Inner Masculine & Feminine

We all have masculine and feminine energy within us. These are universal archetypes that have nothing to do with gender. They are the complimentary structures that help us manage the physical and the metaphysical world. Understanding these dynamics within us provides a powerful way to understand our strengths and deficits; where we are empowered and where we are being called to grow. The balance of inner masculine and feminine creates a healthy relationship within ourselves.

Transcript

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Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.

My name is Renée LaValley McKenna,

And I bring my 30-plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,

Psychology,

And all things personal growth.

And today I want to talk about our inner masculine and feminine.

And masculine and feminine,

As I'm going to talk about them,

Have nothing to do with gender,

With sexual orientation,

Or with our genital configuration.

Masculine and feminine,

From my perspective,

Are archetypes or energetic formations,

And they exist in all of us.

An internal relationship between the feminine and masculine aspects of ourself has a lot to do with the quality of our life and our experience of it,

Both internally and externally.

The idea that healthy masculine and a healthy feminine,

When they're strong,

Well-developed,

Mature and grounded,

When they come together just as in intimate relationships,

Or I should say in healthy,

Mature intimate relationships,

There's a dynamic of love,

Support.

The masculine and feminine together create new life and provide nourishment and even encouragement for each to grow and develop and express their true nature in the world.

And again,

Masculine and feminine has nothing to do with sexual orientation,

And I will be using intimate relationship as a metaphor for our internal relationship because,

First of all,

It gives us a lot of information about ourself,

But it also really is a metaphor when we look at our intimate relationships with others.

It can really inform or give us insight into things we can't see about our internal relationship with ourself.

And each person is a unique configuration of masculine and feminine,

And there's many other ways to understand that,

And I'll talk more about the different perspectives if the masculine-feminine thing is triggering for you.

But this interplay of masculine and feminine is as applicable to gay couples as it is to hetero couples because these archetypes,

These energetic forms,

As we shall see,

Exist in a unique and particular combination for each of us,

Both internally and externally.

And I find this a really helpful lens to view the self through.

And again,

Looking at my intimate relationships can be helpful to help me see things that it's hard for me to see directly in myself because my internal structures are almost always evident in the external structures of my life,

The spiritual principle,

As within,

So without,

Which is why doing our internal work to heal our unresolved emotional issues,

To face and dissolve our fears,

To grow in compassion,

Courage,

Strength,

And empowerment is really the fast track to changing my life.

We live in a very externally focused culture,

And as humans it totally makes sense because things that we can see and touch and feel and hear,

Things that are quantifiable and measurable that's actually the masculine realm of the tangible,

The masculine manages the physical reality and the feminine manages the metaphysical reality.

And it points to understanding why the masculine is overvalued and the feminine is undervalued,

Because it takes a lot of maturity to be able to actually grasp the metaphysical and experience it.

And the physical is just right here in front of us.

It seems like that's what's real.

I made air quotes around real that you can't see on a podcast.

And things that are non-physical or metaphysical seem air quotes unreal.

And so when we want to change our life,

If we have problems,

We want to change the outside,

Hoping that will make the inside feel better.

Almost everything we do in the external world,

In the masculine,

Is in service of how we feel,

Which is our more feminine experience.

Again,

The masculine is the doing and the feminine is the feeling.

Masculine is the logical.

The feminine is the intuitive.

The masculine is the intellect.

The feminine is the intuition.

Masculine is assertive.

Feminine is receptive.

Now again,

This is not about gender.

There are many assertive females in the world and many very intuitive,

Receptive men.

We all have masculine and feminine within us.

And coming to understand their complex interplay,

Just like an intimate relationship,

And how they can serve each other is a really quite practical and exciting way to evolve and transform our lives.

If you're interested in evolving and transforming,

I'm kind of an evolving,

Transforming junkie.

I used to be a street junkie and now I'm a transformation junkie.

And that transformation keeps me hungry for more.

And on this plane of existence,

As far as I can tell,

After 35 years of consistent personal growth work,

There is no end in sight to what's possible in our opportunities to grow in joy and fulfillment in our lives.

And masculine and feminine energy is one way to really work with our personal growth process and see where we're highly developed and where we're underdeveloped.

Where are we solid and where are we vague?

