english
españolThe Exquisite Dance of Male and Female Energies
This article explore in a clear way the inner characteristics of masculine and feminine energy within ourselves.
by Kathleen Benschine
Gods
We lead such busy lives. We work hard all week. We collapse on our days off. There’s no time for play. This is the life for men and women today. We seem to be nearly interchangeable at times.
Is there a difference any more between men and women? This article will explore that question and suggest a few answers that may raise your eyebrows, as well as inspire you to think differently about your daily life as a woman, or as a man.
We’re so busy doing all the time that simply being has gotten lost somewhere. We’ve been told that doing is masculine (yang) and that being is feminine (yin). But in the “real” world of work, everyone is highly rewarded for doing, and criticized for just being. Who gets more kudo’s, the CEO or the homeless person? Being called a “slacker” is not a compliment. How many homemakers or house husbands freely admit what their vocation is? (Only the brave or evolved ones, I think.)
Now, imagine that you’re a working mom, with kids and a husband and you’ve just gotten home from a long, stress-filled day of work. At work, you are doing, doing, doing, so you are in Masculine mode, despite the fact that you are a female. When you get home, you are likely to remain in Masculine mode, because you look around and see so much work yet to be done.
Hold on to your hats, we’re about to go into new territory.
You’re a warm, giving person, and you’re a woman. Your husband sometimes seems so selfish and ungiving that it makes you angry. Sometimes you want to just tell him what to do, and you tell him, and he gets mad and no one gets what they need. Sound familiar?
Here’s a key concept to take into your system and digest for a while: Giving is Masculine. So when you are giving to others, you are in Masculine mode. Those you give to are in Feminine mode. As a mother, you are in your Masculine mode when you are giving to your children. You may wonder, “Why can’t the people around me be as warm and giving to me as I am to them?”
Here is the rest of the equation: Receiving is Feminine.
Are you comfortable when you receive help from others? When you receive a gift or a compliment? For many years, I was not. I only felt comfortable when I was giving or helping someone. I am a woman, yet because of early childhood sexual abuse, feeling feminine did not feel safe to me; in fact, I felt like a little boy for most of my first 40 years. To me, feeling feminine meant feeling weak and vulnerable (like a victim) and I wanted to stay as far away from those feelings as possible. I wanted to feel safe.
Today, I live in both the masculine and feminine modes, as consciously as I can. I love the dance of male and female, masculine and feminine energies, not only within my self, but between myself and others. Through a lot of work, I have come to absolutely love feeling feminine. And I still love being in Masculine mode. Today, I switch from Masculine mode to Feminine mode as the situation dictates, for the good of all concerned.
Going back to when you, as a working mom and wife just get home from work: you have a choice to stay in your Masculine, telling everyone what to do, how, and when to do it, or you could go into Feminine mode and allow the gifts of others to flow to you. I know, this sounds impossible, but it’s really the most natural thing in the world.
How about your husband or mate? The shift he needs to make as he gets home from his job is different. At his work, he’s likely to be operating in an aggressive masculine mode, so he needs to shift to nurturing/helping Masculine mode when he comes in the door.
Here’s the next idea that may challenge you: Nurturing is Masculine, because it is the act of giving. A woman can provide nurturance to another, and when she does, she is in Masculine mode. When I share this idea with people, it often comes as a big surprise to them and challenges their thinking, so I go on to say that I am describing energetic principles when I say that nurturing is masculine, not cultural norms. Now, I’m not saying that a woman should not be nurturing, but I’m advocating that she be very aware that she is in masculine mode when she’s doing the nurturing thing. Why?
The Key to the Dance of Male and Female Energies
When a woman goes into Feminine/receptive mode, the men in her life (her husband/mate and her sons over the age of 10) can then do what comes naturally to them – give their gifts to her! Their gifts have a receptive place to come to rest. Many of the men in our lives have become very accustomed to being the receivers of our nearly-continual giving, while we grow to resent so much giving to others (and go on to feel guilty about our resentment!).
Another reality is that when we always give to men, they feel like little boys and not like men. They feel emasculated when we give so much to them, when we cannot or will not receive from them. The sad result is that much healthy masculine energy is suppressed and distorted, and is eventually expressed as violent or destructive acts toward self and others.
