Juanita Lepage MSW, RSW, BHP

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How Valuing Both Femininity & Masculinity Can Heal Ourselves And The World

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In the May 2019 issue of the National Geographic magazine, there is an inspiring article, “A New Day in Mozambique”, about the turn-around of the wildlife and jungle in Gorgongosa National Park in the country of Mozambique. Once devastated due to civil war, the animal population and environment have been supported and nourished and they are now thriving once again.

One of the leads on the project, Gregory Carr regards the success of this project as directly correlated to the attention to projects that promote the health and well-being of girls and women. Girls are educated and supported by “godmothers” – women who help protect them from forced marriages, frequent pregenancies, poor health, and encourage educational opportunities. As the women begin to thrive in their environment, the men thrive too. If women & men thrive, then the environment and wildlife can thrive too. They are all connected.

“Rights for women and children, poverty alleviation – is what Africa needs to save its national parks” Gregory C. Carr (p.112)

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the balancing of the masculine and feminine in our world and this article provided some physical evidence of what happens when both the masculine and feminine are valued in our world. Both the feminine and masculine aspects of our world need to be valued in order for our world to heal and thrive. When one is valued more than the other, imbalance happens and this impacts the health of everyone.

Masculine Aspects

Everyone has masculine and feminine traits in themselves of varying degrees. Men as a whole have more masculine traits, which is why they are labeled as masculine aspects, BUT this is not a rule for all men. Many men will have more feminine than masculine traits too. Women as a whole have more feminine traits, which is why they are labeled as feminine aspects, BUT AGAIN, this is not a rule for all women. Many women will have more masculine than feminine traits.

You will find that there are different interpretations about what is encompassed in masculine and feminine traits. My understanding is that the masculine traits fall under a very grounded and centred lens with a focus on reason and will. Intelligence, courage, strength, leadership, and assertiveness are a few traits that fall under this lens.

Feminine Aspects

My understanding of the feminine aspects is that they are more centred in flow and in the realms of the heart. Some qualities include emotional intelligence, compassion, empathy, passion, and creativity.

The Current Imbalance In Our World

We live in a world that has highly prized the masculine traits. The largest religions in our world value the masculine more than the feminine. Civil rights have favoured the masculine until the last century when women were given the right to vote. Capitalism often favors the masculine in valuing money over the health of people and the earth. School systems often prize the mind over creativity and emotional well-being. The toxic masculine conquers, rapes, and pillages and ultimately destroys itself.

Masculine qualities are needed in our world, however when they are not used in balance with the feminine qualities, they become distorted and sometimes toxic.

The Distorted Masculine

The distorted masculine shows itself when reason and will are used without connection to the heart and emotion. The phrase “It’s just business, it’s not personal” is an example of the distorted masculine.

Sharon Blackie writes in her book If Women Rose Rooted, “The masculine striving towards achievement, production and domination takes hold and spirals out of control, while the feminine qualities of relatedness are suppressed: relatedness to other humans, to the non-humans who share the planet with us, to nature and the rhythms of nature, as well as to the rhythms of the physical body and the stages and passages of our lives”(p.237).

The Distorted Feminine

The distorted feminine is the opposite of the distorted masculine. When decisions are made in a highly emotional way without connection to reason or groundedness, or if we spiral into over-identifying with being a victim and no other aspects of our personality, then we fall into the distorted feminine.

Sharon Blackie also writes, “The pathological or ‘monstrous’ feminine which is not balanced by the masculine principle can manifest itself in an excess of emotion and neediness, a tendency to manipulation, an over-focus on relationships, and a refusal to apply reason to a situation” (p.237, If Women Rose Rooted).

If you reflect on the healthy and distorted masculine and feminine qualities you may see that you have ventured into each category at some point during your day, month, year, or life. They again are not limited to gender.

Society’s Slow Shift To Value The Feminine

In North America, I have SLOWLY seen society start to shift in valuing the feminine, but there is fear in change. If you examine your country’s leaders, notice whether they exemplify more masculine or feminine traits and values. In Ontario, currently we are swooping into the distorted masculine once again with a focus on cutting out all things feminine – care for women, children, health, the earth and those most vulnerable have services being cut in dramatic fashion in the name of balancing budgets. Balancing budgets are important, but when the decisions are not made in a heart-centred way, this is an example of the distorted masculine.

Most leaders have their own distortions, indeed I don’t want to set a tone favouring conservatives or liberals or any other party. I would guess a book could be written analyzing past leaders and governments and their relationship to distorted masculine and feminine traits. In Ontario we often swoop from parties that are distorted in either femininity or masculinity to the distorted masculine and then back again. Often times there is a swing from,”We’re spending too much money on services and we don’t have the money” (distorted feminine – bleeding heart) to the opposite, “We’re going to cut all the programs related to supporting children, women, health, and the environment, and focus on the economy” (the distorted masculine – “it’s business, not personal”).

