,

Like talking is giving,

So this is the masculine,

And receiving is listening.

The gift of receiving,

When somebody really needs to talk and you just listen,

It's a huge deal.

This is a huge gift.

And sometimes you just need to talk.

So this is a really important thing.

But again,

We talked about the talking and listening,

But to be able to have that flow back and forth,

That we're always connected to the other person.

We're not forcing them to listen to a story.

We're not forcing anyone to look at our pictures from Jamaica because we're conscious,

What does this person want to do this?

Because we do this a lot.

There's a lot of forced giving,

Which is why we don't like to receive much.

You have to go up to someone and you're like,

Oh,

Did you have a nice trip?

I did.

Hold on,

Let me get my phone.

I'll show you the pictures.

If it's me,

I literally am like,

Oh,

I don't want to see the pictures.

But that onus is on me to say,

No,

It's all good.

I really don't want to see the pictures.

I'd love to hear,

You know,

Highlights of your trip or whatever.

It's something interesting if I want to talk to them.

But it's really important to verbalize that and say,

I'm actually not much into the looking at pictures of people's trips because we are so forced to do this all the time.

So this is one dynamic that we really have to look at in friendships that we may even have to have conversations that say,

You know,

I'm studying this masculine feminine idea and I kind of just want to clean up how we dialogue with each other because I don't know if we're really listening to each other or something.

It might be a hard conversation.

Another dynamic is chaos and structure.

And chaos and structure,

Chaos is all about wild,

The wildness inside.

It's all about anything goes.

And it's nothing evil.

It's nothing bad.

It's nothing like the aftermath of a tornado.

It's just that anything goes.

So one of the places that this shows up a lot in friendship is emotions.

Because emotions,

If we allow them,

Are very chaotic.

We can't control them.

We don't know.

I don't know why I'm so sad.

I don't know why I'm still grieving.

I don't know why I'm so excited about this thing.

Not always about negative things.

I don't know why I'm so angry.

But emotions rise and they are uncontrolled.

So what happens is your emotions are kind of flying you all over the place.

But inside of us,

We have a structure that can sort of help balance that chaos.

And it's like,

Okay,

Maybe I'll journal.

Okay,

I'm going to go do some yoga.

Okay,

I'm going to go for a run.

I'm going to do something to help me kind of process these emotions.

But every so often,

It's just too much and we want to dive deep into them.

So we call a friend.

And the friend comes over,

And they become that shoulder we cry on.

They become the sounding board.

They become this strong,

Still essence that we can then be all chaotic and crazy.

And they literally like hold space for us.

And this is really important to have that strength.

And the cool thing is the deeper I dive into my chaos,

The stronger they become.

They don't dive into the chaos with me.

They don't go,

I know,

Right?

Men suck and I can't believe it and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

They don't do that.

They're not adding to your chaos.

They're wanting to help you explore your chaos.

And that doesn't happen by adding to it.

They might,

Yeah,

I totally get it.

It's not like they're just sitting there like dead silent,

But they're not adding into it.

Because what happens sometimes if we add to it,

We start telling our own stories.

We start like,

Oh,

I know,

Like this one time,

Oh my God,

Totally same thing happened to me.

And blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And all of a sudden,

We are now repeating our own chaos.

And we've now forced the other person into the structure of the structure to listen to the chaos.

But that's not why we showed up.

That's not why our friend called us.

Our friend called us to dive deep,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep into whatever it was,

Because at the root of that emotion is a truth.

And we want to help them get to that truth.

That's the point.

That's the point of polarizing.

If we're just having a bitch fest,

Then that's fine.

That's just a tennis game back and forth with each other.

And then everyone's good.

But when we really polarize into this structure and chaos,

It's a benefit.

It really,

Really helps that other person.

On the flip side,

Sometimes a friendship is really joyful because one person is all structure,

All structure all the time.

I do this,

I do this,

I do this,

I do this.

