Oceanic Bliss

The natural state of the feminine is to be in her flow.  In her true state, she is oceanic bliss.    So often they do not allow themselves to experience this blissful state of fluidity but when they do, they are deep, mysterious, ever-changing, sometimes dangerous, sometimes serene, powerful and changeable.  At some point the tide will be coming in.  This may be a woman’s “Yes!”  At another time the tide will be going out.  This may be the woman’s “No!”

We simple, much more linear men, can get very confused by this.  “What do you mean – No?  Yesterday you said Yes to the same question!”  This ever-changing nature can confuse and frighten some men.  The truth is that the feminine is much more present in the moment than the masculine.  She is a state of energy in motion and as such, her Yes’s and No’s may change in each moment.  But this doesn’t make them any less true.  When her tide is coming in – it’s a Yes.  When it’s going out, it’s a No.  Men:  we may true to stand in the way of this tidal flow…but I wouldn’t recommend it.  The oceanic state of the feminine will do whatever is right for her in each moment.

Too often this changeability is too much for a smaller man to handle.  When a woman is in her full flow, she is in her power.  This scares some men, so they try to limit her.  Men who are not in their full masculine will often try to block, dam or channel the feminine into some path, some lesser flow  that suits them and feels less threatening.  If a woman allows this she allows an essential part of herself to be reduced and her power fades in that moment.

Women & Boundaries

Sometimes a woman may be disconnected from her feminine flow.  This may be because she does not have a strong sense of herself, a sense of who she is as a fully powerful, mature woman.  This unclear sense of self is sadly very frequent and is especially true of those who have experienced sexual abuse, particularly in childhood.  This can manifest as having unclear boundaries, particularly around their sexuality.

A woman must be clear about her Yes’s and No’s, otherwise she can too easily find herself in situations, especially sexually, where she is behaving in ways which her body, heart or emotions do not want.  Since Western society prizes the mind above all things it ignores feelings, intuition and the body.

This disconnect from the body, coupled with unclear sense of boundaries can lead people (and in this society women are doubly susceptible) into situations which they later regret or may even sometimes be unsafe.  Men can be very good at exerting pressure on women to perform sexual acts which they may not feel comfortable doing but don’t feel able to say no to.  So, learning our own personal boundaries is essential to having healthy interactions with others, even if it is just a brief sexual encounter.

The Water & the Ice Tray

Sometimes women without a clear sense of self look to others to create it for them.  Again this is often true sexually.  A woman lacking her own sense of self and being unclear about her boundaries may look to her partner to create them for her.

In this situation I see the woman in her natural state a fluid, she is water, flowing and changing.  But being unclear of her own boundaries she pours herself into the container created by the masculine.  If this is an unhealthy exchange the man may seek to limit her.  The image I use for this is of water being poured into an ice cube tray.  The feminine is in her flow, but being unclear of boundaries looks to the man to provide them.  Instead of giving her freedom, he pours her into a container which he defines himself – the ice cube tray.  Allowing herself to become limited by the man, she becomes frozen.  She is no longer in her own flow but she is so relieved to have some sense of boundaries that she accepts this static, frozen position.  But the limits are not set by her, but my the man.  She has given away her power.  The man is controlling her, but in limiting her he denies both himself and her the joy of experiencing a woman in her full power and the beauty of a woman in her flow.

The Wine & the Wine Glass

However, it is true that in order for the feminine to fully be in her flow, she needs to feel safely contained.  A woman will hold herself up until she feels able to relax into her flow with a man who creates a safe enough container for her.  But men: this does not mean limiting the woman.

For a healthier analogy of the masculine creating a safe container for feminine I like to think of a wine glass.  The masculine is the wine glass, creating a safe environment for the woman.  It is solid, has a firm base and can hold whatever the woman brings.

The woman, of course, is the wine.  Poured into the glass, she retains her fluid state  but is safely held.  To savour a really good wine you must allow it to breathe.  A fine wine must be given the freedom to move in the glass so that all its richness and subtleties can shine forth.  To bring out the flavour of a good wine you do not stopper it, the wine glass has no lid on it.  The feminine can move within the glass, in a swirl of her own richness.  She has space to breathe and in doing so will release the subtle delights which only a woman can offer.

So, although a woman needs a safe container to feel free enough to move, she is not to stopped up or frozen, otherwise she will lose her essential fluidity and disconnect from her feminine.  Like a fine wine, a woman should never be frozen or limited.

Sex and Society

We live in an age when sexuality is gradually becoming more socially acceptable.  An interesting measure of a society’s progress is to look at its attitude to sexuality.  Sexuality and what is acceptable and what is not change radically over time and are largely fluid states.  Even words which we accept as standard did not always mean what they mean now.  For example the word heterosexual now means someone who is attracted to someone of the opposite gender.  However, at the start of the 20^th century it meant something very different.  At that time a heterosexual was someone who had an unhealthy preoccupation with sex, in Merriam-Websters’s New International Dictionary it was defined as a medical term meaning “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex”.  Similarly homosexuality was defined until much more recently as a mental disorder, classifiable in DSM IV, the bible of mental disorders, together with psychopathy, paranoia and schizophrenia and in the UK was illegal until 1967.  Today homosexuality is widely accepted in most developed countries but bisexuality is a much more challenging construct for many, even in these places.  The concept of bisexuality goes against one of the fundamental principles of most societies, which is monogamism.  Monogamy, the choosing on one partner for life, implies a fixed state of relationship.  We choose someone, of whichever gender, and stick with them, forsaking sexual encounters with anyone else, for the rest of our lives.  Bisexuality, by its nature, goes against this.  If we are bisexual then, by definition, we have sexual encounters with both men and women, going against the basic rule of monogamy.

A society which truly allows individuals the freedom to express their sexuality without interference is a healthy one.  Sadly, all societies limit and restrict their citizens’ sexual practises by oppressive legislation to a greater of lesser extent.  Even in the UK, which is a fairly liberal society, many sexual practices are restricted and unlawful.   In 1990 as group of gay men were brought to court for private, consensual practices involving BDSM.  They had engaged in sexual activities which involved sado-masochism.  They were prosecuted for inflicting actual bodily harm upon each other.  They are found guilty despite the fact that all of the participants had consented to the activities and none of them had injuries which required medical treatment.  Sixteen of the men received prison sentences of four and a half years each.

The law’s argument, which was upheld even after appeal, was that you cannot consent to an assault.  However, this highlights a ridiculous asymmetry in society.  It is permissible for someone to consent to allow themselves to be punched in a boxing match or as part of a sporting activity but not as part of a consensual sexual activity.  This is an example of the ways in which society vilifies and denigrates sexual freedom even in liberal societies.

The Sexual Spectrum

Just as the law and society changes its attitudes to sexuality so our own sexuality exists as a fluid state of being.  You can say that at one end of the spectrum is heterosexuality (being attracted only to members of the opposite gender) and at the other is homosexuality (same-sex attraction).  In reality I believe that, whatever our professed sexual orientation, if we truly allow ourselves to express our sexuality fully we are neither 100% hetero- nor homo- sexual.  Nor is our personal sexuality a fixed thing.  We will all have a mean point of our sexuality – what is usually true for us around our sexuality.  This may be determined by a combination of personal, social, cultural, familial dynamics and possibly genetic influences. However, around this mean point our sexual orientation may range to either more or less hetero or homo sexual in each moment.  Where we sit on the spectrum of sexual orientation is a fluid thing, constantly changing depending on many factors, including: mood, environment, social setting, company of others, peer pressure, emotional, hormonal and possibly cyclical factors.

