So today we are continuing our journey of the divine union of the masculine-feminine and today we're talking about strengthening the masculine.
Last week we talked about strengthening the feminine.
One of the reasons that it's really important to talk about the masculine is because the masculine energy within us is what actually creates our life.
This is actually the energy of our existence.
The feminine is really important as we talked about previously,
But it's the masculine that actually does something.
It's great to have inspiration and be connected to that.
It's great to be connected to our emotions and understand our truth,
But it's what we do with it which is the energy of life that actually flows through us into our own lives,
Through us into other people's lives.
It's what connects us to the actual world.
This is the balance of the doing and the being.
We can just sit and be all we want,
But there's no energy there.
It has to go with doing.
Being means nothing if we don't do anything with it.
Why were we even incarnate here?
Why did we come here?
It wasn't just to be.
We could have just stayed in the 12th dimension or wherever we came from.
We could have just stayed there and just been.
So the masculine is the energy of life,
But because of the world we've lived in,
You know,
Whether it's the domination paradigm,
The patriarchal paradigm,
But this controlling aspect,
The masculine has become very negative and that's within all of us.
This is all genders,
Everything.
The masculine has become controlling.
It can be thought of as being angry or burly or strong,
Forceful,
All that kind of thing.
And the challenge is that we imagine that this is what masculine is and they say,
Oh well,
I'm always the masculine in the relationship.
What does that actually mean?
Does it mean you're always giving?
That you always protect the other?
That you always manifest the ideas of others around you?
Is that what you mean?
Or do you simply mean that you're always in control?
That you always have the final word?
Because that's not masculine.
That's the patriarchy.
That's this,
I am in charge and you will do as I say.
That's not masculine feminine.
Masculine feminine is about union,
About connection,
About a symbiotic dance of opposites that makes life so exciting.
So it's really really important to look first at what we even mean by the masculine.
Because if strengthening the masculine just means strengthening that power position,
That's not it.
It doesn't bring us joy.
It maybe at times in our life helps protect us against tyranny,
But even then it's not a long-term joy at all.
So it's really important to look at this because when we internalize that kind of unhealthy controlling patriarchy and think it's masculine,
Then oftentimes we just avoid all the masculine,
All healthy masculine,
And our life becomes stagnant.
We never step into a leadership position.
We don't manifest our dreams.
Our life stagnates.
Or we do step into that unhealthy patriarchal controlling version of the quote masculine,
And we end up an island because we push everyone away.
We become insular.
We think that success at all costs is the answer to life,
Which of course we all know eventually after a certain number of decades of playing that game that it doesn't.
But even worse than all that,
That controlling masculine inside destroys our own connection with our own soul,
And we beat ourselves up for our whole life for decisions we made or decisions we didn't make.
We internalize that judgment,
That controlling stick-wielding teacher,
And we live this horrible life.
On the outside we might be all smiles and happy and serving others and showing up with cake for birthdays and things,
But inside we're actually really hurting ourselves.
So it's really,
Really important to redefine the masculine,
And in today's talk,
Once we've redefined it,
How do we actually strengthen that healthy masculine?
So some of the masculine-feminine dynamics,
Especially if you're new to this idea,
The masculine-feminine dynamics we're going to talk about.
Masculine clarity,
Which plays with the feminine big picture.
It's funny when I was first writing this out,
It was like I was saying,
You know,
Clarity versus big picture.
Decision versus chaos.
Protection versus vulnerable.
And it was funny as I was writing it going,
Isn't that weird that I say versus?
Because truly they are opposites,
But they work together.
It's clarity and the feminine big picture.
It's decision and the feminine chaos.
It's protection and the feminine vulnerability.
It's the masculine doing with the feminine being.
It's the masculine leading and following.
It's manifestation and inspiration.
They do go together.
Today we're going to just talk about the masculine,
But they go together.
They're not in polarized opposites.
It's funny,
One of you guys here who read my manuscript mentioned this.
They said,
You know,
I don't like the word polarizing because polarizing feels like a fight.
The two sides have polarized and we will never find a way together.
And what's interesting about that is we have to distinguish between polarizing in separation and polarizing in union.
When we polarize,
Polarized just means going to the edges of the masculine-feminine,
The edges of the yin and yang,
Whatever that is.
Polarizing in separation is exactly that.
I want this and you want this.
This is math versus arts,
Masculine versus feminine,
The people versus the government.
The polarization is real.
And this is the old paradigm.
This is part of that hierarchy,
Whether it's patriarchy,
Matriarchy,
Doesn't matter.
All hierarchies create this separation paradigm or the domination paradigm creates an us versus them situation.
