Feminine energy doesn’t mean being stiff or snobbish. Femininity is not reserved only for Christian women or women who know the rules of etiquette inside and out. It is not measured by how many luxury shoes and handbags you have in your custom wardrobe.
Modern femininity has made a mockery of what the divine feminine actually is. But if we take a step back and examine the place where feminine energy and masculine energy are in harmony, we find poise.
Toxic Masculinity and the Degradation of Femininity
I am not a metaphysical expert, but a good friend of mine is. She introduced me to the concepts of the divine feminine and the divine masculine. We each carry both within us and ideally we carry them in balance. As I’ve discussed at some length in my YouTube videos, many women today have been forced to lean into their masculine energy in a turbo-charged toxic (i.e. out of balance) masculine society. We do this to stay relevant. It’s a survival mechanism.
But in doing so we’ve contributed to the degradation of femininity. We’ve helped to perpetuate the idea that the characteristics of feminine energy (nurturing, sensual, creative, intuitive, among others) are superfluous in modern society. Western culture celebrates the ego, the drive toward success, and the need to control situations and outcomes. We associate these things with masculine energies because the divine masculine is, in fact, characterized by things like logic, reasoning, strength, and movement.
But remember, I said all of us have both masculine energy and feminine energy available to us. The toxic, mangled version that has taken over in our current patriarchy should not be confused with the divine. Make sense?
Messages from the Universe
As a woman who has denied her femininity for a long time, caught up in this rat race, I’m focusing this post on the divine feminine and the need to break ourselves open to receive it.
I’ve been receiving messages in many forms for a little over a year, all telling me that my life is out of alignment and that I need to be cracked wide open before I can heal. That I need to let light in, but also embrace my shadow self. That I need to get connected, both to myself and to those around me.
It’s been a long and exhausting list of suggestions. But it shouldn’t have been. It was exhausting because I was approaching it from the perspective of my ego. I was approaching it with a need to exert control over the process. I believed that if I made a plan, executed it, and ticked off every milestone along the way, I would be enlightened.
I’ve just now realized how wrong I was.
The messages that I needed to surrender, open up, and be willing to receive, were all pointing me toward something else. Something I didn’t know I needed. Something I had no idea how to do. That thing? Embrace my femininity.
The concept was terrifying.
Masculine Conditioning
I had to acknowledge the fact that I’d spent most of my life turning away from all things traditionally feminine. Success, in our society, left no room for emotion, creativity, or slowing down to find poise. And if you showed up with a desire for any of those things, no one took you seriously. I cannot tell you how many times in my career I’ve had a heated conversation with a male supervisor where they told me that we needed to “take the emotion out of it” to proceed. I was literally trained not to feel.
And if I’d turned away from feeling, what else had I turned away from? Nurturing? Certainly. Kindness? So I’ve been told. Creativity? I’ve maintained a blog and a YouTube channel for the past five years, but even that, in retrospect, I did from the perspective of my ego. How can I execute this better? Can I monetize this? How can I beat the algorithms? I lost so much creativity in my need for control.
And softness. Oh, my. Softness. Women are simultaneously supposed to be soft and edgy. Raised on books and movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, Miss Congeniality, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, we were taught to look feminine but act masculine. Be beautiful and desirable, but keep up with the boys. That was how to win; that was how to make sure people took you seriously.
So where’s the feminine energy balance?
At the same time, these movies portrayed traditionally feminine or girlish characters as vapid, hopeless, and irritating. We see this in, again, 10 Things I Hate About You (Bianca), Dirty Dancing (Lisa), and My Best Friend’s Wedding (Kimberly). All secondary characters pitted against a favored female lead who demonstrated more gumption, ego, and unconventional behavior.
Is it any wonder that we grew up believing that traditionally feminine traits were a bad thing? Is it such a surprise that many of us feel like we won’t be desirable, won’t be taken seriously, and won’t be well-liked if we put our softer side on display?
When did being soft start to mean being stupid? When did being nurturing start to mean being weak? And when did being intuitive start to mean being crazy?
Historical Influence
There’s some widespread cognitive association going on here. Half a century ago when women didn’t have equal rights (and really still do not), society relegated us to the role of homemaker. The woman’s place was in the kitchen; her job was to raise children, have dinner on the table at 5:30, and make sure her man always had an ironed shirt in the morning. But that was it. No one asked or expected her to think beyond the realm of the home.
So it makes some sense that modern women view those activities as symbols of our gender’s former suppression. But where we go wrong is to think that it’s not okay for women to still enjoy and take pride in those activities! So many women who choose to be homemakers, or even those who bring their feminine energy to the forefront in male-dominated environments, are shunned by their fellow women as an embarrassment or a setback. There seems to be a widespread (if unspoken) belief that if we allow each other to be proud of our femininity, in whatever way it manifests itself, then it creates a setback for all of us in the fight for equality.
So many women who choose to be homemakers, or even those who bring their feminine side to the forefront in male-dominated environments, are shunned by their fellow women as an embarrassment or a setback.
We shouldn’t view engaging in these activities as setbacks. They aren’t symbols of limitation anymore, they are symbols of our ability to choose. And women shouldn’t judge one another for the different choices that they make. That is the real setback.
Finding Poise with Feminine Energy
The divine feminine is available to all of us. The more I open up to receive this side of myself, the more poised I feel. Engaging with my masculine energies over the years has served me well and continues to do so. I enjoy the application of logic and feelings of strength and exertion. And I know how to center myself so I don’t let my emotions rule me without a counterbalance.
But what I’ve needed to do for a long time is open up to the idea of being an instrument of feminine energy in balance with the masculine. I am finding that my long-term desire to achieve a life of luxury and elegance was actually rooted in a deeper desire to lean into the feminine. I think many women who have been grinding away at nine-to-five careers may find themselves in a similar situation. Employing the masculine serves them well, but they need to learn how to balance it just like I do.
I invite you to explore this in your own life in the hopes that we can all inspire each other to grow in new ways.