Both the law and societal norms impact our own personal perception of what is acceptable and what is permissible.  These constraints limit us in our willingness to experience the full pleasure of our sexual selves.  The purpose of sexual healing is to help people accept all aspects of themselves as sexual human beings.

If you’re interested in sexual healing and would like to know more, call Mike for a free consulation on+(44) 7739 260 600 or email mlousada@gmail.com

Action and Stillness

Last week we looked at the true nature of the feminine.  Today, I’ll talk more about the healthy masculine.  The masculine has very different qualities to the feminine, which is the cause of much confusion, complication but also of great joy and that magnetic sense of attraction which we can experience when we meet someone of the opposite gender. While the feminine is flow, the masculine principle is stillness. He is much less identified with the moment and more able to detach and observe from a place of dis-identification. The masculine is about being able to step back and observe. He embodies conscious awareness – the ability to see his environment without being overwhelmed by it, whatever is happening in it.  In tantric meditations the image of myself in the masculine has come to me as being a pillar of stillness. Around my stillness dances the mist of the feminine, flowing and moving around me in constant motion whilst I am still, observing and impassive. This sense of awareness enables a man to be more fully present. The masculine man has the capacity to be fully present, to give all his attention to his woman and not be distracted. If the feminine is about flowing and changing in each moment, the masculine is about being directive – about being solutions or goal oriented. A masculine man knows what he wants and plans how to achieve his goals. Where the feminine is interested in being, the masculine is more related to doing. Action is one thing which defines the masculine. Not just any old action, changing in each moment but action with a purpose.

Know Your Mission

A man needs to be active with a mission in mind. Only when a man discovers his true mission on this planet can he step fully into his power and into his purpose. Understanding the nature of our mission is one of the most important things that men can do. I strongly believe that a man’s mission must be the most important thing in his life. This even comes before his woman. This doesn’t mean that he disregards or neglects his woman, but only by being true to his core self and pursuing his purpose can be truly be in the fullness of his power as a man. If he is side-tracked by his woman, he inherently loses some of his power. This might seem contentious, especially to some women, but if a woman is truly in her feminine power then she has a strong enough sense of self to allow her man to pursue his mission, knowing that unless he is integrity with this, then he cannot be fully in integrity with the rest of his life.  A woman may seemingly want to distract a man from his mission but at a deeper leel she is simply testing him to see if he can be swayed or whether he has enough resolve to remain focused.  This centredness in a man gives a woman a sense that he can be trusted.

Trustability

For a woman to be able to trust a man he needs to be trustworthy and willing to hold himself accountable. This looks like doing what he says he will do. If, for some reason, he doesn’t do this then he needs to be strong enough to accept that he has failed to keep his word and face the consequences of his actions or inactions. Trustworthiness is a key factor in creating a safe enough space to allow the woman to go into her flow and be in a state of surrender to that flow and to love. Without this willingness to face his own actions a man will never be able to safely hold a woman.

Staying Grounded

But there is something more than simple trustworthiness that a man must embody if he is to gain a woman’s trust and if he is to step fully into his masculine. A masculine man has strength and a rootedness in the earth. His body posture shows this rootedness. The way a man holds his body can give you a huge range of clues as to how connected with his masculine he is. Imagine the image of a man standing with one leg slightly cocked up, foot resting lightly on the ground, only the toe of this foot in contact with the earth. His shoulders are slightly at an angle to you as you speak with him; his body is not fully face on to you. This is not a particularly masculine pose. Conversely now imagine the image of a man standing with legs spread shoulder width apart. His stance is firm and grounded. He appears rooted in the earth. Nothing can knock him off his balance. Although of course men can stand anyway they like, energetically and physically the message that he gives with his body is very important. The former pose suggests a lightness and ease of movement. The message in this lightness can be that the man is able to deftly move his position and weight. It’s as though if something was thrown at him, he could dodge out of the way of it. His sideways posture creates a smaller target and the suggestion that he may be concealing something from you. However the man standing full face on to you gives off a very different energy. His openness in allowing you to see all of him suggests a willingness to be seen. If we make ourselves visible to others, then others can more easily judge whether we are hiding something or not. This helps engender a feeling of trustability. This open posture also embodies a sense of “I am solid. I am strong in my position. You can throw anything at me and I can take it”. Energetically this grounded posture helps a woman to feel safer and enables her to feel open up into her flow more fully. This is not about being unemotional but about being strong enough to know that you can hold whatever arises for your woman. In being able to be strong enough to hold whatever arises, the man is modelling his consciousness.

Remember a woman needs to be in her flow and its only if she can trust you to hold whatever she brings that this is possible. When a woman is in her flow any kind of emotion or response may arise. To hold this a man needs to be in his power. The changeability of a woman can confuse and frighten a lesser man. “What’s she going to do next?” he may ask. For a man this is both a part of the beauty and the challenge of being around a woman. This ever-changing nature is also what a man craves. If his woman is always the same he will quickly become bored and his attention will wander – to sport, to work, to another woman, to any number of things.

The Dance

Any contact between masculine and feminine, whether internal or external, is a partner dance. The man may be holding the space for the woman but he is not controlling. When he is with his woman, his attention will be entirely focused on her. But he is not lost in her. He is able to stay in his sense of who he is. The woman may be in her flow but she is also responding to the man. Without allowing herself to be consumed by her man, she will be in a state of surrender. In a relationship we may experience moments of the beauty of this dance and then return to a more defensive position. Like everything in the universe we are constantly in a state of pulsation. If we are in our true state of being, we are always expanding and contracting. This is also true of our hearts. Physically our hearts expand and contract with a beat but it is also true that our hearts open and close in a natural rhythm. To try to walk around with a constantly open heart is to force yourself into an unnatural state of being. It is much more natural to allow ourselves to be in the pulsation of expansion and contraction of our hearts. In fact, our whole bodies expand and contract and this is most obvious in the breath, which is what we will look at next week.

Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at some distortions of the masculine and feminine.  Today I’d like to start looking at what I believe the healthy manifestations of these energies look like.

Throughout this blog I’m going to use the labels of man and woman, and masculine and feminine interchangeably. However, these are not the same thing!  Gender is a biological determinant.  It is set by your chromosomes (XX for females and XY for males) amongst other factors.  Masculine and feminine are energetic qualities which have different aspects.  These are core qualities which have divine nature to them and are present in both men and women.  Men have feminine qualities and women also have masculine qualities.  But typically a man will be more masculine and a woman more feminine.  This balance of masculine and feminine energies also holds true for same sex couples.  Typically one partner will be more masculine and the other more feminine.  This may even switch between partners at different times, either energetically or physically in the act of sex but in most cases there is a predominately masculine and a predominately feminine partner.  So, these statements really apply to “feminine” and “masculine” much more profoundly than to “men” and “women” and as much to same sex relationships as hetero-sexual ones but for convenience I am going to assume that most men reading this blog will want to become more masculine and most women will want to become more feminine.

Earlier, when talking about the masculine roles which women can assume in office situations, we started to look at a distortion of the feminine but before we address that more deeply, let’s look at what the healthy feminine is.

The true feminine nature is to be in a state of oceanic bliss. As oceanic bliss the feminine is in constant flow.  A woman lives much more in the moment than a man does.  Like the ocean a woman is dark, mysterious, powerful beyond measure and ever changing.  Sometimes she may be tranquil, at others stormy and tempestuous.  But there is a majesty and natural beauty about the true feminine, whatever her age and physical appearance may be, which is very powerful.