Shifting to a society where the feminine and masculine traits are balanced in leadership is new territory for most of us. What does that look like? How to balance budget needs and a heart-centred approach? Good question.

Dare To Lead

Brené Brown’s book Dare To Lead is a beautifully written book about how to integrate heart and courage. Brené works with many CEOs and many big organizations to help them combine both feminine and masculine traits. Balanced leadership is possible, but it is not as quick as disconnecting from hearts to make a decision. Balanced leadership involves courage and connection.


Brené shares a quote about vulnerability armour in this book (p. 78). She never directly talks about masculine & feminine, yet the process she shares she is exactly about balancing the masculine & feminine. Her message over and over again is that vulnerability and courage are the SAME thing.

She is also a strong advocate for setting boundaries. Becoming vulnerable doesn’t mean sharing everything with everyone. Vulnerability without boundaries is an example of the distorted feminine.

“As children we found ways to protect ourselves from vulnerability, from being hurt, diminished, and disappointed. We put on armor; we used our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as weapons; and we learned how to make ourselves scarce, even to disappear. Now as adults we realize that to live with courage, purpose, and connection – to be the person who we long to be – we must again be vulnerable. We must take off the armor, put down the weapons, show up, and let ourselves be seen”

Brené Brown

Resources

I haven’t gone out and scoured the research and all the books for what books there are available on the topic of balancing the masculine and feminine. If you have any you’d recommend please share! Here are a few books to get you started.

Summary

My own personal journey has been one of re-learning to focus on how to balance the feminine and masculine in myself. I grew up learning to value my masculine traits over my feminine ones. My journey has been one to re-connect to my heart, body, and spirit.

In private practice, my approach is often to help people connect to their heart and inner wisdom after being saturated in a mind-loving world. Often times there is so much noise in our heads that we forget about our ability to connect to our hearts.

Energy healing often also focuses on balancing reason, will (both masculine traits) and emotions (feminine traits). Energy healing also helps with individuals who struggle getting out of their head and into their bodies. If you feel like you have “talked something to death” without changing much in your life, then energy healing can often help.

Mentors

Who do you know in your life who embodies the balancing of the masculine & feminine, courage & heart? If you can recommend any public figures, I’d love to hear your recommendations about who has been inspirational to you. Until next time…

References

  • Blackie, S. (2016). If Women Rose Rooted. Denmark, September Publishing.
  • Brown, B. (2018). Dare to Lead. New York, NY, Penguin Random House LLC.
  • Quammen, D. (2019, May). A New Day in Mozambique. National Geographic. pp. 94-119.

Femininity & Masculinity

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The topic of healthy femininity and masculinity has much breadth to it. This quote summarizes a beautiful starting point in restoring femininity to our culture while honoring the balancing traits of the healthy masculine as part of the process. Femininity is not generalized towards women and masculinity does not have to be generalized towards men.

More ponderings to come about this.

Heal: The Body’s Capacity To Heal Itself

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It’s always so exciting when scientific research deepens and enters into new horizons. Kelly Noonan Gores created a thought-provoking documentary, Heal that highlights research that shows that our bodies have the capacity to heal from life-threatening prognosis. She weaves in stories of her own journey and other women and men she has met who are either starting their healing journey or have healed from their disease. It is now available on Netflix.

Research is showing that our bodies have the capacity to heal from any diagnoses. She interviews Kelly Turner, Ph.D. (author of Radical remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds) who has found 9 things that people have in common in situations where they have healed from life-threatening prognosis.

9 Things That Research Has Shown Are Connected To Healing

  1. Radically Changing Your Diet
  2. Taking Control of Your Health
  3. Following Your Intuition
  4. Using Herbs and Supplements
  5. Releasing Suppressed Emotions
  6. Increasing Positive Emotions
  7. Embracing Social Support
  8. Deepening Your Spiritual Connection
  9. Have a Strong Reason for Living

Kelly notes that only 2 of these items are physically related – #1 Radically Changing Your Diet and # 4 Using Herbs and Supplements. Ongoing research is being done to look into tangible steps for the emotional and spiritually related items.

The movie also explores how some people heal, and some people do not and how painful this can be when a person has invested time, money, energy, and spirit into their healing journey. Often times individuals can either judge themselves, or feel the judgment of others (if they are members of the complementary health community). The journey towards healing or acceptance of an illness is a very personal one to be met with curiosity and compassion. For more of my contemplations on this read my blog post
How Energy Healing Helps Heal Physical Illness.