So that's why we often imagine that polarization means fight.
Now instead,
The consciousness that we're moving into now in the year 2023,
And we have been for a little while,
Is what does this look like in connection?
What does this look like without all of our guards up?
What does this look like without the desire to dominate others?
This is true self-actualization,
Living in our truth amongst others and interacting with them.
So now suddenly,
Imagine you're with a friend.
For example,
I love to process verbally.
That's my favorite.
If I am sort of lost about something,
Like even on Monday,
I had a little business meeting with Tim,
Who works with me,
Because I was like,
Oh,
I'm kind of lost as to exactly which things,
Because I've got about 14 projects I want to work on,
Wasn't sure how to prioritize them.
So we got together and we started chatting about it.
Well,
The greatest thing about working with someone isn't when they just agree with you all the time.
The greatest thing is when they're like,
Oh,
Have you thought of this though?
And what about that?
And what this does is it pulls us into almost opposing places,
But in connection.
And he's like,
Well,
Let's just sort of spitball here.
What if this?
What if this?
Oh,
Well,
That's interesting because there's also this tension over here.
And what about this?
And all of a sudden,
The further apart we get,
It actually becomes the breadth of the discussion.
The more interesting ideas we can come up with,
It actually expands the container.
So it doesn't matter what you're doing.
You could be having a debate about a very heated conversation.
You just pick your favorite polarized discussion.
But imagine you respect the other person.
Imagine you love this other person.
Imagine you actually want to have a conversation with them about it,
But without the desire to dominate them.
You're not trying to convince them of something.
You're actually seeking a higher truth.
And through the polarization of it,
We'll actually come to a more interesting truth.
So it was interesting,
A friend of mine years ago,
She wanted to homeschool her children.
And it was based on sort of opinions of other people in the community she was in.
And she was really hemming and hawing about it.
And she called me one day and she says,
Katrina,
I really want to get together for a cup of tea and talk about homeschooling.
Because at that point,
I wasn't against homeschooling,
But I was against it for me.
I knew that it wasn't for me.
I had lots of friends who happily and very successfully homeschooled their children.
But for me personally,
It wasn't my path.
Ironically,
Of course,
As the universe would have it,
A few years later,
I pulled my son out and homeschooled him for a year because of the conditions that were happening at that time.
So she actually called me because she knew I would have an opposing view to all the views,
All the opinions that were being sort of forced down her throat at that point.
So we got together and she goes,
I don't want you to agree with me.
I want to hear all the reasons that you don't want to homeschool your children.
And so within that conversation,
We had a very interesting breadth of philosophical conversation.
And within that breadth,
She was able to go home and find her own truth,
Whatever that was.
So imagine that is actually the goal of polarization in union,
In connection.
So for example,
One of the topics we're going to talk about today is manifesting and doing.
Doing things in the universe.
I want to actually do the things that I dream about.
I want to do the things.
I want to manifest the inspiration that comes to me.
Well,
The wild thing is the bigger the inspiration I have,
The bigger the manifestation energy.
If I just have this tiny little idea,
Just a tiny little idea,
Maybe I'll do that.
So I go and do it.
And it only takes like this much energy,
This much life force to do it.
That much.
It's just little.
It's a tiny little polarization.
It's not a big deal.
But the bigger the inspiration,
The weirder it is,
The more your family would go,
Are you kidding?
You're really going to do that?
The more energy,
The more masculine energy it takes within me to make it happen,
Right?
I have to dig deeper inside of me to find the faith,
Find the connection to that inspiration.
I need to have a stronger connection to actually find that energy to do it.
So that's where the polarization is really fun.
And we'll talk more about that.
So I just wanted to mention that.
So the first thing I want to talk about is manifesting and doing.
It's manifesting and inspiration.
That's the pair.
Or doing and being.
This one's really,
Really important.
It's really important because especially in a world that we've become very intellectual,
We can create entire worlds in our mind.
We think that I've read the book.
I took the course.
I don't have to do anything now.
I remember when I first took my yoga teacher training course,
Kundalini yoga.
And to understand,
I took the course in order to teach.
Lots of people take yoga teacher training just as a personal journey,
Community.
But I didn't.
Many people at the end of the course said,
So what's the next training you're going to do?
Do you want to do the 300 hour training now?
And I said,
Well,
No,
I want to go and teach now.
Now I need to go and take this 200 hours and do it.
I want to actually teach.
That's where the journey actually began.
I had actually brought all this information into my body,
Into my mind,
Into my experience.
But it actually isn't out in the world yet.