What gifts do our men want to give to us? They want to help us with things they do well! Is it easy for us to accept help? I can only speak for myself when I say that accepting help from my mate can be difficult at times. I am still learning this exquisite dance, and I am dedicated to helping other women and men learn and get better at the dance of male and female energies.
A colleague of mine (a working wife with two sons) shared the following experience with me. She was puttering in her rose garden, and could see all the back yard chores that had been neglected by her sons, who seemed oblivious to the yard’s deteriorated state. Reaching the end of her tolerance for the tall weeds, she decided that instead of scolding the boys, she would make them a clear list of tasks and deliver it to them in a way that let them know how important a neat yard is to her.
When she got home from work the next day, her sons had completed all the tasks on the list! The yard looked great, and she made sure to let her sons know how much she appreciated their hard work. They beamed with pride as they recounted the details of their work, to her delight.
Here’s another secret: The Feminine is the initiator of all energy movement. Until a person goes into Feminine/receptive space, the Masculine/active person has no place to give their gifts. (Important note: the feminine energy principle can be found in a man as well as in a woman, and the same is true for the masculine energy principle.)
There are several easy ways for a woman to go into feminine mode. One way is to energetically imagine your system is a vessel that is open to receive. If you want to receive something specific, then get a picture of that thing in your mind, and your vessel becomes “magnetized”.
I love to practice feeling feminine by going out to eat by myself, because it gives me a safe place to practice becoming a vessel and to see and feel the reactions of those around me, the women and the men. It’s delightful to notice how people look in my direction, without knowing why. I am silent as I do this. Silence is feminine. Talking is masculine. I also tend to lean back just a little, and my head likes to kind of tilt to the side too. Leaning back is feminine. Leaning forward is masculine.
In terms of interacting with a man to receive his help, I’ve found the best way is to say what you want or what would make you feel good, rather than asking him to do something for you. For instance, if you are in his vicinity and say, “I would love it if the spiderwebs on the outside of the house were gone. It makes me feel so wonderful when the house looks clean.” he is likely to know that he can do that task and he will know how it will make you feel. When it’s done and you tell him how good you feel, he is likely to be on top of the world. Why?
Because testosterone, the hormone that males have more of, is a “do good to feel good” hormone. This means that when he’s done a good job and pleased someone, he then feels good! The testosterone in his system has been put to good use, he is happy, she is happy and the world is a more joyous place.
If the woman approaches him with, “Why haven’t you swept the cobwebs off the house yet? This place looks terrible. You’d better do it now, or I’ll do it myself” he’s likely to feel like a bad little boy, and his testosterone has no positive outlet. If he sweeps the cobwebs, he does it from a bad little boy perspective, and his testosterone is not in gear – it’s in storage.
What about females? Estrogen, the hormone that females have more of, is a “feel good to do good” hormone. When a female, or estrogen-driven person wants to accomplish something, she will be able to do so much more successfully if she chooses activities and surroundings that feel good to her, that nourish her physical senses in as many ways as possible. Our activities may be active and masculine in nature, but it is very important that we enjoy them physically, that our bodies feel good while we are doing them. This puts our female hormones to work for us positively, using them rather than storing them.
As a member of the baby boom generation, I know that many women my age are very, very comfortable in the Masculine mode, and quite uncomfortable in the Feminine mode. This has meant many things – we are a viable part of the work force, we are making good money and get to do many fun things in life. These are good things, and I don’t want to give them up, and I don’t have to give them up!
It has also meant something very unsettling for the men of our generation. With women so often in Masculine/giving mode, the only mode left for the men to be in when they are around us is the Feminine mode. Then the women get mad at them for not being more helpful and giving, better wage earners, or more nurturing. We may also be attracted to the “bad boys”, because they seem more masculine than we are. The bad boys are really more feminine because they are less giving, and they may act out due to stored, unused testosterone.
Hey, I’ve had as much fun as the next baby boomer with this way of living, but now I’m aware that a shift back to my Feminine is long overdue for my sake and for the sake of the men in my life. When I’m doing my thing, by myself, I’ll be just as masculine as I want to be, thank you very much. And when I’m with a man, I now choose to feel like a vessel as often as possible, to honor my Feminine and to honor his Masculine. The interactions that result are sometimes miraculous.