I liked how this movie also pointed out the importance of working together with the medical community. As a person who has worked in a hospital, and who also has children who have the hospital staff to thank for both life-saving care and healing for minor injuries, I know from first-hand experience that both medical and complementary health care have their place. You can read more about the importance of both in the highlighted blog post above.

Even if you don’t have an illness, one can see how incorporating any of these 9 Things in our lives would be beneficial to our health. Which of the 9 Things are you already incorporating into your life? Or have you found one to be especially helpful for you?

Free Solo – Perfectionism: The Wound And The Gift

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Imagine climbing a 3,200 foot wall of sheer granite. Now imagine doing that without a rope and a camera crew recording you. Next invite some close friends and have them watch you too. If you fall, you die.

Free Solo is the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary that chronicles Alex Honnold’s journey to doing just that and living to tell about it. The above photo is one of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

Even as a viewer who knows the end of the story, there are still times when it’s hard to watch. If you haven’t watched this movie, go do it. Far from a clinical documentation of doing a climb, this movie captures the emotional process of Alex’s close friends, his mother, and his girlfriend as he makes preparations to free-solo El Capitan.

In the words of his good friend and fellow climber Tom Caldwell, “There’s no margin for error. Imagine an Olympic-gold-medal-level athletic achievement that if you don’t get that gold medal, you’re going to die. That’s pretty much what free soloing El Cap is like. You have to do it perfectly.”

The Gift & The Wound

As a psychotherapist, I couldn’t help but see the root of Alex’s journey being so similar to every person that I see. A journey with one’s interpersonal wounds that is both a gift pushing you to places you never you knew you could go and also something that can cause great internal pain. That finely-woven place is perfectionism in this film. Free Solo beautifully captures the pains and pleasure of perfectionism.

Perfectionism

The Pain of Perfectionism

The exploration of perfectionism is one theme in the movie Free Solo. The movie asks the question, “What is it about Alex that makes him want to free solo El Capitan?” We get glimpses of his childhood, his personality, and his close personal relationships. Alex shares that one of his wounds is perfectionism.

Some possible messages that a perfectionist receives as a child is, “If you don’t do it perfectly, I won’t love you”, or “If you do it perfectly, only then I will love you”, or “You’ll never be enough unless you are perfect”. This message may never have even been said out-loud by a parent, but it’s one that is synthesized from experiences interacting with a parent. Over time there may be no outside voice saying these things – only the dialogue in your mind.

As viewers we can judge his parents as not meeting his emotional needs (creating a wound), and yet if they hadn’t been who they were, Alex may have never done something so exquisitely perfect and daring. The wound becomes a gift in this area of his life.

The Pleasure of Perfectionism

This movie also shows the great pleasure that Alex receives from doing something perfectly. Watch him at the end of the movie and you see a spark of ectasy within Alex. See the light in his eyes as he contemplates free-soloing El Capitan. Perfectionism combined with determination, skill, and a warrior spirit creates a master.

There is clearly more than perfectionism that is at play in creating the perfect chemistry and set of circumstances for Alex choosing to free solo El Capitan, yet it is a key element to his success.

The Edge

Sometimes perfectionism can become less of a gift and more of a wound in our lives. It is often in these circumstances that a person will seek counselling because they realize that no one is creating such high standards for them except themself. They realize that perfectionism in some circumstances is pleasurable and helpful but that in other areas it creates problems in their family and friend relationships, their work, or in other aspects of their lives. There can be fear that in changing that you might lose your edge. My question before exploring perfectionism, is to reflect on whether it’s creating more pain or pleasure in your life.

The Many Forms of Perfectionism

Perfectionism may not show itself as a person who looks perfect all the time, it has many forms. My strain of perfectionism doesn’t show up in doing something perfectly, but in doing something efficiently. There can be perfectionism in doing something efficiently. Efficiency done perfectly can be a beautiful thing. It can also be highly stressful, annoying, and painful.
Over time I’ve found pleasure in conciously choosing to do something inefficiently or buying an item that is more expensive and less practical.

Where do you hold incredibly high standards for yourself in your life? Does it create pleasure or pain for you? What kind of perfectionist are you?

“The wound is where the light enters you.” Rumi


The Authentic Self Is The Soul Made Visible.

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While sifting through many quotes today, I found this quote that resonated with me about authenticity. One of the benefits of psychotherapy is helping you connect to the deeper parts of yourself, perhaps to a place that can feel lost, hazy, or buried. Many problems can occur in our lives when we lose connection with this part of ourselves.