The act of actually taking all of that and teaching it and sharing it.
That's where I become alive.
That's where I actually have to stick my neck out,
Come up against all the challenges of being a teacher,
All the challenges of marketing a yoga program and what have you.
That's when I actually had to dig deep and figure it all out for myself.
The teachers could give me so much,
But now I was going to take it out and make it mine.
And that's really interesting.
How often do we read a book and actually do the exercises in the book?
I'm reading a book right now,
Ironically,
Right before this class.
And it's one of the books that Tony Robbins wrote back in the 80s.
And he was called Anthony Robbins then.
Tony Robbins is one of these people that I have so much respect for him.
And he is in so many ways such a great example of healthy masculine.
You know,
There's pros and cons to everything that people do.
But he is someone that when I think of him,
I think of healthy masculine.
Because he just does the things.
And it was really interesting.
So I was reading his book,
I've listened to a lot of his stuff over the last few decades.
But I actually stopped,
Grabbed my journal,
And did the exercises.
Like I tend to be super cerebral.
And so I just,
Oh,
I've read the questions.
Great.
Now I'm gonna go on to the next chapter.
But instead,
I stopped.
And I actually got my journal and I wrote out the questions.
And I thought,
Okay,
I wrote out my answers.
And then my entire day was different.
Because I was actually doing the things.
I was actually taking action based on something I read.
How often do we miss that step?
How often do we miss the doing of the things I just read,
The doing of the thing we just learned?
And we just go right on to the next thing we're going to learn.
Truthfully,
I think it kind of comes from our education system,
Too,
Where we sort of learn very surface amounts of things,
And we just sort of memorize them for the test.
And then we go on to the next thing,
And we memorize those things for the test.
And the test is sort of the measurement,
And then we go on.
Whereas imagine instead,
You were going to learn something in depth,
Manifest something,
Create something,
Do something with it.
It's a very interesting thing.
In some ways,
This is the balance of the masculine-feminine,
Of the masculine mind,
And the feminine being,
The feminine manifestation.
The mind is sort of like,
Oh,
Look,
I've done all this thing.
The intellect,
The masculine intellect,
I've done all these things.
It's like,
Well,
You've thought about a lot of things,
But have you done the things?
There's a Chinese proverb that says,
Talk doesn't cook rice.
And that's a really big deal,
To actually do things.
So why do we have a hard time with this?
Why do we have a hard time manifesting?
It's easy for me to say this.
Well,
One of the big challenges is,
As in all the pairings,
Is we're actually disconnected from the feminine.
It's hard to manifest when we're actually not connected to our inspiration.
So sometimes let's say we have all kinds of ideas,
But we've never actually done anything with them.
Maybe we've been afraid of failure.
Maybe we've been afraid of judgment.
Maybe we have had a lot of people around us that when we try something,
New,
They're like,
I don't know why you're bothering with that.
That's a waste of time.
That's going to wait,
You know,
You're just going to waste your money,
You know,
But why don't you do something worthwhile?
So slowly you realize that,
You know what,
I can have all the ideas in the world,
But I'm not actually going to do them.
So this disconnect happens between our ideas and doing.
Like,
It's not like a character flaw.
This often happens just because of our upbringing or the society we live in or whatever.
Let's say,
For example,
You have a dream of being an artist and you're born to a family of doctors or a family of lawyers.
Well,
Suddenly your dreams,
Your inspiration are irrelevant.
Again,
With all of these dynamics,
The feminine is often considered irrelevant.
So a lot of times we have a hard time manifesting when we can't have faith in our inspiration.
We don't have faith that these ideas I have are important.
These ideas I have are my satya.
They are my truth.
They are who I am.
They are why I'm here.
And it can be anything from starting a new business to choosing what to have for dinner.
Why wouldn't I eat what I desire tonight?
Why wouldn't I take a job that I love?
Why wouldn't I build that kite if that's what I want to do?
That's why we're here.
That's why we incarnated here on Earth in this interesting duality of being able to create something out of inspiration.
We're certainly not here to make money or do weird things like that.
This creative process is us.
This is the microcosm of the macrocosm.
But if we don't do it,
We don't have faith in ourselves,
Which is why it's so good to start with the little things.
The tiny little things.
You know what?
I'm gonna do this thing because I feel it's right and I do it.
And then this starts to create a connection.
You know it's like crazy things.
It's not always creating things.
Sometimes it's just making decisions.
This coming Friday we don't have class because I was supposed to go to a spa day with all of these lovely Tantra teachers that I teach with at the Tantra Festival in Toronto.
And I was so looking forward to it.