Like the ocean, the feminine flow changes.  Sometimes the oceanic tide of the feminine is coming in.  This may be a moment when a woman says “Yes” to something, for example when she gives her “Yes” to sex.  But a few hours later the tide turns and begins to go out.  Her “Yes” may become a “No”.

This tends to confuse most men.  This can be one typical and often repeated source of argument between men and women.  A woman agrees to something in one moment or suggests something and then days, hours or even minutes later she may feel that she no longer wants to do that.  As men tend to be more linear in their thinking, we tend to get confused about this apparent contradiction.  “Why can’t you make up your mind?” the man cries in desperation. But the woman IS making up her mind.  It’s just that she’s doing it in each moment.  In one moment her mind (or heart or sex or belly) was saying “Yes” and now it’s saying “No”.  There is no conflict for a woman in this.  She is simply speaking her truth in each moment.  As men we need to understand and respect this.  These two ways of thinking and feeling are one of the beauties of difference between men and women.

Of course it’s possible to try to stand in the way of a woman’s flow but like the tides, when a woman is truly in her power it’s not advisable!  Men too often lack the strength and courage to face a woman in her power and meet her there.  Afraid of this awesome power they try to dam up her flow, to turn her ocean into a trickle of a stream.  And too often women conspire together with men to allow them to do this.  Both men and women must learn to respect the differences that separate them and to honour them and most importantly, learn how to bring the two natures into co-operative alignment so that they can communicate together more clearly and work together to create stronger relationships and a sense of creative unity between men and women.  That is what this blog is about.

To flow takes energy.  So as the feminine is a state of flow, she is energy.  In the Hindu tantric tradition the feminine force is represented by Shakti, the divine goddess.  Shakti is energy.  Science tells us that everything in the known universe is in fact energy.  All matter is made up of energy and tantra has known this for millennia.  Everything which is manifest in the ordinary world is energy or Shakti.  In this respect everything we see about us is a manifestation of the feminine.

The feminine is energy and so when a woman is in her feminine she is more in a state of flow and movement.  She will want to dance and express herself through sound and movement (two different forms of energy).    Women tend to be more communicative verbally and this is because sound is the most important sense for women.  Women need to hear that they are loved.  Sending her a text message is not the same!

When a woman is in her flow she is magnificent and powerful beyond imagining.  She has a deeper sense of intuition than a man.  In the chakra system, which we will talk more of later, her positive chakras are the second (the belly and womb – this is the seat of the feminine in the body), her heart and her third eye.  It is from both her third eye and her belly (her gut feeling) that she can sense subtleties which are usually lost on most men.  She has a power in and over her environment which exceeds that of the masculine.  Only a man (or woman) who is in their full masculine power can fully love and support a woman in her full feminine power.  Lesser men are terrified of the true feminine because they cannot contain it and from this place of fear they seek to control and limit it.

The feminine is fed from the ground.  Mother Earth nourishes and protects and this is another aspect of feminine power.  Think of a tigress protecting its young.  This is the power of the feminine which is very different from the power of aggression of the distorted masculine. Our society discourages connection with the Earth, praising mostly what is created with our minds or our hands – physically and energetically upper parts of our bodies.  It discourages free expression of sensuality and sexuality and this in turn dissociates us from our roots in the earth.

Physically and energetically the feminine is light.  I mean this in both sense of the word.  A woman in her true feminine will embody this femininity through a lightness of movement and touch, a sense of being ever in motion, her body flowing with her own oceanic current.  Light as “radiance” is another quality of the feminine.  When a woman is connected with her own femininity she glows, her skin seems more alive.  She emits a sense of radiance and light from her presence and her body.

Love, too, is a quality which pours from the true feminine.  However, in order to love fully and freely the feminine needs to feel safe enough.  The feminine nature is to be open to love and this is a woman’s yearning – to feel safe enough to allow herself to be open to love.  A woman longs to open her heart and be met in that openness with love.  But too often the Other cannot meet this incredible and powerful yearning and in not being able to receive the open hearted lovingness of the feminine, the hearts of both parties may close again.

But for a woman to be truly in her flow she needs to feel safe enough.  In childhood, in relationship, culturally and in our daily life women so often learn that it is not safe to be in her flow and to allow herself to be open and vulnerable.  Failed relationships, abuse, trauma and neglect all leave these qualities stunted, subdued and diminished.  And it doesn’t have to be anything as severe as abuse which can trigger a withdrawl of the feminine.  A thoughtless word from a father or mother, a less than true modelling of the masculine or feminine from parents, teachers or spiritual leaders can all have a crushing effect on the blossoming beauty that is the youthful feminine.  One of the aims of this blog and of my work at www.heartdaka.com to is help empower women to reclaim their true nature and help them step into their power by reconnecting with the goddess within each of woman.

When a woman feels safe enough to surrender into the flow she is in a state of being, not doing.  She may be in constant motion but she is not doing as such, she is much more about being.

A woman’s yearning is to surrender into love.  To do that she needs to be in touch with her feminine and to be held in that by the masculine.  When I speak of surrender I don’t mean submissiveness or giving up of her power.  I mean letting go of anything which stops her being fully present in the moment.  In relationship when a woman surrenders she is not surrendering to the man but to love itself.  Anything which stops a woman from surrendering into love is a block to her being truly and fully in her feminine.  For the feminine the only question which matters is; how can I more fully feel the unobstructed flow of love in this moment?  Sometimes the blocks to this letting go are that her partner cannot hold her safely enough.  Sometimes the blocks are that her history and experience have taught her that it is not safe to let go.   Sometimes she does not have a strongly enough developed sense of self or boundaries to trust herself to let go into love. We will look at all these in more detail but having defined the true nature of the feminine, let’s look at the true nature of the masculine.

Distortions of the Masculine

Last week we looked at some versions of the unhealthy feminine; now let’s look at what happens when the masculine is unhealthily modelled.  In the same way that the feminine can easily be prone to distortion, the masculine too suffers all too often from similar mis-representations.  Here we will look at the two most common forms of distortion which occur in the masculine.

The journey for men and women into their mature selves is very different.  For a man to step into his masculine he must first tear himself away from the safety of the mother’s hearth.  Most ancient societies have an initiation ritual where young boys, typically aged between 7 and 14, undergo a sacred initiation, or series of them, into manhood.  In many rituals they are taken, sometimes forcibly kidnapped, with their mothers’ consent, away from their mothers and brought out into a space where only men, or sometimes simply nature itself, is present.  They undergo a life-changing ritual and are initiated into the secrets of becoming a man and a warrior.  They are introduced in a new way into the company of men.

Sometimes older boys aged around 14 are given charge of specific rituals for younger boys so that even at this young age there is a sense of responsibility and also a sense of transition between different phases of growth into full manhood.

These types of ritual are desperately important for boys for a wide variety of reasons.  It is important for them to know that they can know they are no longer dependent on their mothers and that they must learn to support and defend themselves.  The line between boyhood and manhood is clearly defined.  This distinction between boyhood and manhood gives them a sense of pride in their masculinity.  They have undergone an intense, possibly life-threatening, ritual.  The rite of passage engenders self-respect and gives them a sense of responsibility and empowerment.  Once they are initiated into manhood they have a sense of belonging to a community of men which is distinct and separate from that of the women.