For instance, the men that I work with suddenly want to help me, while before they wanted me to go away. And I do need their help and they need to have someone to help. Sure, I could do it all myself, but what is served by me doing it all, all the time? Because the men know that I could do it myself, they know how much I appreciate what they are giving to me. My hormones are happy (because my needs for a better this or that are satisfied) and so are theirs, because they got to DO something for someone.
Here is how I define the Essential Masculine: A man, doing something for another person, and totally happy as he does it. When the receiver of his gifts tells him how good they feel about what he’s just done, his world is truly bright and he is satisfied.
Parenting is a Masculine Activity
When a person is a parent (either man or woman) they are in Masculine/giving mode and their children (boy, 10 or younger, or girl) are in Feminine/receptive mode. So when mom and dad are both parenting all the time, their intimate life may suffer because the energies cannot flow from one person in Masculine mode to another in the same (Masculine) mode. The energies flow naturally only from Masculine to Feminine. Is it any wonder that parents lose the romantic spark when kids come along? Mothers, this presents you with quite a challenge – how to make sure that your kids are well parented, while staying in Feminine/receptive mode at home with your husband. The benefits that arise from this shift extend beyond the bedroom.
Mothers, when you allow your older son give to you, he is practicing being a man, and so you are helping set in motion the development of his Essential Masculine self. This is such a gift to him, to your family, and to society as a whole.
When you are in your receptive mode at home, you are also showing your daughter what healthy Feminine mode looks and feels like. She sees you accepting gifts from the men in the household gracefully and gratefully and she sees the men in their healthy giving mode. What she doesn’t see is you giving yourself into a state of exhaustion to the men in the household while they sit around receiving and expecting more of the same.
The baby boom women will never give up the masculine mode that they love so dearly and they don’t have to. I don’t intend to give it up. I do intend to get better and better at “shifting gears” as called for by each situation and environment I am in. I also teach these concepts to others, to men and to women in seminars around the country, and in one-on-one facilitations with people.
I love to play, to experience the exquisite dance of male and female energies, to observe others as they engage in the dance, because I learn so much from watching others (what to copy, what to avoid). I recently led more than 200 lightworkers in Breckenridge, Colorado in a group exercise to help them experience the feelings of being a vessel, giving into a vessel as well as sensing the energy traveling from the masculine to the feminine vessel. It was great fun to watch everyone experience the dance of the energies in a safe environment.
This way of being – choosing Masculine/giving or Feminine/receptive – is not new, of course. We all do it quite naturally. However, our work lives pull us into the Masculine and so women may lose touch with their Feminine/receptive mode, while men lose contact with their Masculine/nurturing mode in the presence of their mates.
Many women think they are honoring a man by taking care of him or giving to him. This is not the case. A man’s masculinity is honored when he can freely give his talents, abilities and gifts to a person who needs those gifts and who lets him know his gifts are valued and appreciated.
Today, we see so much of what I call the distorted Masculine – which is violent, warring, and destructive to self and others. I have a hunch that these behaviors may be the result of a buildup of unused testosterone in the system. Could a buildup of unused estrogen in a woman’s system could also be causing illness?
Women – females – have a unique opportunity at this time in human evolution to reclaim their feminine selves, without losing any of their exciting masculine abilities and talents. When women get better at switching into the Feminine/receptive mode in the presence of the men in their lives, their relationships will become more fulfilling and peaceful, as everyone’s innate needs are met, and intimate relationships can naturally reclaim their earlier spark.
I look forward to meeting with many men and women in my travels, to learn more about bringing the Exquisite Dance of Male and Female Energies to a more conscious level than ever. The dance of Masculine and Feminine energies can be fun, sexy, fulfilling and may accelerate the time when everyone on the planet knows and lives in peace, from the inside out.
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About the author: Kathleen Benschine has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and is Energy Manager for 200 facilities in a large west coast gas and electric utility. She has attended 3 years of training in healing science, and has been trained in biogeometry by Egyptian healer and architect, Dr. Ibrahim Karim. She has also trained in feng shui and pranic healing.