It was one of the Scandinavian spas and I had mud baths booked and massages and oh all so good.
I was so looking forward to it.
But it's like a three and a half,
Four hour drive from here and I have a lot of other things going on this weekend.
And I just moved and I was actually feeling all of this weird pressure inside of me like,
Oh I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this.
And then finally yesterday this idea,
The inspiration came that maybe I shouldn't go to the spa.
Maybe I shouldn't go.
And to realize that intellectually I want to go,
Even in my heart,
I really love these people and I really want to go to the spa.
But this inspiration came in that said maybe you shouldn't go.
Maybe you should just take the day off and stay home,
Read a book,
Have a tub and rest.
Maybe that's what you really need.
Instantly all the stress left my body.
It was instant.
Like it was like ah my whole body exhaled.
So what's the next step often in this decision-making process?
Oh I don't know,
Maybe I should,
Maybe oh but I was so looking forward to it and people are gonna be disappointed and I'm so looking for like oh but oh maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow.
I don't know.
And we start to do this whole back and forth thing.
But the more often you listen to your intuition,
The more often we can trust our inspiration,
The easier it is to make the call,
Cancel the event,
Get the refund,
Exhale and go on with your life.
But if we never listen to our intuition and we always do things based on external things or ideas that even we had,
We'll be like but what if it's the wrong choice?
What if it's the wrong choice?
I don't know,
I don't know,
I don't know.
So it's really important to actually take this interesting journey to reconnect ourselves with our inspiration.
Because when we reconnect,
Suddenly manifestation is the natural thing.
I really feel good about this.
I feel this is the right choice.
I do it.
And someone might say well why would you do that?
That doesn't make any sense and you're like I don't know.
But that's what I feel inspired to do.
That's all there is to it.
And then manifestation becomes very easy.
It's effortless because it's joined to inspiration.
So on the doing aspect,
Oftentimes we have a disconnection or an imbalance with being.
So sometimes we'll make a plan.
We'll say you know what,
I'm going to start exercising tomorrow.
It's always a bad sign when we make it tomorrow or Monday and not today.
But I'm going to do this thing.
Yeah,
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
But what if your cup runneth over?
What if you already have so many things you're doing,
You actually don't have the energy for it.
You actually don't have the brain space for this new thing.
Because we're not spending enough time being.
We aren't resting enough.
We aren't sitting and staring out the window and just resting.
Being is not scrolling on our phone.
It is not playing video games.
It is not watching Netflix.
This is not being.
This is extremely stimulating.
Being is actually completely relaxing.
You can maybe be sitting chatting with a friend,
Walking the dog,
Walking along the beach,
Sitting in a chair and staring at the wall,
Sitting on a porch,
Watching the world go by.
Actually resting our mind and body.
When we have enough of that in our day,
All of a sudden we actually have the energy and the centeredness to do something new.
The other really important thing about this being and inspiration is we have to be sure that we're manifesting something that comes from inside.
There's a hack that's happened to the masculine because of this domination paradigm that we've lived in.
Imagine for a moment that there are sort of those in power,
However you want to see that.
Maybe it's your boss.
Maybe it's your teacher.
Maybe it's the government.
Maybe it's something else.
But bottom line,
They want you to do things that benefit them.
So what they do is they say,
So what they do is they say,
I want to inspire you to do this thing.
So let's say it's a marketing campaign.
I want to inspire people to join my gym.
So I'm going to say,
You can look like this.
You can have anyone you want if you look like this.
You want to be fit.
You want to look like this.
So suddenly your masculine self is creating a plan based on that external inspiration.
You're not listening to you at all.
You're not listening to your heart.
You're not checking in with your body.
You're not checking in with your health,
How much energy you actually have.
It's all been hacked externally.
I have a good friend that works for one of the big banks and over the years I've watched them in this big banking situation and I've watched how the managers at all the different the executives at every different level and they inspire the executives to make new change and do these mind-bending things.
But of course all that energy is just serving the business and the people burn out because they've completely disconnected from anything within.
They're not serving individual people.
They're serving something external to themselves.
So this is where also it's really important to ask ourselves,
Where is the inspiration coming from?
Where are the ideas coming from that are causing me to make these plans in my life?
Like how often do we do that?
We hear an inspirational talk.
We read an inspirational book.
I don't know,
We meet someone who's really into fitness and running marathons and suddenly it's like that's it.
I'm gonna run a marathon.
I'm gonna join that thing.
I'm gonna lose 40 pounds and I'm gonna become an athlete or whatever because it sounds like a great idea and maybe it is a great idea.
But it's all based externally.
We haven't even checked in with this body.