But then they have this friend who's kind of like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.

And they're like,

Hey,

What are you doing?

Hey,

You know what?

Let's get in the car.

Let's go on a road trip.

And the person who's all structure,

They're kind of like,

Oh,

I don't,

I don't know.

You know,

But deep down,

They're like,

Yes.

And so this friend is sort of the party that they always get to go to.

And it's great because as much as we want to be able to go back and forth,

We all do have tendencies.

You know,

Some of us are much more left brained and some of us are much more right brain.

Some are both.

Some love structure,

Some love chaos.

This is a natural tendency.

And we often do find friends who are the opposite.

And sometimes we find friends that are the same.

It's really not a deep statement.

The other important dynamic in friendship is the protector and vulnerable.

And this could be something like you're at a bar and you're out and about and somebody's picking on you or hitting on your friend and you step in front and you go back off,

Buddy,

Leave my friend alone,

Or my friend's drunk or whatever.

Or it could even be that someone's parents are picking on them because that's a thing,

Unfortunately,

As adults in a lot of families.

And if your friend is there,

They'll step into the gap and they'll be like,

You just back off and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Which is interesting because in romantic relationships,

That gets really dicey.

It's just a bit more challenging.

There's a lot more weird relationship stuff on board there.

But even more than say someone protecting you out in the world against someone,

What a friend will often do is help strengthen your own protector.

So let's say you're telling a story and you're like,

You know,

I went to visit so and so yesterday and they said all these things.

I just can't get it out of my head.

And I just keep thinking and I just,

I just,

It's really keeping me up at night.

I don't know what to say.

And your friend is so angry or you're so angry because your friend is saying this and you're like,

They can't talk to you like that.

That's not okay.

They shouldn't be treated.

Oh,

I know.

No.

Oh.

And so what we do as a friend,

Because we love you,

I don't want you to be treated like that.

You know,

It hurts me to know that you're being treated like that.

So what we do is we actually try to strengthen the protector inside of our friend.

And we say,

No,

This is where you're allowed to say no.

This is where you're allowed to leave.

This is where you're allowed to make a different choice.

So as a friend,

It may sound kind of like they're giving advice,

Unwarranted,

But what they're really doing is trying to help light the fire in the protector of our friend so that they're not hurt anymore and they're not picked on and they're not walked on.

And that's a huge role in friendship.

And when we say have each other's back,

Sometimes that's what it is,

Really helping us have our own back.

But sometimes we need a friend.

You know,

My kids have been great for that for me because being a people pleaser,

I often will get myself into trouble in relationships where I end up upset and crying and with a headache.

And my kids will just look at me and say,

Mom,

Why did you ever agree to it to begin with?

You didn't want to do it.

And then they'll actually step in and almost be a new voice in my head.

It's like for me,

The best thing I could ever have would be to have my son's voice in my head as my inner protector.

You know,

What would Aaron say right now?

What would Taylor say right now?

It's a huge,

Beautiful role for our friends.

So for a moment,

I want to talk about friendships that are not healthy.

The number one kind of friendship that isn't healthy isn't a friendship at all because you're not actually connected.

There actually is no safety.

There is no respect.

And there may not even be kindness,

But you hang out together a lot.

And maybe you're in the same group,

Or maybe it's a sibling,

But they actually are not emotionally connected to you at all.

And what often happens there is they will always be in one polarity or another.

So for some people,

And oftentimes too,

There's those.

And then there's also people who have so much of their own personal struggle.

They actually use the relationship with you to work out all their junk,

But not in a healthy way.

Not in a,

I need a lifeline.

You know,

I need a shoulder to cry on.

Don't worry,

Next time it'll be your turn.

No,

I don't mean that.

It's not like even Steven like that,

But it's not always one way.

So for example,

If someone,

Let's say in the protector vulnerable dynamic,

Someone always is the one in the vulnerable.

They always have a problem.

They always have a new drama.

They always have a new crappy relationship.

