…. or weaving a harmonised masculine & feminine into our lives.
This phenomenon has been much on my mind these last few days. Structure, in the wider view of the Universe tends to be a yang or masculine concept, and flow, a yin or feminine concept.
I am struggling with structure at the moment. I really want to be productive and ‘get things done’ but those plans and daily time scales that I have so carefully written out and plastered above my desk seem somehow to fade into insignificance when I wake up in the mornings and my intuitive state is uppermost. I flow into a meditation I didn’t plan, I flow into some journalling I didn’t plan, then I flow into some dance or tao yin I didn’t plan, then I realise half or even sometimes the whole morning is gone. I realise that my ‘to do’ list is still sitting there disapprovingly and my timing schedule looking down at me wearily from the wall. I contract and I panic that life is passing me by.
Structure and me – well, we’ve always struggled and tussled – maybe thats one reason my life hasn’t always flowed with ease! A lot of my life I squeezed myself into structure, whether it be the years and years of academia or the even more years desk bound, imprisoned within the confines of someone else’s agenda and struggling onwards with the deadlines, the timetables, drowning under paperwork, overwhelm, stress and panic all dumbed down with food, or socially submerged with alcohol, forcing myself onwards because thats just what we all did. I became less and less enthusiastic and more and more tired. My feminine screamed at me that it was out of kilter every month for nigh on thirty years, but for most of those years, being programmed as I was, to the masculine way of onwards and upwards, I simply had no evolved radar to stop and listen.
Its well known and widely publicised in the women’s ‘alternative’ world that we live in a yang based masculine culture and we’ve all been conditioned to adapt to this logical, structured, scientific, mind-based way of living. However, of course, we need both yin and yang. Both are essential to our health and well-being, just as both structure and flow need to be woven equally into our lives.
So what happens when our more natural way is based on a heightened feminine flow and we are forced to and try to fit into this masculine way of being? Well, things simply get stuck. We force and we force into this lifestyle and we drain our yin. Too much fighting against our natural tides drains our yin essence, causing us to feel lacklustre, stuck, anxious and to age prematurely.
Now, after 6 years of living a nomadic lifestyle with relatively little structure and truly allowing my womb’s intuition to guide me, being acutely aware of my female body and doing all I could to make her feel healthy and alive.…
Now, after this time of allowing her free flow, her dance, of delving deeply into her feminine, of celebrating my feminine, of dancing with her, loving her back to wholeness or as near to wholeness as she’s ready for…..
Now, after this pure indulgence of my feminine ‘whim’, this healing of my feminine form and this appreciation of what it means to be a woman in a more masculine world….
….. now, and only now can I start the journey back to nourishing my masculine and hence the journey back to wholeness.
This masculine way that was so very forced upon me for most of my life; that caused me to deny my inner feminine, my very essence and my life blood; that caused me to shut down creatively; that froze my fertility; that caused me frigidity; exhausted my life force that forced me into a way of being that was so alien to my core; that meant I could only survive instead of thrive…… it is to this masculine frequency, albeit in a more self -loving form, that I now look to in order to re-balance my life.
(Photo: structure in feminine flow!)
Yes, now that I’ve spent some years regaining and reclaiming the feminine aspect of myself, I feel ready to more easily embrace the masculine within. And this in itself is a journey. Because I’ve always absorbed the messages, ‘oh you’re no good at time keeping, at science or maths or technology, or public speaking’. Or ‘your brains just not logical, you’re too slow, too dreamy or you’re no good at bla bla bla.… And now I really really need to nurture and regain confidence in some of these more recognisably ‘masculine’ skills in order for my soul’s callings to be made manifest. I’m having to take a step backwards in order to jump a few more steps forwards. I’m having to re-wire myself deep to the very core of these non-serving beliefs so that I can function in a way that will enable me to live and love well and be of most service in the world.
I’m realising and aligning more and more with the concept that I need the structure of the masculine so that the dance of the feminine can truly flourish.
One way that this is phenomenon is emerging in my life right now is around food. I came to a grinding halt one recent evening. Feeling even more stuck than usual around techie computer issues that were preventing me from sharing stuff on fb and my website, feeling totally overwhelmed with all the e-mails, simply not knowing where to start, so started with late night snacking. I knew that one of the roots of this procrastinating brain fog was a body that had been suppressing its emotions with food for most of its life and was simply full to the brim with clarity-squashing stagnation.
It was that night, late on the computer, that science and structure paid me a visit. My feminine intuition guided me to a particular Vlog – a part of me yawned ‘are you really distracting yourself with yet another useless Blog on how to stop cravings and snacking’ But something told me to continue. It was a neuro scientist – she was engaging. She started to talk about how sugar was way more addictive than cocaine, that it is normal that 1/3 of the population can’t stop bingeing and craving because their brain is chemically hardwired to be addicted – they’re simply naturally more susceptible to this physical addiction in the brain. It seems an addiction has to have an automated systematized routine and support system to be cured. I believe I’ve found it. I’m 5 weeks in on her regulated, almost military style boot camp because I realise that some things need a disciplined, masculine approach, and this is one of them. I realise that there are some things I can’t simply dance, journal and flow my way out of.
There is simply no way around the science and the structure to heal a lifetimes addiction. I should know, I’ve tried for nearly forty years. So I’m diving in and I’m blessing the masculine with all my heart for helping me out here, for saving my life from the
insidious slippery slope that is the effects of sugar and flour on my hormones and hence on my health. I realise, too, that my yin taoist practises, my inner alchemy meditations and qi gong have led me to this programme and will all support this process. It feels like my inner feminine is leading me to the outer masculine, the two dancing in unison towards my highest good.
As I continue to heal and nourish my feminine nature, I know that I’ll be able to embrace my masculine more and more. I’ll have a more even dance between structure and flow, between yang and yin. I’ll need less time alone in the inner realms and have more space to develop efficiency, clear focus and organisation and hence enable more sharing of myself in the physical outer world.
This is an infinite topic that could flow and flow, but for now I’m signing off to rest in the ‘yin phase’ and taking this opportunity to wish you a harmonised flowing dance of yin and yang in your own inner and outer worlds!
With much love and harmony,
Marian Rose xxx
Ps: if you’re feeling like your relationship to food is slowing down your natural flow, then you might want to check out Susan Peirce Thompson – a truly inspiring woman using her well developed masculine gifts to serve humanity’s health and sanity! www.brightlineeating.com