And I know for myself,

Having grown up with a weak and sickly mother,

Who was actually highly intelligent and had quite a strong will,

She just focused her will on manipulating others rather than actually empowering herself in the world because she didn't know any better.

And she grew up in a time when the best that women could hope for was to get married and have babies and have someone else take care of you.

So I didn't like that model.

And in fact,

I didn't like being a girl.

I thought that was kind of the shit end of the stick because men had all the power.

They got to have fun and do cool things.

I was supposed to sit home and like fucking knit or play with Barbies or something.

I don't know.

So I hung out with the boys.

I worked in the trades.

I drank with the men.

Of course,

I was a cute chick,

So you get that extra special treatment.

So it's not like I was a guy,

But I always loved hanging out with guys.

I still have tons of guy friends and male energy is very,

Very important.

But I completely devalued the feminine.

I thought that being a woman,

That the idea of femininity was weak,

Powerless,

Subservient,

That they were the men and they were the girls.

I knew very few mature women.

Still to this day,

I have to say,

I have very few role models,

Particularly for aging women that are anything I'm interested in.

And so my self and a few of my friends are hopefully blazing the path to being sexy,

Strong,

Smart,

And courageous,

Well into our 70s and 80s.

I'm planning on bringing my life balls to the wall right to the very end.

If there's a finish line that we cross when we die,

I hope I'm going 120 on a BMW motorcycle and we lay that baby down,

Slide across with full leathers on.

But the universe may have other plans.

So I had a very highly developed masculine.

I'm not going to say it was a mature masculine.

I worked in the trades.

I was often the only girl on the landscaping,

On the house painting,

Or the construction crew.

I was frequently kind of abusive and unfaithful in my relationships and made a pretty conscious decision to treat men the way that I believed men treated women,

Which was as kind of disposable and not to be taken terribly seriously.

And the feminine attributes of vulnerability,

Flexibility,

Relationality,

Compassion,

Love,

Spiritual connection had no interest for me at all.

And so I was completely undeveloped.

I had long-term relationships with compulsive liars and married men,

People that were as emotionally unavailable as I was,

Because I thought being hard,

Invulnerable,

Unfeeling meant strength,

That the masculine principle of independence was the goal.

And I've come to understand now that interdependence,

Which is the feminine principle,

Is actually the next stage of development.

That independence is necessary in many areas of our life to become fully developed,

But that independence truly is a fallacy.

We are part of a larger system.

We're breathing in and breathing out every moment,

Taking in food,

Excreting it.

No matter how independent we think we are,

We stand on the face of the earth,

Held to her with gravity.

We would die without the sun,

Even if you're isolating yourself in a room with a computer.

Somebody made that computer.

Thousands of people made that computer,

Or the car we drive in,

Or the home we live in.

From the mine workers who dug up the raw materials through all the levels of manufacture,

The truckers who bring it to the store,

And the people who tally our money that we pay for the items that we use.

We are interdependent on every level of our life.

And so from my perspective now,

The healthy,

Mature feminine that's actually developing in our culture right now needs a strong,

Well-developed masculine to support her.

There is a huge resurgence of feminine development,

Again,

From this archetypal standpoint.

It may be seen as backlash against the patriarchy,

And certainly a necessity in the deficit that has been created with an overdeveloped masculine,

Or overvaluing the masculine.

But I think it's actually a natural progression,

That developing a healthy,

Mature feminine of care for others,

Of awareness of the larger system,

Of the growth of more meaningful,

Individualized spiritual practice,

The explosion of therapy.

People are really opening to their non-physical,

Experiential selves.

And whether that's because they're suffering,

Or just because they're interested,

I don't think it matters.

That is developing.

It's very exciting.

It's part of our evolution as humans.

And the feminine can only come to her full expression with the healthy,

Masculine supporting,

Protecting,

And providing a container for her to do so.

And that's exactly what happened for me.

I had never wanted to have children,

But I had this wonderful guy who said,

Listen,

I'll provide you a beautiful home.

We can have kids.

What else are we going to do with our life?

We've already traveled,

And had all kinds of sex with different people,

And have careers.

We just going to keep living a selfish life?

Or are we going to move to the next thing and learn how to care for others?

I was like,

Whoa.

All right.

I'm down.

