I’m encountering so many women at the moment who are struggling in their intimate relationship.

Women who are strong. Women who are capable. Women who are aware of themselves in many ways. And yet their intimate relationship with their husband or their important other, is struggling because they’ve lost the ability to know what’s important about each other as well as what’s important within the relationship.

I think our world needs to better acknowledge the differences between masculine and feminine.  And that doesn’t just mean the differences between men and women.

Because it seems like such a common problem in our society that men are losing awareness, losing touch, losing understanding of what being a true masculine man really is, and becoming weak, emasculated, disempowered, wishy washy and indecisive, while women are becoming even more strong, controlling, in charge and organised.

Steve Biddulph in his book ‘Manhood’ talks about the lack of clear leadership that most men were given about how to be a man – a true loving, grounded masculine man – by their fathers.

And conversely its apparent that women are lacking the same, for I continue to realise that my own mother wasn’t able to model true femininity, flow, grace and compassion as she wasn’t given enough of a guidebook on how to achieve that herself either. And many women are finding the same.

You see traditionally the upbringing of a boy or girl as they move towards adulthood would include them having role-models from their fathers and their grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, to show the true essence of being either masculine or feminine, and even knowing how to balance both within ourselves, in useful ways.

The way our society is functioning now means so many men are losing the understanding of what it is to be a strong rounded capable man because they’re so focused on bringing money in and keeping the family functioning. They’re in survival mode and the women are picking up the slack.

As women then fall into the trap, of thinking that strength – masculine strength – is how they need to pickup this slack, our world becomes even more about control and force and order.

But I don’t believe that that’s what strength really is. I believe that true strength, for a woman, is about being in flow, about feeling her emotions and flowing with the forces of nature that move within her body (just like her monthly cycle does). About being brave enough to allow herself to be vulnerable (considered by many as a weakness, because they fear it as a loss of control) so she can feel and give from her heart.

For a woman, her power is about creating and giving life, having creative self-expression for all that she feels.  Like being the artists who is so engrossed in their painting that they loose track of what time of day it is, because she is so present in her emotional experience. But being a women is also about nurturing, mothering, compassion. and being in-tune with her intuition and broader senses beyond the physical world. Giving these emotions because emotions are the heart of a womans true strength.

And just as men have lost touch with their true strength and with it our world has become more violent and force oriented as an attempt to solve that – the ability for women to feel, be emotive, to express and be unpredictable – is also very unappreciated in the world we live in.

So while men are punished or shunned for being angry or using force, women are often told that they can best live their lives by being more in control. By being organised, on top of everything and the controlling force or decision maker in the household.

common relationship problems | Bree Taylor Molyneaux

And yet in my understanding and heartfelt belief, a truly feminine woman is meant to be more in tune with her right brain, her feeling self. This means she is naturally creative, in flow with her emotions, aware and in-tune with her body, and she accepts and embraces that these things are constantly changing. That she is never stagnant, because to be feminine is to always be in some kind of flux, change or growth (just as is the nature of life – we grow or we die).

A woman’s strength really lies in her vulnerability, in those places where she allows herself to feel and express and move through things in really healthy ways. Instead of bottling them up and getting on with her day, setting aside her emotions until they boil over and have a negative impact on others.

Women have in a large sense lose the ability to have healthy means of expression, and I suspect this comes through modelling of our mother’s so called “strength” behaviours. The idea that we as women can solider on and survive – whether as a single mum  raising three kids, balancing work and family, or through whatever challenges that arise.

But when we soldier on the women in our generation (and our mothers generation too) have learned to move away from emotions, and to see them as bad or inconvenient.  When we as women shut down the fullness of expressing our emotions (sadness, fear, anger, joy, elation) society rewards us! “Oh how strong you are. Wow, how do you manage all those things?”.

Because the world we live in predominantly rewards and acknowledges masculine strength as a source of success and achievement, and negates the feminine strengths of feeling, vulnerability and nurturing.

As women struggle to give back some measure of control to the men (which deep in our feminine hearts is what we desire) because we have been rewarded for doing it for most of our lives, the problem is exacerbated. And the men who are meant to be doing more of the left brain roles; the logic, the intellect, being goal oriented, providing grounded strength, focus certainty and decision making..  are rarely given the choice to step up and be in control. As women block men from being their true selves by retaining all the control, we also block ourselves from surrendering into our innate nature of flow, feelings, compassion, connection and freely giving love.

And how does it work when a woman who likes to be in control, and a man who lacks confidence in himself, interact sexually in regards to intimacy, love and passion? It rarely works well. If she is not willing to release the control and welcome him into herself – her heart, her mind, and her physical body – then they never really get to meet each other at the depth of their being. And the potential chemistry that they had isnt realised.

And herein lies the problem in so many marriages – sexual polarities are confused or reversed, and yet each wants the other to change!! Sound familiar??

Now please don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about going back to the dark ages where women are seen and not heard or just perform home duties. This is about more than just roles and responsibilities. It is helping our society to balance itself, to have healthy roles for men and women where we all work to utilise and express our innate strengths daily, instead of going to work and pushing against what would be natural for us.

So many couples are struggling, both men and women, to find their own inner balance of masculine and feminine, but mostly because we never really learnt what that truly is, we struggle to get there.

masculine and feminine energy systems | Bree Taylor Molyneaux

 

So what we can do about this?

How can we find our inner place and let the feminine out? Release control and reignite the passion in ourselves, and in our relationship?

I believe we need to come back to the basics of masculine or feminine so we can learn to balance both the Ying and the Yang. For women that means we need to get more comfortable finding our flow again; through dance, movement, yoga, singing, having fun, cooking and creating craft, arts or even through healing modalities of nurturing.

I know when I’m getting into a predominantly masculine focus, because I get too heady and intellectual. By getting out of the head and more into the body and heart, a woman reconnects with her deeper self. Sometimes this means moving the hips, breathing, crying, being joyful.

Finding ways to delegate, ask for help or let go of small areas where we control in our lives, and allowing our men the chance to step up.

While the men need to come back to being more grounded in the Earth.  To be more physical as a means to fully feel and release their anger and emotions in healthy ways, like physical activity. To go and punch a bag if they’re angry. To go and hike in the bush and reconnect to the Earth. And to be empowered to make decisions for their family, to be given a leadership role, but not have any decisions they make be second guessed by the woman who doesn’t like the outcome.

Surrender from the feminine means total trust. And when we do that the men are given their chance to shine, prosper and strengthen from within, because taking care of his woman is one of the most empowering things a man can do.

common relationship problems | Bree Taylor MolyneauxAs men find ways for healthy expression of their grounded masculinity, inside and out, women can then do more of what we do well. And when the two come together, each equal and opposing force balances and connects with the other sparking passion and a deeper level of love.

 

If any of this is resonating with you please leave a comment below. I will be blogging more on this topic over the coming months. You can also read more on masculine and feminine energies here. And if you’d like help to work on these things personally, then get in touch as I’d love to help you reconnect to your feminine strengths in whatever way is right for you.

 


Bree Taylor Molyneaux is a Brisbane based happiness coach, clinical hypnotherapist, HypnoBirthing® practitioner, self-care and personal renewal facilitator, mother and wife. She founded Aspire Hypnotherapy, coaches women in a wide range of areas, runs restorative + self-care retreats, and has a range of and hypnosis downloads available. Read more about Bree here.