Our society has lost the importance of this ritual severing of ties with the mother and bringing boys into manhood.  At best this ritual usually involves a boy being taken to his first football match with his father or having his first drink.  Initiation into sexual contact is also a rite of passage but again one which has lost its true sense of direction.

How many “adult” relationships can we see around us where the “man” is really being mothered by his woman – something no healthy adult woman wants?  “Men” in their thirties are still playing computer games designed for boys; they don’t take responsibility for themselves or their obligations; they objective women through pornography or, worse, domestic violence.  Sex, alcohol and sport, to name but a few, are used as substitutes for masculinity – at a huge cost to individuals, relationships and society at large.

In some layers of society, one of the unexpected consequences of this loss of ritual is the youth gang culture.  We have a society where young boys know instinctively that they need to undergo some affirming rite of passage into manhood.  They look desperately around them, searching for adult male role models and find none.  So, they create their own initiation rituals by forming gangs and proving their manhood by knifing someone.    In a way, this is a beautiful concept poorly executed!  In a way the intention is good – to undergo an initiatory ritual into manhood to draw a line under childhood, but of course this form of initiation is totally unacceptable.

So, the consequences of this loss of direction into manhood are disastrous.  This leads us into the first type of distortion of the masculine, the Puer.

The Puer

Just as the feminine can be distorted into the little girl, the Puella, so the masculine can get stuck in the Puer, the little boy.  Sadly this is one of the most common distortions we can see around us.  The Puer is the little boy who never leaves the safety of his mother’s hearth and never grows into a man.  Although he may physically leave his childhood home, he never psychologically breaks free of his mother’s apron strings.  Often borne of an over-bearing or dominating mother, he feels safe only when protected by his mother or a mother substitute.

Some men chose to stay at home into their thirties or even forties but whilst most men may physically leave home, the Puer casts around looking for a mother substitute.  He finds himself a woman who allows him to indulge his childlike behaviour and looks after him.  Of course all of this is unconscious and may not be apparent at the outset.  It happens over time and the formation of these co-dependent relationships may deepen as both partners step further away from their true power and masculine and feminine cores.

The Puer lacks a sense of his own resilience and self-sustainability.  He does not trust himself to look after himself and so looks to a woman to do this for him.  If a man does not trust himself how can he possibly expect his woman to trust him?

To be fair, the mother’s hearth is (usually) so safe and secure, why would anyone in their right mind elect to leave it?  This is why ancient societies sometimes forcibly separated boys from their mothers.  But modern society chucks young men out into the world usually at university age without teaching them self-reliance and independence.    A weak or absent father may also contribute to the creation of the Puer.  Lacking an older male role model to model the mature masculine for him, the boy does not know how to grow into his manhood and so can get stuck in being the boy. A gain the societal obsession with youth and beauty helps to endorse this immaturity by making boyishness a supposedly attractive quality.

This youthful Puer mirrors many of the aspects of the Puella.  He may be impulsive and irresponsible (after all mummy will sort out his mess for him!)  He may have poor self-discipline and very low self-esteem.  He will tend to be needy and in fear of women, his over-bearing mother has taught him that he will be punished for his transgressions and so lives in a state of nervous anxiety much of the time which he may mask with playfulness or arrogance.  Sexually he may be very active but not owning his responsibilities around this.  He may be the Playboy, always sleeping around but never risking the intimacy of a relationship.

Beneath his playful exterior he may hide a deep well of rage, which whilst it was originally directed at his over-bearing mother, will now be projected onto any woman who gets close to him.  Whilst he relies of a woman to look after him, he also does not want anyone to truly get to see him as he lacks a strong enough sense of self-worth and of his own boundaries.  Unlike the true masculine essence, which is grounded and solid, the Puer is flighty and unsettled.  He may manifest as the spiritual man, with his head in the clouds without having a sense of his weightiness and rootedness in the earth.  There can be an avoidance of the practicalities of everyday life in the Puer which is very ungrounding, they may be spiritually idealistic and impractical, after all they may never have been shown how to model the practical, self-supporting aspects of the mature masculine.

Narcissism and a desire to escape into fantasy, whether that is sleeping with many women, driving fast cars or pursuing artistic or spiritual ideals, typically characterise the Puer.  Lacking a sense of their own robustness, which comes with the healthy masculine, they struggle to remain present in the reality of the world and may choose to indulge in fantasies which allow them to escape its harshness.  This “lightness” is modelling an unhealthy form of the feminine and the Puer may manifest as the feminised new age man who is overly identified with his emotions and is not psychologically strong enough to hold himself together in adversity – running off to his mother substitute when things get tough.

Just as the Puella, in modelling some aspects of the feminine, is appealing to lesser men, so the Puer, with its youthful exuberance, vitality and energy, may appeal to lesser women.  But be warned his charms are paper thin and his co-dependence will quickly emerge.

Macho-Man

While the Puer models flow and lightness, the Macho-Man is rigid and inflexible.  Living in fear of his vulnerability he puts up high walls around him which keep women away.  He will feel energetically heavy, not grounded but planted, stuck in the earth.  His fear of women may manifest as a cold, unemotionality towards them or worse as becoming angry or abusive to them.  The Macho Man is in denial of his feelings; that would reveal far too much of his vulnerability.  Lacking access to his emotions he lacks the ready ability to care for his woman in a gentle loving way or be nurturing to others.  This inability to express his softness also extends to himself and he will be brutal in his self- judgements and often neglect his own needs.  He may be characterised by having strong Will, but it is not tempered with Love (we will talk more on the concepts of Love and Will later).

Whilst the Macho Man models the aspects of self-reliance and independence of the healthy masculine, he lacks the flexibility to enable this to be healthy in himself.  To make sense of his world the Macho Man needs strict rules and regulations to follow.  He must obey or knows he will be punished and is keen to impose these laws on others.  He is tough and undemonstrative.  Like the Amazon he has walls, not boundaries which keep others away from intimacy with him.

His energy will be blocked and not flowing freely.  He identifies with some aspects of the masculine while denigrating the feminine.  His mistrust of his own internalised feminine may manifest as homophobia or misogyny.  He may become obsessed with his work and his role as provider for his woman, at the expense of the relationship itself.  Not trusting his own vulnerability to be held, possibly because of an unemotionally supportive mother, he does not allow himself to go into his softness.  His world is very closed and blinkered.  He will tend to deal in binary concepts: this is Right, that is Wrong.  He needs this over-simplification to help him navigate away from anything approaching feeling or sensitivity which he distrusts.

His sexuality will be dominating and, like other aspects of his behaviour, may be controlling.  Unlike the healthy masculine which is strong and holding of the feminine, this mini-character demonstrates his sense of power out of fear for his own vulnerability.  If he dared show even the smallest chink in the armour of his emotional defence he would fear falling apart so he masks it behind bravado and domination.  This dominating of the feminine is a fear of it, not a holding and honouring of its divine essence.

Distortions and Relationships

To a great extent I have over-simplified and exaggerated the description of these archetypes to demonstrate their qualities.  Naturally very few people are fully in one position or another but you may recognise some of the qualities I describe in yourself or your partner.  Most women who hold distortions of the feminine hold aspects of both and it is important to realise that in fact although one mini-character may be dominant, the other is almost certainly lurking behind her waiting to appear.  Hence a woman may be more strongly connected with her Amazon, showing what she perceives as her strength and putting up walls around her, but in fact this is usually because beneath this front is a very tender, fragile little girl who doesn’t feel safe enough in her own sense of self to emerge.  Once we break down the walls of the Amazon we may well find a scared Puella hiding behind them.  The converse is also true.