So I got married when I was 38,

And I had my children when I was 39 and 41.

I'm a slow bloomer.

It's fine.

We're all in our own timeline.

It was perfect.

I couldn't have done it a minute before then.

It was way too fucked up.

And self-centered.

But moving into selflessness,

Which is a feminine principle,

As opposed to self-centeredness,

Which is a masculine principle.

And that doesn't have to be unhealthy.

We need to focus on ourself,

And we need to focus on others.

And again,

There's this interplay and balance that can be mature.

And it's shadow side or pathological end.

Both feminine and masculine can be toxic.

And I hate to always diss on my poor mother,

But she was toxic feminine.

Completely collapsed,

Weak,

Unworthy.

And so this profound process happened when I decided to get married and have children.

Then I realized I had a very underdeveloped feminine that needed to be strengthened and matured and expanded if I was going to be the kind of wife and mother that I would like to be.

And I had already been working with the divine feminine as a primary spiritual source for a long time because of my mother wound,

Working with Mary,

The great mother energy.

The Hindu goddess Kali had already introduced herself to me at that time.

But I needed to move from my own child energy,

Approaching the great mother to heal me into embodying the divine feminine within myself.

Because as a wife and mother,

I was going to be a source and a resource for others,

Particularly my children,

But my husband as well.

And I really had to face a lot of my internalized misogyny and open to learning about the profound strength of mature feminine,

Deep compassion,

Unconditional love,

Emotional,

Spiritual,

Physical,

Sexual vulnerability,

Where the masculine is rigid.

The feminine is flexible.

The masculine is goal oriented.

The feminine is process oriented.

And there's nothing more process oriented than being with babies and little children who live in the moment to be grounded,

Patient,

And participating in the natural growing evolution and development of the life force through my own kids.

As I breastfed them,

As I got mastitis,

Which is breast infections,

My daughter who would not breastfeed.

And it's very interesting now in middle age,

My children getting ready to launch into the world as young adults and me preparing to launch professionally with them in my own way,

Now that I'm freed up from those marital and parental responsibilities to a large extent and my own work in the world to bring the healing and transformation that has happened to me,

To all those who need it,

With all this highly developed feminine.

Now my masculine internally is underdeveloped to be able to support that.

I need to get much more solid structures around money,

Direction and discipline around time,

Organization around my business.

I've actually become quite ambitious to bring the very feminine energy of compassion,

Evolution,

And expansion to the widest audience possible.

And that ambition is a masculine energy in service of the feminine.

And the healthy feminine often stands on the shoulders or can only exist supported by a healthy protective masculine.

The masculine builds the house and the feminine turns it into a home.

Otherwise it's an empty structure.

I have a client who is a gifted musician,

But has had difficulty really asserting herself to bring her music into the industry.

It's been very intimidating for her.

She has this incredible,

Vivacious,

Fun and playful energy.

But because of her history,

She has a habit of playing small and keeping herself safe.

And she's in one of my spiritual experience groups.

We connected with a spirit guide in animal form.

She connected with an alpha predator who roared in her face and he scared her.

But she said she felt exhilarated by the fear,

Like what happens sometimes when she's on stage and she's been working with using the energy of fear as fuel.

And she did this incredibly brave thing.

She called this music company and she got into the directory in the phone and it said press two for the vice president and she pressed two.

And the vice president answered the phone and she pitched herself and they had a great conversation.

And the vice president said,

I never answer the phone and don't tell anyone that this worked but send me your stuff,

I want to hear it.

And she listened to a bunch of the tracks and she passed it on to the next team.

And I have no idea what's going to happen,

But it's quite an amazing win for this artist to connect with her own healthy masculine,

The courage,

The adventurer,

The assertive one who pressed that number two to be able to bring the brilliance of her very feminine music into the music industry.

And blessings on your work,

We wish you well.

So what is the balance of masculine and feminine in your life?

Intellect versus intuition,

Being assertive or receptive,

Being competitive or collaborative,

Focusing on details or the bigger picture.

And what is their interface in your life?

What is highly developed in you and where are you being called to grow?

Personal growth in this area,

In my experience is an endless process and I wish you well on that journey.

Blessings on your path until we meet again.

This is Renee LaValley McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.

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