They always have a new crappy job.

They never have enough money.

Their parents,

Everyone's always mean to them,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

So every time you talk to them,

All they're doing is sharing this perpetual vulnerable victim state with you.

And it forces you to always have to be in the protector.

This is not a friendship.

This is a codependence.

This is where they have found someone who will always listen to them.

They will not,

You won't question them because as soon as you start questioning them,

They're going to,

You don't even understand because they're playing in that victim triangle where there's the victim,

The persecutor and the savior.

And they are expecting you to always be in the savior role and listen and listen and listen and listen and listen.

And as soon as you say,

Well,

You chose this,

Now you're in a persecutor role and now they're mad at you.

So this is not a healthy friendship.

This is not a friendship.

It's just a codependent energy drain.

And I don't want to be mean to people who are in that situation,

But just to be clear that that's not a friendship because that's what we're talking about.

That's the point of our talk today.

In a very similar vein,

Some people in,

Let's say the giving receiving dynamic will only ever be in the receiving.

Adam Grant wrote a great book called Give and Take.

And so he would define these people as takers,

That no matter what you have to give,

They take it,

They never give back.

And again,

This isn't an even Steven question because this is a give and take situation where they absolutely just drain you,

Drive everything.

It could be money.

It could be advice.

It could be people who are constantly,

Well,

What would you do?

What would you do?

What would you do?

What would you do?

And it doesn't matter how many times you tell them,

They never do any of it anyway.

They just like the dynamic and they like drawing your energy out of you.

And so they're just always in the receiving.

So this is the weird thing where we actually often want to stop giving.

If we've been surrounded by takers our whole life,

Someone asks,

Hey,

I'm moving this weekend.

Could you give me a hand?

If they're a true friend,

Sure,

I'd love to.

Because it's not one sided,

But if they're actually just a taker,

If they're actually just an acquaintance,

Even if they've been a long time acquaintance,

Which we sometimes mistake as friends,

But they're actually a taker,

We don't want to help them move because we're always the one helping them move.

We're always the one doing everything.

That's different.

And that's where it's really important to delineate between,

Is this an equal relationship between growing humans or is it just a take situation?

Similarly,

These all kind of seem similar,

But in a lot of ways,

Some people in the structure chaos.

They only ever bring chaos.

And it's not kind of the fun kind.

They're the ones that.

.

.

I remember when I was a teenager,

I had this one friend and this was early on when I was probably about 15.

And I was really having a hard time with the fact that I was sort of a geek,

Right?

I didn't want to be a geek.

And the universe sent me this friend who was the furthest thing from a geek you could ever imagine.

In fact,

She was pure trouble.

She's the person I was with when I ended up in jail when I was 14 years old for drinking in public.

And you wouldn't have believed what an innocent little being I was,

But she was wild.

And that's just what I wanted.

I wanted to break out of my little square box.

I was very unhappy with my geekdom.

Well,

She was pure chaos.

And the problem is she actually wanted to get caught because she wanted to upset her mother.

So we would go out and do things and she was so wild.

I had to go into this extreme structure side just so that we survived the night because I didn't want to get caught.

I didn't want my parents to find out,

But she did.

She was pure chaos.

Nice person,

Really nice person.

But in that time of her life,

She was really struggling.

She was really going through a difficult time.

And so chaos was the game.

And sometimes we have friends today that are like that.

You don't want to go to Jamaica with them because they're going to end up talking to the wrong person and something's going to happen.

And next thing you know,

You're just not in a place you want to be.

Those people you don't want to hang out with a lot because they have no inner structure.

They have no inner responsibility.

So you just end up in crazy places,

But not the fun crazy.

On the flip side,

So those are all people who are disconnected from you,

Disconnected from themselves,

And are stuck in the what we would call the feminine dynamics,

But none of them are healthy.

Taking is not receiving.

Being a victim is not being vulnerable.

And being completely disconnected from reality is not chaos.