In terms of relationship, the strongest and most powerful dynamism and connection with another, both sexually and emotionally, comes when one partner is strongly connected with their healthy masculine energy and the other is connected with their healthy feminine energy.  This polarity of opposites creates a spark of energy, love, life, creativity, passion and connection which both will feel at a deep, core level.  It doesn’t matter whether the man holds the masculine or the woman in the relationship or if it is two men or two women.  To have the most profound connection we need to be in that place of polarity with our partner.

Unfortunately when one partner is in an unhealthy aspect of the masculine or feminine, he or she will attract an unhealthy version of the opposite.  For example a woman who is predominately in the Amazon mini-character (the unhealthily masculinised woman) will tend to attract a man who is modelling an unhealthy version of the feminised man.  Once we learn to step more fully into our true healthy embodiment of our own core masculine or feminine we will naturally attract someone holding the opposite polarity.  A woman in her power is a terrifying prospect for a man who is not in his power.  A woman in her power would not want to attract anything less than a man who is healthily in his own power – she deserves no less.  So lesser men will be frightened off, but they are not worthy of her in the first place.  Why would she want to waste her valuable time with them anyway?  So like attracts like and as we change our inner landscape our external reality begins to manifest to reflect this.

Since the feminist revolution of the 1970’s women have come on a long way but sadly there is still a lot of disempowered feminine around.  In my work as a sacred sexual healer I see a lot of women who are trying to connect more deeply with their true inner feminine.  Often the true feminine can be distorted through life, experience or, sometimes, trauma.  But it doesn’t take sexual abuse or other intense trauma to create distortions around the feminine.  Sadly our society doesn’t support the full growth of women into their power and here are some typical ways in which I witness the feminine being twisted out of its true state of oceanic bliss, now-ness and expansion.

Firstly let me say that this blog deals specifically with distortions of the feminine.  I have written extensively on the healthy feminine which is flowing, empowered and blissful.  You can read more about that throughout my blogs, and more specifically in the following blogs:

“The Shape of a Woman” – 8th May 2010

“Your Deepest Desire is to be Recognised as Light” – 29th April 2010

There are two classic distortions which I see regularly in the feminine, which we will discuss here – the Puella and the Amazon.  This blog is not about pathologising the feminine but my intention is that these descriptions will serve to illuminate ways in which the feminine can so easily lose is power and thus enable and empower women to step more fully into the full glory of their feminine core nature.  It is, naturally, true that the masculine suffers from similar distortions and I will write about that in my next blog, next week.  Today, however, let’s address  the feminine.

The Puella

Puella is Latin for “girl”.  In today’s youth oriented culture this is a very common distortion of the feminine.  The Puella may outwardly be very feminine.  She can appear to be soft, sensual, often very sexual and receptive in an apparently feminine way.  She can be very impetuous, magical and in the moment.  In these ways she is extremely feminine, but she is a distortion of the true feminine, not least because she is not connected with her power.

The Puella is often a rebellious little girl.  She may not fit into social norms and she will have poor self-discipline and a low sense of self-worth.  Having low self-esteem she can feel that she needs to bring something valuable of herself to others to make herself worthwhile.  This can look like becoming a pleaser or a seducer.  She can use sex to attract men to get their approval or attention.  Since she can be sensual and sexy she is the perfect projection screen onto which men can project their fantasies about the feminine – seeing only her softness, her willingness to be receptive and her desire to please especially men.  A man who is fully in his masculine will not be drawn to this type of woman because she is not in her power but lesser men will swarm about her, attracted to her apparent femininity and, being in fear of the full power of the true feminine, loving the reduced  doses of it which she delivers to them.  They may get a touch of the feminine from the Puella but not the full effect of feminine power, which terrifies lesser men.

The Puella may often be distrustful of the feminine while identifying herself with her own weakened version of it.  Having a low sense of self-worth she will also have a poor sense of, or no, boundaries.  Sometimes this is the result of sexual abuse or trauma.  Her poor sense of boundaries may lead her into unhealthy, even dangerous, sexual encounters in a desire to get male attention or to seek some sense of self as defined by another.

The best way she knows of getting her needs met is by being dependent on a man to meet them for her.  To achieve this she can often be manipulative, using sex or other charms to manipulate men.  She can be extremely seductive and great fun, but underneath this apparent confidence is a very fragile person, terrified of not being seen and not being loved.

Another manifestation of the Puella, particularly in the alternative community, is that type of woman who identifies with the spiritual.  Energetically she may be wispy and floaty, lost in the transpersonal, the divine.  She will often be very disconnected from her body (again sometimes as a result of physical or sexual trauma).  This disconnection from her body allows her more readily than some to put her in those unhealthy sexual spaces of which I already spoke.   She may be much identified with her spirituality, however it as an empty form of spirituality.  It is one where the divine is void and emptiness rather than full, juicy, creative and vibrant.  This is the spirituality of nothingness, disconnected from the body and from her experience of being a real person in a real body.  This disconnection from the body is very common in a society which mythologises youth and the form of beauty which is approved by advertising companies.  If we don’t have the “perfect body”, then it’s sometimes much easier to dissociate from it, become spiritual and denigrate our physicality as unimportant.

The Puella is a very common distortion in our society, partly because women are often taught that their sense of self worth comes from caring for others.  In the case of the Puella this “caring” is distorted into “pleasing”, especially of men.  But this is not the loving nurturing of the empowered mother feminine but has a needy sense of “I’m only worth something if I look after you” quality to it.  This form of co-dependency tends to be very attractive to both players in the dynamic and can easily form part of relationship addiction – a fear of not being in relationship because “if I’m not in relationship, I’m not worth anything”.

Whilst desperately craving male attention she can also objectify men as providers of security – either physical or monetary.  This dependence on male power and poor sense of boundaries disempowers her.  However attractive she may appear, especially to the lesser masculine, she is a weakened and thus distorted form of the feminine.

The Amazon

The second distorted feminine archetype I would like to discuss is the Amazon.  The Amazons of Greek mythology were courageous warrior women, as fierce in battle as male warriors.  In Greek mythology the Amazons were a tribe of female warriors who lived without men, creating a matriarchal society where men were excluded.

The image of the independent woman as Amazon has many parallels in modern society, most obviously in the business world.  Many women in the business world identify with the masculine principle and ape men in order to gain success in what is still a very male oriented environment.  I worked for many years in the investment banking industry and on the City trading floors I saw both Puella and Amazon.  One particular woman embodied this Amazonian quality one day when I asked her about her day.  “I’ve been working my balls off” she replied!

Although associated more easily with a sense of power than the Puella, the Amazon is also a distortion of the feminine, because she rejects both her inner feminine and, at the same time as aping the masculine, she rejects the external masculine.  She is often angry and defiant.  Many, both men and women, will find her intimidating and this is a useful defence against the intimacy that she both longs for and fears.  She has an over developed sense of independence which does not allow her to go into the place of surrender to love which enables the feminine to truly be in her flow.

She may be obsessed with work or the gym.  Driven by her egoic needs to appear strong, independent and “successful”, she can throw herself into her work with little or no respect for herself.  She is detached from her feelings and demeans the feminine as being weak.

