Experiment in Femininity

[eskwire]

I wrote a post about breaking my ankle and the resulting changes in my outlook on people. Some forum folks responded in a judgey, critical, unfeeling way without having read the post completely.

This triggered me intensely.

Sure, it was partially PMS, partially my actualized.org troll commenting and fanning the flames, partially that someone whom I admired hurt my feelings.

But what part of myself was I reacting so intensely to?

The part of myself that berates me no matter how hard I try or how well I do. The part of myself that doesn't listen to how I feel. My inner asshole who judges others and thinks everyone is lazy.

In short, I was reacting to my toxic masculinity.

 

I am a woman.

There's a lot one could say about toxic masculinity imbedded deep in the psyche of an American female, but I've never done gender studies and you - the reader - prolly don't care.

I grew up in a household whose ambiance was very, "Work harder, don't bother me with shit, stop having fun, and nobody cares about your feelings." My father was an alcoholic and my mother didn't want to be a mother. She was a career person. Maybe this is why I was so drawn to Leo's masculine, no-nonsense style.

Between my family, the karate school in the South where I lived/worked recently, and listening to hundreds of hours of Leo's hyper masculine style...I have been steeped in masculinity and I think it's currently doing me more harm than good.

As an experiment, I am leaving the forum and not listening to Leo's vids for six months or more. I'm not on here much anyway but I've heard 95% of Leo's vids and done the LP course. His voice has been ringing in my ears for 2.5 years. It's been helpful for some things but now I want to try opening myself up to nurturing, surrendering to all of my experiences and feelings. 

I will follow females like Emerald and work with female coaches, listen to Sade, relax and file my nails. Whatever! I am swinging my pendulum over to the side of femininity until I am recalibrated and balanced.

We'll see if it helps. ❤

[Leo Gura]

Do you girl

P.S. I def recommend that women who follow me also study some more feminine perspectives. As I've said before, you should be learning from hundreds of sources, not just from me. This is the case regardless if you are a man or a woman, or how much you like me. No one teacher can give you everything you need for your journey.

[ajasatya]

@eskwire make sure you're learning how to think for yourself. there should be a point where your own wisdom should be enough. kill the budas for your own good.

[eleveneleven]

Can relate.

I'm a man and was used to trying to brute-force all my progress. Then I hit a wall for years. It was only after consciously trying to connect with the feminine energy of the cosmos, so to speak, that I was able to start making progress again.

As a human being in general, you need to be able to toggle both.

[CreamCat]

I recommend Teal Swan. She seems like a pretty advanced learner.

Edited October 5, 2018 by CreamCat

[thehero]

im working on doing the same. i need femininity in my life

 

[How to be wise]

@eskwire Welcome to planet earth. I don’t know why you expect people to be considerate of your feelings. We aren’t. We won’t ever. Haven’t you noticed yet?

[CreamCat]

@How to be wise Some people will be considerate of someone's feelings sometimes. But, they won't always be. Empathy and love are unreliable, but they do exist. It's easy for empathy to be turned off in people. For psychopaths, empathy is always turned off.

However, empathy will usually be turned on for your family and your friends. People are localists. The closer you are to someone, the more likely that person is to feel empathy toward you.

Edited October 5, 2018 by CreamCat

[How to be wise]

@CreamCat Love and empathy always exist. The problem is that the mind will project a cruel world with no understanding. What needs to be healed is the mind, not the world.

[CreamCat]

@How to be wise By the way, are you the person in your thumbnail? Your thumbnail looks like a middle-aged woman, but you talk like a man.

[Space]

@eskwire I thought the post you wrote about your ankle was really interesting! I wish I had commented now. It showed you have a lot of self-awareness, which is rare. Don't let the comments of a few people dictate how you feel. Leo and other people on this forum can be quite critical and sometimes a bit too insensitive. That's just the way it is, and sometimes it's needed, other times not so much. So try not to take it too personally. There's a lot of value in what Leo teaches, but of course, as you said, a balance is definitely needed particularly for women. 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Space

[Shin]

4 hours ago, CreamCat said:

@How to be wise Some people will be considerate of someone's feelings sometimes. But, they won't always be. Empathy and love are unreliable, but they do exist. It's easy for empathy to be turned off in people. For psychopaths, empathy is always turned off.

However, empathy will usually be turned on for your family and your friends. People are localists. The closer you are to someone, the more likely that person is to feel empathy toward you.

People that are inconscious can't show compathy because they can't accept and treat themselves with kindness.

Most people will be empathetic though, they will just lack tact and says innapropriate things at the wrong time (lack of emotional intelligence), which can look like they aren't on the surface.

 

[YaMayka]

@Shin it is not tact that they lack - it is insight and understanding of what other person is going through. It took me a while to figure that one out - I always thought people unwilling and  not empathetic but they are simply incapable and insensitive, they don't feel the blues, lack self-awareness or miss a puzzle in their development. They don't mean to be unkind - they don't know how to do it properly, they are unaware.

[sgn]

On 10/5/2018 at 8:14 AM, CreamCat said:

@How to be wise By the way, are you the person in your thumbnail? Your thumbnail looks like a middle-aged woman, but you talk like a man.

No. It's Byron Katie.

[Emerald]

@eskwire I have dealt with a lot of what you're talking about. The masculine principle rules the world, and the feminine principle is largely suppressed. So, if you were a smart little girl, most likely you learned quickly to avoid associating yourself too much with the feminine to get praise and avoid social scorn. And you may have even decided that your least favorite color was pink too and that you're really more like one of the guys... These are common, anyway. 

Having said that, over the course of the past century or so there has been a lot of progress made in terms of the re-emergence of the Divine Feminine in human society. A lot of it has been in the form of priming society to be ready for such a re-emergence. 

But the biggest issue at this point, is that most people don't recognize their anti-feminine biases. And most who are actually looking to undo anti-feminine biases are only looking as far as women's status in society. But that's just one branch off the anti-femininity tree.  But this is because they don't know what femininity actually entails. They think of femininity as wearing makeup and heals or motherhood or being emotional. But the feminine principle is much more than these things. These are just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the feminine principle. 

So, the problem is that we have half of the society that's wants women to fit in the box of traditional feminine ideas, which is like a version of femininity that's stripped of all the aspects that are threatening to the status quo of traditional "Blue" values.... which is honestly most of it. The Feminine and traditional values go together like oil and water. The Feminine, however, is most treacherous to Orange values. 

Then, the other half of society has found refuge in the idea that masculinity and femininity are mere social constructs. This has been good in a sense, because it's allowed us to progress to this point. But the problem is that masculinity and femininity are in absolutely everything in the form of Yin and Yang. So, most people in this more progressive camp are unconsciously anti-feminine principle and pro-masculine principle... even if their goal is to make things equal and empowering for everyone. 

So, my recommendation is to learn more and more about the feminine principle and what it entails. The biggest obstacle to feminine integration is an unawareness of what femininity actually is. If you don't become aware of what it actually is, you will continue to repress it without realizing it as this is the social default. 

Edited October 7, 2018 by Emerald