These are dysfunctional feminine that force us into an extreme masculine response that eventually we're like,

You know what,

This is exhausting.

Then on the flip side,

We have people in our lives who are equally dysfunctional,

But they are stuck in what they think is the masculine.

These are the people who take the protector role to a whole new level,

To the point that they are controlling.

And every single thing you do,

They're like,

Don't do that.

You can't be doing this and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And they're just always making these choices for you.

And you should do this and you should do this.

And if you don't do it,

They're like,

Oh,

I did it for you.

And you didn't even take it.

And you can imagine,

Right?

This could be a sibling.

This could be a parent.

This could be a friend.

It could be a partner,

But we're talking about friendships.

This could be people who are stuck in the giving role,

In the giving and receiving.

They have to be the one giving.

They will never receive anything from you.

Oh,

No,

I'm buying.

You just relax.

Oh,

No,

No.

I'm the one that's bringing all the food.

I'm the one that's going to do this.

I'm going to,

I'm going to plan everything.

You just relax.

No,

I don't want to go see that movie.

This is more plan and the controlling thing,

But they have to be the one that chooses the movie.

They're the one that chooses a restaurant.

They're the one that,

You know,

Like they're always in the masculine role,

But they're completely disconnected from you.

There's no love.

There's no connection.

There's no respect.

There's nothing like that.

They're just playing out power dynamics and power struggles that maybe they struggled with as children,

But it's all just unresolved power stuff inside of them that they're just taking out on you.

This is not friendship or at least not loving friendship.

Another huge thing with the giving is the giving advice.

And this is giving unsolicited advice.

This is where you might just be talking about something.

It's like,

You know what you need to do?

You need to do this.

You know what?

You need to take these supplements.

You know what?

You need to leave that guy.

You need to get this job.

You know what?

You should do this thing.

And then this will give you,

And you're like,

Every so often a good friend will come up with something and say,

You know,

I wonder if you would enjoy this,

But it's done in full respect and kindness.

And it's not very often that they do it.

The people that give advice constantly,

They are giving you advice because they think they know better than you.

They don't think you're going to make good choices for yourself.

That's different.

That's just a control.

That's just a power struggle.

So what do you do?

What do you do if these people are in your life?

These people who are actually disconnected,

For some reason they're close by,

Maybe they're a neighbor and you can't get away from them.

Maybe they're a sibling.

So what do you do?

You just don't play.

That's all.

If they are always vulnerable and they are expecting you to always be in the protector of them or whatever,

You just sort of say,

You respond actually.

You don't actually just sit and listen.

You say,

You know,

You could always leave.

Oh,

I can't.

Yeah,

Well,

You could actually.

Like everything you're doing,

It's all your choice.

No,

But you don't understand.

Well,

I guess I don't understand.

Like you don't have to play.

You don't have to play to that victim thing.

If someone's always taking from you,

You don't have to give to them.

If someone's pure chaos,

You don't have to be the one creating structure.

You can let them just go off and do whatever they do and not play along with them.

If someone's trying to control you,

You just let them make all the plans they want.

You don't have to show up.

You don't have to do anything.

So it's just a very interesting dynamic when those show up.

The other weird dysfunctional thing is that dysfunctional friendship thing is sometimes we're both just stuck in a pattern.

Maybe we're both stuck in an unhappy marriage or an unhappy job or an unhappy situation,

And we're just commiserating.

There's no masculine feminine.

There's no anything.

You're just sort of stuck,

Neutral,

Stagnant.

Nothing's happening.

That can also happen.

This is where it's like nobody makes a plan.

Nobody's listening.

Everyone's just sitting,

Commiserating,

And that's not alive at all either.

Sometimes that can happen in romantic relationships when the romance is gone,

But it can definitely happen in friendships too when all the dynamics just disappear.

There's two other things I want to mention,

And one thing is.

.

.