Whilst the Puella has poor boundaries the Amazon suffers from the opposite problem.  Instead of clear boundaries she has barriers which stop anyone getting too close.  She may engage in sex but rarely intimacy, her walls are too high to allow men in to truly experience her.  When she is sexual it is more like a form of mortal combat and she must win it!  Sexually she will wear a mask which stops men from seeing her true self.  This is a defence mechanism which protects the fragile vulnerable aspect of herself which she cannot own for fear that she will crumble.

Another manifestation of the Amazon is the do-gooder.  While some Amazon women get their sense of self worth through industry and an outward appearance of business success, others get it through the “selfless” pursuit of charitable causes and by becoming a martyr to a cause.  The Amazon’s anger makes her perfect material for this and she may espouse a cause, spending huge amounts of energy supporting or caring for others whilst neglecting her own needs.  Her poor sense of self-worth manifests as little capacity to look after her own needs.  She is often very self critical and feels the need to pursue an unachievable perfection in herself, which when it is not realised, as it never can be, leads to harsh self-judgement.

This distortion may fear relationships and whilst the Puella can be needy, the Amazon may keep herself locked away behind her barriers not letting anyone truly get close to her, thus tragically denying herself the richness of being held in a loving relationship.

Both Puella and Amazon are widespread in our distorted and dysfunctional society.  Often one hides the other behind it (the Amazon masks the Puella and vice versa).  It is part of my role to support women to reclaim their power to step more fully into their divine feminine nature and free themselves from the limiting beliefs which hold them back from becoming the goddesses they truly are.

Insted of a written blog this week I’m posting an audio broadcast which I recorded with my friend and fellow healer, Ryan Orrock (http://kristallleben.com).  In this first shared podcast we talk about emotions and the body. Specifically, we answer the following questions:

1. How is it that emotions get repressed and stored within the body?
2. What are the effects of this on the rest of your life?
3. How do you access and process these emotions to free these blocks?

Emotional Blocks in the Body

As children we were probably told “grow up”, “act your age” or “big boys don’t cry”, “stop fidgeting”, “sit still”.  We learn to suppress our natural vivacity, our aliveness and the expression of our emotions which are our true state of being and to become fixed and rigid in ourselves and in our relationship with the world.  Our natural state of being is to be free and to experience whatever is in each moment.  We exist only in the moment and it is in that Now, which Eckhart Tolle writes, about that we experience the divine.  Sadly as adults we are hardly ever in that state.  What stops us is usually our minds.  Our thoughts so often control and limit us.  This can be a by-product of a well developed mind, sadly.  For the most part, a Western education stresses and encourages thought processes based on binary logic (one of the basic principles of Western philosophy and science).

But there is a way that we can help ourselves to break out of this limiting logic trap of the mind.  If we observe children, we can learn so much.

Different Ways of Learning

Children often have instinctive understanding of language, maths and art.  Often this is suppressed because they aren’t learning in the (limiting) way that teachers and educators expect them to.  If they don’t conform to the prescribed model of learning they usually lose this intuitive way of understanding and it can take years to un-learn the learnt behaviour.  Let me give you an example.  My nephew is a naturally gifted mathematician and is highly intelligent.  When he was very young he had an internal computer in his head that could tell you almost instantly what day of the week any given date fell on – “27^th February 1971?” I would ask.  “Monday” we would flash back with unerring accuracy.  But when he went to school this type of calculation didn’t fit in with the taught model and over time he lost this impressive ability.

This indoctrination (which also of course serves some positive purposes too, I’m not wholly condemning it, simply observing that skills may get lost through the rigid enforcement of it) stultifies our creativity.  Most of us are at our most creative and most free when we are around 5 years old.  This is a time when we have developed sufficient motor and cognitive skills to express ourselves but have not yet had our freedom of expression stifled by the rigid imposition of a received form of wisdom.  How many of us have felt self-conscious about our artistic ability because what we created at school didn’t conform to what the teachers expected of us?  Learn from the children and un-learn the taught ways of what art is “meant to” look like and find your own unique, personal way of expressing yourself.  It doesn’t have to be with painting or drawing.  It may be making creations out of bits of old rubbish or knitting spaghetti into interesting shapes – the form is not important, what is the ability to express one self.

Move into Freedom

Children they are rarely still for more than a few minutes.  This is the natural state of the body if energy is flowing freely through it.  Most adults spend the majority of their time static – sat at a desk, passively watching television or just not feeling able to wriggle and writhe in a way their body may want to.  This is very true of any movement which has a sexual connotation.  As children we were probably told not to play with ourselves or to move our genitals in a provocative way. Sometimes our bodies want to move in this way and it’s wonderful to give yourself permission to do just that.  I’m not suggesting that you should thrust your hips at passers-by or on the tube but when you have space and privacy I encourage you to stop and feel into your body and allow it to move in any way it wants.

Doing this may provoke strong reactions or judgments, especially if you find yourself making pelvic thrusts or any motion which you may perceive as being sexual.  Try just to allow yourself to move as you wish and if the resistance is strong, allow that too.  Don’t make it wrong that you have an emotional response to this exercise.  Playing music will also help to get you into the space to allow freedom of movement and be aware that different types of music may provoke different emotional states and responses.  Again, just allow yourself to be exactly as you are in this as much as possible.

Dance is a wonderful form of self-expression which is for many people suppressed because they may feel self-conscious about how they dance.  Very young children dance and move without the limiting beliefs and judgements which most of us learn as we grow.  They have an innate sense of their own rhythm and know naturally how to move their bodies in ways that give them pleasure.

5 Rhythms is an excellent practice to allow you to explore the movement of your body without needing to learn the specific steps, style and rhythm that make up most dances.  There is no way to get 5 Rhythms “wrong”, it is simply a way of allowing the body to express itself through movement.  For more information about 5 Rhythms in London please visit http://www.acalltodance.com/

Free Flow of Emotion

But children have much more than an innate ability to learn and move in different ways to teach us.

Children have much freer access to their emotions than most adults.  If you watch a small child throw a temper tantrum, they will engage fully in the mood of the moment.  They allow themselves to go into their grief/sadness/anger/rage/joy/playfulness.  It is only as we grow that we learn that it’s not safe or not ok or not acceptable for us to feel the full range of our emotions.

Just as important as a baby’s ability to feel its emotions fully is to note that their emotions states never last long.  A child may be in a terrible temper tantrum mood in one moment and the next it will have stopped.  Possibly it’s become interested in something else or simply loses its attachment to that emotion state.  Emotions are waves or clouds that simply pass through us.  Babies inherently know this.  They allow the emotion to be felt fully (they do not naturally repress emotion) and once it is fully felt, it will pass through and be gone; forgotten by them.  This is also a healthy model for us as adults.  If we allow emotions to be fully felt they are not stored in the body and do not cause trauma or physical distress or illness later.  If we are in the same emotion, say anger or sadness, for more than a short time – by which I mean 5 or maybe 10 minutes – then the chances are that we are not truly in our emotion, we are in our story.  Our story is the baggage of our history that we carry around with us.  Our story is NOT the present, it’s our memory of the past and we bring it into the present through remembering it.  In this way we give the past disproportionate power over us.  Living in the moment and allowing the free flow of emotions to pass through our bodies enables us to be free and stops us from harming our bodies through blocking waves of emotion which need to be released.

