The Wound & Balance
If you’re not engaged in healing the wound in the masculine/feminine archetypes within, you’re not accessing your whole self. And it’s costing you.
This is in fact a wound that doesn’t get spoken of often. Yet, according to the father of archetypal psychology, is as profoundly destabilizing as the Shadow, which so often is referenced. I’m talking about the deep wound around the Masculine and Feminine principles in your life.
Assessing the Wound
I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but it’s easy to give away your sense of peace or inner security. Culturally the channels we’ve created for daily living almost make such a drain of life force par for the course
In order to truly live full out there has to be a focus on living the next step well. Without that singular vision of the present moment we become flaccid and lackluster, losing focus
The game of “what if” is popular, and google enables us to play it stunningly. The worst case scenarios play out in horrifying ways as we torture our minds. Truth be told most of what we are terrified of will never come to pass, but for our nervous system we’ve already lived it by worrying
Comparison too is a deadly fixture. It robs the joy out of the present moment and takes away from our immediate experience. As the old saying goes “the enemy of the good is the perfect.” Our comparison with an idealized outcome is destructive.
So too believing every moment to be scripted—by genetic coding, fate, astrology, fortune cookies, politicians or supreme beings—destroys a certain vital power to shape and to choose. We become passive and inactive when we cease to believe that we, ourselves, are the writers of our story.
Finally, the relentless and indulgent caring for self through endless classes or efforts or workshops or teachers or self care days or saunas or seminars, will quickly make a perfectly decent person into a raging narcissist.
Conversely, caring for others—giving of yourself routinely to an others cause has the weight of not only the great wisdom traditions, but modern science to back up its efficacy of reducing stress and enhancing the quality of living
These are all ways we can observe that we are walking wounded. Yet these actually point to the imbalance I spoke of earlier.
Archetypal Wounding
For years my conscious wounding was with the Masculine. I was raised by powerful women and men who I felt disconnected from. Eventually I came to fear mannishness.
I avoided rituals men participate in. I knew how to be a sensitive shoulder to cry on. I could be empathetic, networked and emotive. I was a man women could trust.
But in reality I was a danger. I lacked focus, loyalty, assertiveness. It left me operating in shadowy ways, that often left people confused or hurt.
As I learned hard lessons about this imbalance my spiritual journey begin to put me in contact with the inner Masculine. I found that as I allowed myself to move in less passive ways, becoming more spacious and decisive that I not only trusted myself more, but others could to.
Whether it’s the Masculine or Feminine principle that is being overemphasized in you, there’s a deep need for balance. When we find that place of connecting the two and being able to access either in a time of need, we find that we’re functioning at full capacity. Part of the wounding that we live with is around these spaces. Whether the inner feminine or masculine, they are spots that continually cause us distress
This requires so much work. For me it’s a daily challenge. I’m conscious about it. The wounds are so deep that we must be aggressive in our care for them. The great news is it gets easier over time. The patterns become clearer. The conditioning is easier to see. And balance becomes possible.
Wounded Masculinity
One of the greatest needs in society today, both in males and females, is healing the inner masculine.
When we are cut off from this archetype, we find ourselves unable to access our inner BALLS. Literally, it’s as though we can’t notice, or utilize our aggression, except passively. It’s difficult to be actively assertive. And it’s challenging to experience non-attachment from the present moment.
Candidly, many men who are wounded in their Masculine core, can’t take feedback. It feels “naggy” if it’s from a woman, and overly harsh from another man. They want to be protected and insulated from it. They want to be empathized with and feel “the deliciousness of agreement” from another.
Because you can’t adequately take feedback there’s an un-clarified aspect to your life work. It can lack refinement or vigor. You may feel an undefinable sense of emptiness around not having a purpose, or passion about life itself.
Because the masculine is the container which holds the moment-by-moment-feminine, if the archetype is under developed it’s literally difficult to even see multiple sides to a thing, be it problem, or person, or situation. There’s a lop sidedness that when connected to the inner Masculine, is held in tension and taken as a dialectic with the whole
We see these symptoms everywhere, in both genders, pointing to a disconnect from this archetype. There is such a need to heal the wound around it and find balance somewhere between its most exaggerated and underemployed forms
Disconnection from the Feminine
I spoke of being disconnected from my inner masculine, yet what about the reverse?
If you feel like you’re forcing your way through life, you may be disconnected from the Feminine.
.
The Feminine is a source of vital and present moment experience. If you’re cut off from it, you’ll feel shut down from your emotions, cut off from connection to the here and now.
.
Part of the wounding that we live with is around these spaces. Whether the inner feminine or masculine, they are spots that continually cause us distress.
When we are cut off from The Feminine archetype, we find ourselves unable to access our inner Receptivity to life. You can’t hear from others or take in their contributions or perspectives. You’re unable to welcome an other’s way of being without being overly critical or judge mental.
It’s as though we can’t notice, or utilize our emotional compass, except unconsciously. It’s difficult to be actively empathetic. And it’s challenging to experience connection from the present moment.
Candidly, men and women who have an under developed feminine give off the sense of being hyper focused on outcomes. Their purpose feels all consuming and all important.
An under developed feminine will make precise demands of the world around them. Partners need to look a certain way, act a certain way, perform a certain way. Rigorous expectations are assigned—especially of relationships. The underdeveloped Feminine is constantly engaged in correcting and critiquing.
Because the Feminine is the archetype that manifests creativity and form, when someone is cut off from their sense of this, they can’t be with discomfort before jumping to fixing or problem solving. Lacking this vital step, they’re unable to find creative responses to Life, and are stuck in a solution focus
We see these symptoms everywhere, in both genders, pointing to a disconnect from this archetype. There is such a need to heal the wound around it and find balance somewhere between its most exaggerated and underemployed forms