We haven't checked in with actually what am I capable of in this moment.
How much change is possible in my life right now considering my work schedule and my children and my parents and whatever else I'm doing right now.
So this is another huge thing because often we say,
Oh I make all kinds of plans but then I just fail.
I don't follow through.
I suck.
I don't have a strong masculine.
I'm not good at manifesting.
But where did the ideas come from?
So this is a huge journey in that this masculine is to come inside and say,
Is this really what my soul wants or have I imposed something on me that I'm now forcing myself to do?
So let's say you just simply,
Let's say that's not the issue but you just want to strengthen your ability to manifest.
You want to strengthen the masculine in you.
All genders.
The key is to just go out and do things.
Anything.
And I mean it.
You don't have to do the right thing.
Do anything.
Go out in the community and volunteer.
Help somebody.
Call someone and say,
Hey you just moved.
Do you want me to come and get rid of your boxes for you?
Hey you know what I'll come and shovel your walk if the snow has fallen.
Like whatever.
Just do things.
Just go out and do things.
This is what actually increases the testosterone in our bodies.
This is actually what this is what helps us actually become masculine.
Talk doesn't cook rice.
Go cook the rice.
Do something out there.
If you want to be more masculine in a relationship,
Do things.
Plan things.
Make things happen.
Give your partner a massage.
Do things.
It's really important.
That whole the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Just do it.
And it's funny one of the things that,
Again I love people who are great role models for the masculine because they're not afraid of failing.
To them there's no such thing as failure.
They just do things.
They do that.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
It doesn't matter.
The joy was in the doing.
The joy was in figuring out what you're going to do.
You can feel that energy.
You can feel that power right.
It's like oh I'm just going to go do this and then I'm going to do this.
I'm going to paint that wall.
Then I'm going to do this.
There's so much fun excited energy in that.
And again this comes back to the idea that the masculine is the energy of life.
This is what we're doing.
It's super fun when it comes from inspiration.
But sometimes we just have to practice.
We actually just have to get out there and do things without any heaviness.
Because a lot of times we get stuck in that analysis paralysis is the right thing,
Wrong thing,
Right thing,
Wrong thing.
Don't even worry about it.
Just go do little things all the time.
And the great thing about this is it creates something within us that makes us know that we exist.
You know one of my favorite parenting books when my kids were little was a book called One Two Three Magic.
Highly recommend it.
It's a great book.
But one of the things they talked about is children need to know that they exist.
And one of the number one ways that you know you exist here on earth is to affect someone else.
That what you did affected someone else.
So this is what the theory in the book is that this is why kids will bug you until you get mad.
Because on a deep existential level they exist because you had an emotional response to them.
And so the book is all about how to exist and everyone still feels like they exist but you're not constantly fighting and having emotional responses all day long.
This is the same when you go out and about and you help in the community.
And it's not about I did this for appreciation or whatever.
One of my favorite things to do honestly is to drive through a drive-thru buy a coffee or whatever and pay for the guy behind me.
Especially like here in Canada we have like Tim Hortons which are these coffee donut stores sandwich places.
So nine times out of ten the person behind you just getting a coffee anyway.
On occasion it's happened that the person behind me bought an entire meal for five people.
But most of the time that doesn't happen.
But I get such a kick out of it.
It like makes my day for like hours and hours and hours where I'll just say I pay for mine I pay for the person behind me and I drive away.
And it's such a kick.
Do I know the effect on that person?
No.
But you affected another human in some way and it just tickles your soul.
So those are just some fun things we can do.
One of the things about being masculine is being a leader.
And this so this is the leading following dynamic.
So being a leader this could be in family.
Maybe you're a parent or maybe you are caring for aging parents.
Or maybe you want to be more masculine in your relationship.
You know and you want to lead more.
What does this mean?
A good leader is fully connected to whoever is in the group.
It could be a coach of a team.
It could be a project manager at work.
They are connected to the team.
They care.
It's not about their ego.
They're not in control.
They're simply leading a group.
So they are fully connected in the group and they're listening.
Then they stick their neck out because that's one of the challenges with the masculine is we have to stick our neck out and perhaps people won't like what we're doing.
But that's okay because we're also happy to get feedback.
Because we want we're enjoying leading and the joy of the leadership is the connection to the group not the personal success.
The joy is that all together we did this together.
That's what's fun.
So of course I want feedback.
Of course I want to know.
In the end I have to make the decision because for whatever reason that's the the position I was put in.
But the feedback's important.
All this is good and then I try and then I try again and I try again.
This is so joyful and it's really joyful for the people following.