Playing

Children love to play.  In fact everyone loves to play, it’s just that as adults we mostly forget that or think that we shouldn’t – it isn’t “grown up” enough.  My view is that we all need to play, to move our bodies and to relax into being ourselves.  This healthy playfulness can cover all aspects of our lives.  With the right attitude simple acts can become playful; try going downstairs by dancing down them or skipping every other one, then varying your rhythm.  Just because we do something many times a day doesn’t mean it has to become boring.  The opportunity for playfulness is all around us.  Even sex can lose its playfulness!  There is an innocence in our sexuality which we can explore if we give ourselves permission.

Things which we believe “ought to” be hard work, like learning lessons about how to be different in the world, can be made, developing our selves, etc., can be made playful.  The relationship workshops which I run with my partner work in this way.   There is an opportunity for deep learning and profound growth and change in the work we present but also joy and laughter.  Don’t make things hard work if they don’t have to be – and actually they rarely truly need to be as hard as we make them.  The whole universe is Shiva’s playground – so go out and enjoy it!

Breath of Life

My last point about the natural beauty of babies and young children is about breathing.  Most adults do not allow the full range of their breath.  They breathe into the chest unaware that the breath can extend into the belly.  This type of deeper breathing has many benefits (see my blog of 12^th June) but most of us don’t allow ourselves to breathe the full range of our breath.

If we watch babies they breathe deeply.  Their soft bellies fill with air as they inhale and become protruded, round, soft and full.  This is the natural breath.  Follow the example of babies and breathe more deeply.  It’s wonderfully liberating and invigorating.

So next time you see and baby or young child, just see what it can teach you and maybe you might like to try un-learning some of the less helpful things that you’ve grown up with and re-learning some more natural ways of being in our bodies and with ourselves so that we can live more fully expressed in each moment.

Following on from my earlier blog on the feminine belly, here are some further thoughts expanding on this (see my blog 24th April 2010 “Love Her Belly!”).

Men & their Bellies
The masculine belly also needs to be fully expressed. Constriction of the musculature around the navel and at the top of the pelvis is the cause of the pot belly which so many men sport these days. If you breathe fully into the belly and soften the muscles, the shape of the belly will change (sorry guys, this isn’t a cure for drinking too much beer or eating too much, but it’ll help you redevelop a healthier shape for your stomach)as well as reconnect you with some energies in your lower chakras which you’ve probably been blocking.

The constricted belly is also another sign of the disconnection between man and nature. Western philosophy has stressed the important of logic and of the mind. Most of what we cherish in the Western world is a product of either the mind or the hands. This focus on the upper parts of the body raises the energetic centre of gravity of the body. Whilst this has some obvious benefits, the downside is that this raising of the centre of gravity disconnects us from our lower body. The effects of this are disastrous. It encourages a disconnection from our sex and sexuality (as discussed previously – see blog of 23rd April “Love Her Belly!”), a disconnection between head and belly/genitals and between heart and genitals/sex. This disconnect between heart and genitals is responsible for much of the distorted imagery of sexuality that we hold in our society, which tends to objectify sex and especially women in a sexual context. If our sexuality is expressed in connection with our heart, there can be no objectification. With this connection re-established much of the abuse and disrespect which our society experiences would cease. This is one reason that I am so passionate about this work . I believe that in doing our own sexual healing, we not only heal our own wounds but also the wounds around sexuality of the collective unconscious.

The Importance of Grounding
This societal focus on the mind and hands also disconnects us from our feet. This leads to a lack of grounding. Many people in the “spiritual” community can tend to be very much up and out of their bodies a lot of the time. They can tend to give attention to the spiritual but not the temporal. We exist in our bodies. A philosophy which tends to deny this, as many Eastern philosophies do by encouraging us to transcend the body, denies an essential part of our humanity. We may be “spiritual beings having a human experience” – but a big part of that experience is about being in our bodies. Any denial of this creates an unhealthy disconnect between mind and body. This is what Ken Wilbur refers to as the Centaur stage. The centaur is the mythical beast part horse, part man. We can often operate as two different entities – spiritual and physical, ignoring the needs of one or the other. But body and spirit both have needs and ignoring them will lead eventually to one form of existential crisis or another.

Man & Nature
One of the more drastic consequences of this identification with the mind and upper body is that we lose our sense of groundedness. This is not only unhealthy for ourselves but also for our environment at large. Not feeling our connection with the earth disconnects us from our feet, our roots and ultimately from nature itself. Maybe this has been exacerbated in part by the Judaeo-Christian philosophy as expressed in Genesis: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”” This sense of having “dominion over” the other animals seems to set man “above” the animals. As soon as you create a two tiered structure you create a “superior” and an “inferior”. This sense of superiority can so easily lead to an objectification of that which is held to be inferior.

So, I encourage you all to bring your awareness down into our bodies, reconnect to your lower chakras, to your feet and to the earth itself, which ultimately supports us all, both physically and nutritionally. In the end even man made things come from the earth. Plastics are made from hydrocarbons which use oil based chemicals which come from plant matter millions of years old. Apart from the odd lump of meteorite there is nothing on the earth which is not from the earth. Anything which thus disconnects us from our sense of connection to it disconnects us from ourselves at a very core level.

A Simple Exercise
Stand with your feet about 8-10 inches apart. Allow your knees to soften and gently bend slightly. Make sure your feet are parallel to one another and bring your weight forward a little so that without lifting your heels off the floor, you are putting most of your weight on the balls of your feet. Now slowly and softly bend the knees and then straighten half a dozen times.

As you do this, breathing softly through an open mouth, breathing down into your belly, then lower down – into your genitals and finally breathe down into your feet and into the earth beneath you. Feel a sense of your connectedness to the earth, imagine your centre of gravity dropping lower in your body so that you are really present, grounded and have a “weightiness” that feels solid and sturdy.

Doing this exercise regularly or when you feel “light-headed” or stressed will help to bring you back down and give you a feeling of security and solidity which is much needed to balance the spiritual. Only once we have a strong sense of our physical self and a knowing that we are grounded in this earth can we truly experience in a full and healthy way the delights of the spiritual.

Following on from my blog of 29th April 2010 (see Love & Will) I would like to talk more about this important subject.

We have already looked at how the two forces of Love & Will represented by the heart chakra (Love) and third or solar plexus chakra (Will) need to be activated.  Each has needs and gifts for us and each must be attended to in conjunction with the other in order to live a harmonious life.  Love without Will risks not achieving anything or not maintaining clear boundaries.  Will without Love can be harsh and uncompromising.

Letting Love Temper Your Will

Some people exercise their Will without compassion or consideration for the effect it has on others.  This can be especially true if a strong sense of Will has not been engendered in us when we are younger and we come to recognise our Will later in life.  This can often look like giving away our power to others, frequently in relationship, in our desire to be liked or loved.  When we begin to realise this and to reassert our boundaries through the use of the Will it can be a clunky process.  In learning to use our Will we may tend to over-exert it.  If we have given power away in the past, we may tend to be inflexible about having our needs and wants met.  It can be easy to think: “I gave away my power in the past by letting my lover trample all over me and I didn’t get my needs met, so now I’m going to tell you what I want and make sure I get it, no matter how you feel about it”.

In this growth phase of learning to exercise our Will the masculine aspect of it needs to be tempered with the softness of Love.  Let Love serve your Will.