Have you listened to that deeper part of yourself recently?

A Podcast & 3 Books To Stir Up Some Conversation

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It’s winter time, and while I’m working, it also feels a little bit like hibernation time. In southern Ontario the temperature can fluctuate 40 degrees Celsius in the span of a few days. Just last week it was -30 and then we had 3 balmy days of 10 degrees. And then an ice storm. During my free time I’ve been doing a lot of reading and listening to podcasts. Here is a glimpse into what I’ve been into for the past 2 months. There’s Russell Brand‘s podcast Under The Skin, Tara Westover‘s memoir Educated, Daemon Fairless‘ book Mad Blood Stirring, and Dan Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson‘s parenting book The Yes Brain.

Podcasts

Under The Skin by Russell Brand

I’ve been a fan of Russell Brand since the movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Russell Brand’s podcast Under The Skin Podcast mixes three things I enjoy: spirituality, irreverance, and humour. Or any serious topic with a splash of irreverence and curiosity. I’ve listened to his interviews with Tony Robbins, Kehinde Andrews, and Gabor Maté. Gabor Maté’s interview (#053) has been my favourite so far – Damaged Leaders Rule An Addicted World. 
Next on my list is an interview with Marianne Williamson.

3 Books

Educated by Tara Westover. As a woman who grew up in a conservative Christian church, this book touched a lot of my edges. This is a memoir of her life growing up in rural Idaho in a Mormon household, with a father who had an undiagnosed mental illness, and never attending school. Through many acts of grace she gets her PhD. The mormon upbringing, like many religions is very patriarchal. She shares her journey of how she survived when the head of her household could not make a lot of rational decisions when he was in the manic phase of his mental illness. Her education through most of her childhood is of a different sort than her school-attending peers. 

Mad Blood Stirring: The Inner Lives of Violent Men by Daemon Fairless. I recently saw an Osteopath, and one of his questions was whether I’d been in any bar fights. I laughed and said no. He said I’d be surprised at how many people say yes to that question. I was reading this book at the time, and I could believe that fact.  

Try this: Ask yourself (whichever gender you are) and also ask a man in your life whether they think about the safety of those they cherish and what they’d do to protect them on any given basis (being at home, walking the streets, being near people fighting on the subway) .  I was talking with a group of women who asked their male partners this question and we were all a little surprised about their responses. Many men, even if they have not grown up in dangerous or violent situations, think about this all the time according the book and according to the men our lives, but it is not something that gets talked about.

Take one look at this cover and you’ll either be drawn to read it or repelled. Daemon is a Canadian author who takes the reader on a personal journey reflecting on his own desire to be violent while adding research and interviews with men who are in prison for their violence. This book is all over the place, yet it’s worth persisting if anything to learn more about his own personal journey.

The Yes Brain by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and Tina Payne Bryson falls into the my favourite category of parenting – conscious parenting.  In a nutshell, conscious parenting is being curious about when you are triggered by your child’s actions or emotions, and then doing your own work on why you were triggered instead of taking it out on your child. 

Hitting never works in the long run, even if you rationalize that you grew up with it and turned out fine.  Yelling is about you and less about your child. Conscious parenting does not mean that boundaries are not set or that your child will always be happy. Not setting boundaries sends a message to our children as well. If we have an anxious child and never have our children do anything uncomfortable, we send a message that we don’t believe they can do it either. 

Like any book in the realm of conscious parenting, the journey is about being compassionate to yourself, because EVERY parent is triggered by their children (yes, me too).  If you’ve yelled, hit, or have difficulty setting boundaries, get curious and consider that there are different approaches.  There is NO such thing as a perfect parent. Here’s a link to my previous post The Myth of Perfect Parenting, which includes tips if you’re curious about the conscious parenting approach. 

I liked how this book gives practical tips of teaching our children about self-soothing and identifying when they could make a different choice. The authors give guidance about teaching children about entering the red zone (anger/tantrums/bullying)  and blue zones (anxiety, hiding, sadness).  The tips include breathing methods, compassion, validation, and courage to make a different choice.

Sometimes when reading these types of books I get annoyed at very “therapyesque” conversations with children. This book has some of that too. I rarely speak like this with my kids either – it’s more important to take the essence of what the authors suggest and say it in your own words, otherwise it can come across as annoying and patronizing to our kids.

Summary

Russell Brand’s podcast and each of these books are pivot points to our own self-reflection about religion, education, parenting, politics, spirituality, violence & masculinity and more. They’re also great in discussion with friends, family, or peers. Let me know which one piques your interest the most or whether you’ve already listened to Russell Brand’s podcast or read any of the books. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Until next time….