It's like again back to the parenting books.
One of my other favorite parenting book was Barbara Colaroso's Kids Are Worth It.
What they talked about is when the parents are good leaders.
They're considering the whole.
They're communicative.
They're transparent.
It's all good.
The children get to relax and actually just be children.
There's a joy in that.
There's a joy in knowing that your parents have everyone's feelings considered.
Everybody matters but the parents are going to make the choice and it's all good.
I remember years ago I heard this it was a funny little saying or something and it's kind of a stereotypical heterosexual joke or whatever but the question was what are the three little words that every woman wants to hear and we can just substitute masculine feminine here.
And of course there's all kinds of answers but in the end the answer was I've got this.
There is something about when there is someone whether it's a partner whether you enjoy being in the feminine and your partner enjoys being in the masculine and they are like don't worry I've got this.
There is a joy there and the masculine partner yeah I've got this and the other partner is like awesome and they kind of open and relax and it's beautiful.
That dynamic is the same.
It's the same at work.
When you have a boss or you have a project manager that is excellent.
They're excellent leaders.
You're kind of like if people have any questions you're like you know what I know they've got this.
You know I may not understand it but I trust their judgment because I think they're great.
As opposed to the opposite if you can imagine all the people who really aren't great leaders are not great project managers.
They don't care about the people.
They maybe don't really think about the whole picture.
There's a lot of things that we know really aren't great.
So how to become a good leader?
Consider everybody that you're leading.
Take great feedback and don't be afraid to stick your neck out.
Don't be afraid to do the thing.
If it works great.
If it doesn't work great.
That's what we're here for.
We have to really ask ourselves why we're even alive.
We're not actually just trying things and doing things.
There's no success meter in the sky.
If you imagine but on your deathbed are you really going to worry about all the things that worked versus didn't work?
It's just all the things we tried.
How much fun was that?
How much fun was this?
I opened a dance studio.
I can't remember what year it was.
I have a feeling it was 2005 but I opened a dance studio and it lasted one year for a million reasons but I could consider that a failure.
Is it a failure that it only lasted one year?
I can't even tell you how opening that dance studio strengthened my masculine self.
I had to market a business for the first time.
I had to teach dance because my business partner had issues and I was supposed to be the person in the back.
I was supposed to be the money and the marketing and the business side of it.
My business partner was supposed to be the dance teacher and he went AWOL and I'd invested this money that I didn't have.
I borrowed the money to do it again.
This masculine,
I'm going to take this risk.
I know this is a good and my inspiration is strong.
I'm going to risk it.
I'm going to do it and then my business partner went AWOL and I had to teach.
I had to stand in front of the mirrors.
I had to actually teach all these classes you talk about standing up and doing something and then I discovered I love teaching.
I discovered so much about myself that year and it was a hard year.
When I just loosely say my partner went AWOL that meant there was a thousand dark nights of the soul and dramatic bits of nonsense that happened that year.
But every single time I had to like go within,
Ask for guidance,
Do the thing.
Go within,
Ask for guidance,
Do the thing.
The end of that year,
That was one of the most formative years of my life.
Imagine that that's how we saw everything.
Everything we tried.
Well,
Whether it works or it doesn't work,
It'll certainly be a journey and I will be strengthened in the meantime.
And don't get me wrong,
I crashed and burned after that year.
It's not like I walked out of there all like I'm Richard Branson and I'm awesome or something as another great example of a strong masculine.
It wasn't like that.
I crashed and burned which is how I found Kundalini Yoga.
And then I became passionate about Kundalini Yoga and then went away into the teacher training.
It sort of launched me into a whole other world of teaching.
Another one I want to talk about is this ability to make decisions.
Strengthening the masculine within.
Decision-making,
Clarity.
This is masculine because this is the opposite of that chaos that the world is.
This is the opposite of that big picture sight of the feminine.
It's all important.
It's all important to be able to feel everything,
Know everything,
Know everything,
See the big picture,
Feel that.
That's the feminine.
But in the end,
We have to make a choice.
We have to make a decision.
Do I turn left?
Do I turn right?
Do I do the thing?
Do I not do the thing?
Now,
I remember Jim,
My teacher,
He used to talk about how the more you understand about the world,
The harder it is to make a decision if you're only going to make it with your brain.
And this is where analysis paralysis comes in because I understand.
I can see the whole picture.
Now,
What do I do?
How do I make a decision?
This is where the masculine clarity comes in.
This is where you take all this important information from the feminine,
You sort it out,
You listen to your intuition,
And you bring in logic and you bring in clarity.
They often talk about the feminine is the moon energy and the masculine is the sun energy.