Using Will to Guide Love

Similarly, the feminine aspect of Love needs to be expressed with respect for self.  If we express Love in an unbounded way it may be that we find ourselves expressing Love without making sure our own needs are met.  From this place it is easy to think “I am Love, I have no boundaries, I am just going to express Love and give, give, give.  That’s the loving thing to do”.  If we do this we can find that we are constantly giving without making sure our needs are met.  This may seem like a loving thing to do but in reality it is not.  It shows a lack of self-respect and a lack of Love for oneself.  In giving out so much energy to others, we can easily neglect ourselves and find that we are exhausted.  This is often the case with “spiritual” people or those who find themselves in the role of “carer” or “healer”. As someone who works as a healer it is just as important that I allow myself to receive healing as well as give it.  If I am not allowing myself to receive, I am doing my clients a disservice by not being in a centred enough place to give to them.  To balance the Love aspect we need to exercise our Will to ensure that we respect ourselves and our boundaries and re-energise ourselves before giving to others.  It’s a bit like the analogy of the oxygen masks in the aeroplane – make sure you fit yours before helping others!

The Distorted Mirror of Some Sub-Personalities

We have already seen how we have different aspects of ourselves which come into play at different times.  These are more than roles that we play (like father/mother, friend, lover, son/daughter).  The Psychosynthesis model calls these Sub-Personalities because each has its own personality but is only a part of ourselves and not the whole.  These sub-personalities include an entire emotional landscape which goes with this part of us.  If we identify very strongly with one particular sub-personality we can find that this sub-personality is running the show.  When we identify with one sub-personality we will tend to see the world through their eyes.  It is like being in an altered state of being.  We filter everything we perceive in the world through the lens of the sub-personality.  For example, most of us have a wounded child in us.  This wounded child has often been born from childhood experiences of rejection and non-acceptance when we were little.  This wounded child may have the belief that the world doesn’t love him and that it’s not ok to be him, just as he is (this can be a learnt sense of non-acceptance which comes from our parents, teachers or carers).  In fact we learn to internalise this sense of non-acceptance.  If our mother/father, etc didn’t accept us when we were children, how can we possibly be “acceptable”?  So we come to believe that we are not acceptable.  When we are identified with this wounded child, we may tend to be looking for this sense of non-acceptance to be mirrored back to us by the world.

As the Talmud says “we see the world not as it is, but as we are”.  This distorted mirror can lead us to react to perceived slights from our lovers and is often the cause of break-down in relationships.  Learning to disidentify from these sub—personalities is core to the self-development journey.

Sub-Personalities & Their Core Qualities

Each sub-personality has a core quality about it which motivates it and which ultimately underlies its behaviour.  Many of us have a Critic sub-personality.   This is the voice which tells us that we’re not doing well enough, that we “shouldn’t feel like this”, that we are in some way not OK just as we are.  Of course this can be a very destructive sub-personality if we allow it to take control of our lives.

So here’s the bad news:  We can never get rid of sub-personalities.  They are an essential part of ourselves and however much we might want to disown them, they’re here to stay!

However, the good news is that each sub-personality also has a gift in it.  If exercised with Love and discretion, the gift in the Critic may be that it stops us from acting in ways which don’t serve us.  For example, if I feel like being unfaithful when I’m in a relationship and I know that this would threaten my relationship, my Critic might pipe up and let me know that this isn’t a good idea.  Obviously this voice would serve my best interests in this case.  Even the most apparently destructive sub-personalities have, at their heart, a gift which will serve us.  The important thing is not to try to rid ourselves of these sub-personalities but to integrate them into ourselves and to find within them the gift and allow them to serve us rather than limit us.

Love & Will and Sub-Personalities

Just as each sub-personality has at its core a quality, they are also predominately motivated by either Love or Will.  The carer or parent sub-personality within us may have at its core the motivation of expressing Love.  We can use the sub-personality of parent within us as a means of expressing Love in the world.

The Critic may have at its core the qualities of the Will.  By speaking to us in the voice which guides us to our greater good (“don’t do this, it’ll be destructive”) it can be an expression of Will.  To revert to the example of being tempted to have an affair when we are in relationship or to eat that extra piece of cake when we are trying to look after our bodies, the voice of the Critic is asking us to exercise our Will for our higher good.

Key Lessons of Your Self-Development Journey

1. Be Aware

Ultimately everything that I talk about comes down to two key messages: “Be aware” and “Be gentle with yourself”.

The first of these refers to several things.  If we want to live a more conscious life, we need to be aware of what our drives are, what we project onto others, of which sub-personality we are operating from and, ultimately, that we are Consciousness itself.

The more awareness that we have, the more we can make conscious choices about how we live our life and how we choose to interact with others.  As we become more conscious of why we act and react as we do, the more we empower ourselves in all aspects of our lives.

2. Be Gentle With Yourself

The second and most important lesson of personal development is: be gentle with yourself.  This means that whatever we do, we need to forgive, love and accept ourselves.  Even if we make mistakes we don’t beat ourselves up.  In being gentle with ourselves, we forgive ourselves for our mistakes.  This doesn’t mean that we have to support the behaviour which didn’t serve us but nor do we beat ourselves up about it.

It’s very easy to be self-critical.  This can become a vicious circle.  If the Critic in us is active we may hear their voice telling us that what we’re doing isn’t acceptable.  This is one level of self-criticism.  But hearing our Critic and beginning to become aware of it can lead to another level of criticism.  We hear our Critic’s voice:  they tell us we’re bad for doing this or that.  Then we can easily add another level of Criticism: “I shouldn’t have a Critic – I should always love myself!”

Being gentle means that we hear the voices in our heads which criticise or limit us and we don’t make them wrong.  We acknowledge them but don’t make it wrong that we have them inside ourselves.

Many people feel that they aren’t ok as they are.  This can lead to a desperate need to look for quick fixes and intense means of change.  Often people in this state of being take up extreme or intense “healing” methods which if they’re not careful can actually lead to re-traumatisation.  In the modern world where everything is getting faster, more people are looking to “heal” themselves instantly or in a weekend workshop.  The bad news is that although going to workshops or doing intense processes can lead to significant changes in life, if we want to make lasting changes in our lives we need to put in the work over a period of time.  Think about it logically.  If we’re 40 years old, we’ve probably spent 40 years learning a way of being which has been reinforced by 40 years of experience.  Do you think it’s realistic to completely change that overnight? Often we learn some awareness, make a change in our life for a while and then slip back into ingrained patterns of behaviour.  Being gentle means to learn to accept ourselves even if this happens.

Being gentle means finding a fine balance between loving ourselves exactly as we are AND taking action to make the changes in our lives that we want to experience.  It means allowing ourselves to change as fast or slowly as we need to.  It means not beating ourselves up for not changing fast enough or slipping back into old patterns after doing some form of healing or gaining some awareness.

Key Lessons and Love & Will

As you may have guessed, each of the two key lessons comes from the two key principles of Love & Will.  Awareness, Will, Consciousness – all these are masculine principles.  Being aware is motivated by the Will.  It takes discipline to become aware.  Learning to hear the inner voices which judge or criticise ourselves or others and not react by making ourselves wrong takes an act of Will.  Hearing others as they project their issues onto us with anger, criticism or rejection and not reacting immediately takes Will power. The Will activates awareness.

Gentleness and Love are feminine aspects of ourselves.  Being gentle with ourselves, despite our human flaws and frailties requires us to act from Love.  Forgiving, nurturing and accepting ourselves come from a place of Love.

It is only if we pay attention to the two core principles of Love and Will, both exercised in balance with each other and by learning the key lessons being aware and being gentle that we can grow into the fullness of our humanity and reach our fullest potential.