So all the dynamics I've talked about so far are how we interact with each other,

Where one is the masculine,

One is the feminine,

And you interact with each other,

And you create this beautiful bond,

And the experiences had,

And then you go on with your life.

A lot of my friendships are like that for sure,

But there's something else we do that's different.

Sometimes we have intuitive discussions,

And so this is a connection between the divine and yourself,

The universe and yourself,

Higher consciousness and yourself,

Whoever you understand that.

And very often I will sit with friends,

And if we're really confused about something,

Even if they're confused about something or I'm confused about something,

It doesn't have to be that we're asking big universal questions.

It could just be that something's difficult in someone's life or the world,

And we sit there.

It's like we kind of sit as one,

And then we listen for guidance,

And we just sort of sit there pondering,

And then all of a sudden someone says,

Do you think it could be this?

And you kind of play with that for a while,

And then you listen,

And then you actually have this really interesting conversation.

If you imagine like a room of people sitting in a circle,

But the information is coming from above,

Down,

Into the people,

And they're sharing together whatever comes to them.

This is also a very interesting kind of friendship where we're almost sharing a collective mind with the universe,

And it's because we're together,

We're joined together,

We almost all become the feminine together,

And we receive from the universe.

And that is actually one of my favorite ways of being friends,

Is to actually listen from that space together,

And that's a very exciting thing.

The last thing I want to mention is the idea of leading and following.

And leading and following is interesting because we've had a lot of power struggles with disconnected leaders who are just on ego trips.

But leading and following is when one person has a great idea,

And the other person's like,

All right,

I'm in.

That's a great idea.

I love it.

I saw this really interesting video a couple days ago of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

I'm assuming you probably know who they are.

They're really great actors,

And they wrote Good Will Hunting together when they were in their late 20s,

Got Oscars for it and what have you.

And they actually grew up together.

They were kids,

They were young children together.

And it was really interesting because recently,

I guess,

Ben Affleck is producing a movie and Matt Damon's acting in it.

And the question that the interviewer gave them was,

What's it like taking direction from your friend?

What if Ben wants you to do something that you don't want to do?

And Matt said,

Nobody's got the monopoly on great ideas.

And I've known Ben for a long time,

And I have great respect for him.

And if he sees something and he really thinks that it would be better this way,

Sure,

I'll try it.

I trust him.

Why wouldn't I trust him?

And of course,

Ben knows that Matt will trust him.

So he's also a little bit more conscious about it.

Leading and following is a beautiful dynamic in a friendship,

Because you respect each other.

It's not forced respect.

It's not like you need to respect me.

You do respect them.

It's a truth.

So if they say,

I really have a good feeling about this,

You want to come?

You're like,

Sure.

Because they also wouldn't have said it to you if they knew you wouldn't like it.

Because they know you and love you and care about you.

So friendship and the masculine and feminine,

It is such a fun thing where we really get to play both sides.

We get to play the masculine and feminine,

Which is really important,

Because in the end,

Our own personal happiness comes from really having that balance within us.

You know that I am fully masculine,

Fully feminine inside of me.

And whereas in romantic relationships,

We polarize and play in the intimacy,

Not in life,

But in the intimacy,

In friendships,

We don't.

We always choose which polarity we want to be in depending on the situation.

And so it's,

I don't know,

Everyone gets to grow,

Everyone gets to play,

And you get to have this amazing community.

I'm going to put my glasses on.

And if you have any questions,

I'd be happy to answer them.

Before you mentioned staying down after being beaten down too much,

Could you elaborate on that and how we recognize that state and how to recover and get back up?

Well,

We recognize it because we just don't.

The idea of going out and meeting people,

It's just not worth it.

And there's a negative part to it.

It's not just,

I love hanging out with myself while I'm painting and listening to the birds.

There's a joyfulness in that.

It's when there's a sadness or a negative or an edge to it that I don't need anybody.

I'm fine.

I have everything I need right now.

I don't need anybody.