How often do we get lost?
Maybe we've lost something,
Maybe we've lost a job,
Maybe we've lost a partner,
Or there's been something big happen in our life and we get lost in the chaos of grief and sadness,
And even apathy.
How do we get out?
Masculine clarity.
We have to make a decision.
We have to do something that cares for the one inside.
And so we have to make a decision and do something.
That clarity is so important.
So when our goal is to find that clarity,
We're going to start we're going to start doing things to help find it.
Because it's not that easy to just say,
Make a decision.
It's not that simple.
So we start looking for tools.
Maybe we find a yoga practice that helps clear out the weeds.
Maybe we start meditating for 10 minutes every day to find a little oasis inside of our soul,
A little clear pond inside of us so that we can feel clarity.
And it's not going to happen the first time we meditate.
It might happen the 20th time because we're trying to clear out the chaos because we value masculine clarity.
This is why we meditate.
We meditate to find that space.
And this is really important.
Maybe you journal to find clarity.
You write it all out until all of a sudden you're like,
But our goal has to be masculine clarity.
We have to love the masculine because this is again one of the challenges with strengthening the masculine is because we've had this patriarchal domination thing forced on us.
It's like you have to be a mathematician.
Arts are dumb.
You have to be this.
You have to be logical.
Forget about your emotions and intuition.
What happens is we often throw the baby out with the bath water and say,
Screw clarity.
I'm just going to flow with life.
And of course there's balance.
It's not one or the other.
It's the balance of the masculine and feminine.
It's the dance of the masculine and feminine that matters.
So we have to redefine the joy of masculine clarity.
We don't use clarity to push out intuition,
To push away emotional truth.
We bring all the emotional truth to the surface.
We mix that with our intuition and we use masculine clarity to say,
Aha,
I see the pattern.
I understand.
Okay,
Now I know how to move forward.
This is really important.
You know,
This is a huge part because then once we have that clarity,
Then we can manifest,
Then we can do,
Then we can actually come back into balance.
It's always about balance.
It's always about this masculine feminine dance.
We don't always want to be in flow.
We don't always want to be connected into chaos.
We want to have the dance.
Otherwise we don't get to actually move forward in life.
Another big part of strengthening our masculine is the protector.
We need to have a strong protector.
But of course,
To have a strong protector within ourselves to begin with,
We actually have to be connected with our vulnerable truth.
If we actually aren't connected to who we really are,
Then there's nothing to protect.
Oh,
I'm fine.
Oh,
I'm so strong.
You have no idea.
I have this inner strength.
I don't even need to protect myself.
So then what happens?
We're perpetually throwing ourselves to the wolves.
We're perpetually saying yes to things we,
Our heart,
Our soul,
Our inner child wants to say no to.
But again,
In the same example earlier where we talked about how we were disconnected from our intuition,
Disconnected from our inspiration,
We have been trained very,
Very often to be disconnected from our truth.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter if we were still hurt or still wounded.
Our protector says,
No,
I'm still wounded.
It was my protector that said,
You know what?
I don't think you're going to do the big drive on Friday.
I think you should stay home and take care of yourself and really get your energy back.
Find your ground.
I think that's the best thing for you.
And it's true.
Why?
Not because he's controlling me.
He loves me.
He wants the best for me.
And that means that if we are grieving,
The protector knows we're still grieving and says,
Not ready for that yet.
No.
If the protector knows that we're actually in a a very sensitive place right now,
Then we're not going to share our soul with people who might hurt us or who might mock us or who might mock our ideas.
The protector's like,
No,
We're not fully baked yet.
We're going to leave it in the oven for a while.
And when we're ready to share with others,
We'll share with others.
But if we aren't connected with that truth,
We won't even have a protector.
And so then imagine going out into the world and wanting to protect others,
Protecting your children,
Protecting your parents,
Protecting your neighbors.
Who knows who you're protecting?
Well,
If you can't actually connect with your own self,
Are you actually even protecting the others?
Are you actually doing it?
Like,
It's an interesting question.
We think,
Oh no,
I'm really good at doing this with other people.
I just really suck at it with myself.
Really?
Are you actually doing it for other people or are you doing it for yourself?
But it just looks like you're doing it for other people.
Like,
Is it the same thing?
Oh yeah,
I always protect my kids.
I always stand up for them.
Do the kids believe that?
Is that their experience or is it disconnected?
It's just interesting,
The things that we say,
Oh no,
I'm really good out there.
I'm just not so good with myself.
And this is where these dynamics always start within.
If I want to strengthen my masculine,
Oftentimes we're like,
Oh,
I want to strengthen my masculine in relationship,
At work,
In the community.
That's what I want because we're so trained that it's all about other people.
But it all starts within.
So if we want to strengthen our masculine,
First off,
The question is,
When I make a plan,
Do I follow through?
Yes or no?
And this isn't a judgment.
Or do I just love making lists and never actually get to the bottom of it?
Because that's the masculine.
And so then the question is,
If the answer is no,
Is it because I've been beaten down in the past?
Is it because I was never really taught to do that and I'm just going to start now?
Or is the plan wrong?
Is the plan based on an external inspiration as opposed to internal?
It's an important question.
Are you actually connected to your inner feminine?
Are you connected to your inspiration?
Are you connected to your emotional truths?
Are you connected to your soul's actual desire here on earth?
Or has my soul's desire on earth been co-opted by what society thinks I should do,
Or what my parents think I should do,
Or what the church thinks I should do?
Because if I'm struggling to manifest,
Perhaps I'm not actually on my own path.
And that's a really important question to ask.
If you're in a group or a family or a relationship,
Are you a considerate leader?
Do you consider everyone in the group always?
And then are you willing to stick your neck out and stand in the decision?
Obviously always receiving feedback and all that,
But are you a considerate leader?
Or are you even willing to try being a leader?
You know,
Some people are natural leaders,
But it's always good for everyone to try being a leader every so often.
One year,
A group of friends,
We all went to New York City,
And these were women that I had met all over the world.
One friend was in England,
One was in Sweden,
And then there was my sister and myself in Canada.
And they had never all,
They had all never met,
But I had met them in my travels.
So I decided that we should have a goddess weekend in New York City.
And it was really interesting because everyone was,
They were really strong personalities.
And so choosing what to do each day was impossible.
And I was really into the masculine feminine then.
So I said,
Well,
What if we do an experiment that each day,
One of us is the leader,
One of us chooses what we're going to do.
So of course,
Being a good leader doesn't mean on that day,
Everyone's going to do what that person wants.
It means considering the desires and the needs and the wants of the whole group,
And including your own,
What's the best bet for today.
And it was fascinatingly difficult.
It was so interesting.
And it led to so much conversation.
And of course,
Because then if the person was leading,
Everyone else had to follow.
That's the game.
It's no fun to do it if nobody follows,
Because then you don't actually see the results of good leadership or bad leadership.
So the leadership thing,
It's a very interesting game if you're ever out and about with friends,
Or if you're a part of a family or a relationship.
Another question we have to ask ourselves is,
Are we free of internal judgment?
Have we internalized that judgment of the education system,
The church,
The patriarchy,
That domination,
Have we internalized that in our brain?
So every time we want to do something,
We want to make a decision,
We want to manifest something,
We want to stand up for ourselves,
All these masculine things.
Do you have this internal judgment that's like,
That's stupid.
You shouldn't do that.
Are you kidding?
What will people think?
Because this is very important to look at.
It's very important to ask ourselves,
Whose voices are these?
These are not helpful.
We want our internal masculine to be our cheerleader,
Not the judge and jury.
So that's a very important thing to get that guy out of the way in order to strengthen the masculine.
The last couple things are,
Do you give to yourself what you need?
Giving and receiving is a huge masculine feminine dynamic that we didn't talk about today,
But very often we don't give ourselves what we need,
Not what we truly need.
You know,
Maybe we don't think we're worthy,
Or maybe we don't think it's important,
Or maybe it's more important to get that job done rather than do this thing that we actually need.
If we don't give to ourselves what we truly need,
We won't want to be masculine out in the world either.
Let's say we want to go out.
We won't want to go and volunteer.
We won't want to take the lead.
We won't want to give to our partners.
We won't want to give to our children because we actually are in a deficit ourselves.
We actually need to be given to ourselves.
Maybe it was from our childhood.
Maybe it was from our life so far.
The first thing is to actually care for ourselves.
Once our pot is full,
Then we'll want to give to others.
Then we'll want to strengthen that part of our masculine.
The last part I want to mention,
The question is,
Do you seek clarity?
Do you enjoy masculine sun energy?
Do you seek that in your life?
Does it bring you peace inside,
Or does it feel oppressive?
How does that go?
Do you avoid it because you're afraid to make a decision,
Or you don't want that clarity?
I just want to live in the void.
I just want to live in the chaos.
There's a kick.
There's a thrill in clarity.
It's a thrill in the masculine.
That's where we want to get to.
We want to redefine it so that it's something we actually desire,
And then we can truly strengthen it.
Thank you so much for being here.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