I'm fine.

I have everything I need right here.

Don't you?

Like there's an edge to it.

That's when you know it's a protector that's risen.

There's something going on here that's protecting you from other people.

So that's how you know that this is what you're doing.

How to get back out there?

I think a really important piece is to actually look at the relationships that placed you there.

Who was it like specifically that was so exhausting?

And it could be an energy vampire.

It could be someone who's just so needy and you're just like,

I don't want to think about your problems anymore.

It's easier to turn my phone off.

But it's really valuable to sit and know this.

To sit and say,

Okay,

That happened.

That was one person out of eight billion.

One person did that.

They are not everyone.

Maybe you come from a family that's super controlling and they have an opinion on everything you do.

That is just your family.

Everyone's not like that.

So it's really important to notice who was it?

What were the dynamics that got me here?

Because the cool thing is when we can actually really look at it,

We can also see the role that we end up playing.

For example,

If we come from a really controlling family,

Maybe the message to my soul is that I need to start making choices in my life and I need to not let other people make choices for me.

That's a really big deal.

Because as soon as we're making our own choices,

No one else can make our choices.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like there's,

The opening isn't there.

The choices have been made.

They can have opinions.

But you're so clear about it.

It's like,

You know what?

They're just people who love having opinions about anything.

I don't care.

I'm making choices because once I start making choices in my life,

I start gaining confidence.

And the whole process of making choices and having confidence builds and builds and builds.

It's the same thing as if people,

If you've sort of been stuck with a lot of takers or energy vampires and you're just like,

Okay,

I'm going to make choices.

I'm going to make choices.

And if you've been stuck with a lot of takers or energy vampires and you're just like,

I'd rather just stay home.

Maybe our lesson,

Our soul's lesson is to learn how to really speak our truth in kindness.

And when someone is sort of in a real victim state to say,

Have you thought of making a different choice and actually learning to speak,

Not just having to listen all the time,

But to actually speak up and to speak up and to speak up.

And that's the kind of decision that we can take that changes everything.

Maybe we need to completely break out of our pattern and go and take an art class and do something and meet an entirely new group of people.

So how to recognize true friendship and when to know it's safe to truly open up.

The thing is,

You already know,

Because we feel safety.

Suddenly it's out of,

I said that I never tell anyone that it's always interesting.

Like I wrote in my book,

Tantric intimacy,

There's a portion there all about sexual healing.

And of course this is really intimate when you're with a partner and maybe you've had sexual trauma and that kind of thing.

The most important thing for the person that's on the healing end of that dynamic is that they fully trust the person giving,

Whatever that is.

But the key is the person giving should never have to say,

You can trust me,

Or they should never say to you,

Trust me.

You have to learn to trust people.

Trust is a integral,

Primal safety mechanism.

It's not an intellectual thing.

You either feel it or you don't.

And so in that instance,

For example,

The person in the receiving end of this intimate healing process,

They either feel trust or they don't.

And it's the same in friendships.

We either feel safe or we don't.

But is that up to us to learn to feel safe?

No,

There might be situations where you have been really brutally traumatized and trusting other people is really hard,

But it's still a journey.

The answer is still not forcing yourself to feel something that you don't feel.

Like this is one of the challenges of being traumatized or being abused is your feelings don't matter and you disassociate from them in order to survive.

So someone will come along that you trust and you won't have this question inside.

And then all of a sudden you'll start thinking about something,

Something will rise inside of you and you'll be alone and you'll be like,

I wonder if I could tell them this.

I wonder,

I wonder if I could tell them.

And you might wonder about that for a long time.

And then one day you sit down with them and you say,

I've never told anyone this thing,

But I really think I can trust you.

And you tell them,

But it's your journey.

Like,

You know what I mean?

It's us that have to come to that place where we really,

Really feel it.

We truly feel it.

We never ever force ourselves to trust someone.

Well,

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Thank you. So much of what you explained resonated with me.