086: Your Masculine/Feminine Ratio

The ego is a self-image or an idea that we each have about ourselves. However, disillusion about one’s self always leads to discord with others. The ego says, “You and me are different,” and that keeps us separated and isolated. We need to find that place in ourselves that’s willing to let go of our ego and is willing to put our feelings of separation aside. The cancer of our life is the separation and saying we can’t connect when the truth is we can. Throughout history there’s been a lot of conflict between men and women. A lot of it has to do with the concept of masculine and feminine. Everyone has a ratio of masculine and feminine inside of us. This ratio changes over time and this ratio grows and expands as you develop your own personality, your own ego structure, your own life.

This is Rob Kandell from Boulder, Colorado. Excited to be here on the road, spending some days with one of the companies I consult for. I’m working on how to improve their company, how to improve their business, how to find relation. We spent about six hours in a group setting, throwing up the agenda to find connection between them. There are some pretty disparate personalities and some pretty disparate views. It has lots to do with the concept of masculine and feminine dynamics, which is the topic of this show. It was an amazing experience of watching people go from separation, from really opposite sides of the playing field and be willing to come closer and connected and to find union. What’s the takeaway from the experience? It was really how amazing it is that people can find union and connection no matter what and how we can work to have that every single day of our life.

I want to talk about something else the concept of what’s happening in Charlottesville, Virginia. For those who don’t know, it’s hard not to know with all the press around it, but basically there was a group of people called Unite the Right that went to protest to tearing down of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Honestly, Robert E. Lee was a hero of mine. For those who don’t know, he was a great general of the south in the Civil War and he was someone I studied a lot when I was younger. General Lee, from the books I read, was basically a reluctant general. He was a student of West Point. Then when he was called to go back to fight for the south, he did it with a heavy heart, but that was his home. He went to fight for his home and all of the accounts I have, he fought with honor. There’s talk about tearing down all these statues around the confederacy.

There’s always talk about pulling down the history which I honestly have mixed feelings about because I think it’s important to have our history. I also get that it’s an icon to wipe supremacy and slavery and racism, which is not okay with me. What happened over last weekend was a group from the right and a group from the left and came together and there wasn’t a peaceful conversation. It was arguing. It was yelling at each other and a woman died from a domestic terrorist act of someone running a car into them. It’s a lot for me to understand that heavy heart, to understand this piece. I was thinking about it and I was like, “How does this apply to this show?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of the ego. The ego is something that protects us. The ego is something that keeps us separated and isolated. The ego says, “You and me are different.” There’s some protection mechanism that ensures that there’s separation or something different between us, different races and different religions throughout the history of the world. People have viewed others as different. That difference is what caused a lot of conflict. Then we have the leadership of the United States. We have a president who’s not taking sides. Actually, he’s really supporting the All Right on some level. We have lower approval ratings of the president. There’s really a lack of leadership that was in the icons of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy’s in the country are really dissolved into nothing. We can continue try to look up to the top of the pyramid to find leadership and support, but we need to find that place in ourselves that’s willing to let go of our ego, is willing to put our feelings of separation aside, and to look at the connection between the two. Even with these coworkers, I think they truly love each other. I saw the separation that they perceived and by the end of the day, they actually were in connection.

The point was, they found some connection and they found some union at the end which is a beautiful thing to watch. I can’t sit by and watch all this disconnection because my purpose in life is to teach around connection. In the process of writing the book and talking to Morgan and figuring these things out, it’s the concept of connection where connection doesn’t seem possible, seems to be the foundation of what I’m trying to teach. It’s really always possible. I saw that and I see that in Charlottesville. I see it in the United States where this civil war is growing between the left and the right on mimicking the Civil War between the north and the south. It’s just really possible. Every single person needs to do what it takes to look at the conflicts in your life and seeing, “There is some sameness between us and them, and we like to protect ourselves.” we’re separate and that separation is what is killing our lives.

The cancer of our life is the separation. It’s the cancer of our lives saying we can’t connect, and the truth is we can. Reading about a terrorist attack in Barcelona, which one of my favorite cities, it’s endemic that this separation is occurring in the world today. What can you do to find more connection? Where do you feel isolated and separated and what’s it going to take to feel connected. Throughout history, there’s been a lot of conflict between men and women. We could spend a lot of time talking about gender dynamics, pay differences, men trying to keep women down and the rise of feminism, which is actually separating. There’s been a lot of conflict between the genders. A lot of it has to do with this concept of masculine and feminine. I want to talk about the definition of masculine and feminine.

Here’s my basic views around masculine and feminine. Masculine is the concept of projecting out. It’s the force. It’s the movement. It’s the ability to gather and contain. The masculine loves the checklists. We like to have our boxes really tight and orderly. We like to know our tasks are completed. It is the concept of taking the inherent chaos of the universe and really shrinking it down into bite size pieces. There’s a lot of fun comic out there about the difference between a men’s brain and a woman’s brain which you can translate to a masculine and feminine. One comic I saw on Facebook that’s hilarious. He said, “Men like to have little boxes in their mind and they don’t like their boxes to touch. They want their boxes close to each other and able to move from box A to box B with the utmost efficiency, but we want separation between the two.

My box is very tight and orderly. One of the definitions of the feminine is the opposite. They like expansion. They like the growth. If things are too orderly, they want to like, “Let’s open up this project. Let’s start this painting project. Let’s explore this piece.” I watched Morgan go from video to video. Her little feminine mind is gathering all these concepts. Then she pours it down to this really blatant conclusion. I’m just like trying to organize one thing in my head and she’s like opening up this box and that box. The feminine likes to open things up. One of the best examples I always use in teaching was the concept of traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. San Francisco is in the north. Los Angeles is in the south. The true masculine mind would say, “I want to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It’s 483 miles down the five which is a very straight highway.” It’s one of the straight highways I’ve ever see just like a direct line. It’s the shortest line between the two points. It’s483 miles. It’s 60 miles an hour. It’s going to take us around seven hours or we’ll stop at this one in and out burger right to directly in the middle, off a few miles, but really directly in the middle. This is where we’ll stop for gas, so we have enough gas. The masculine is like, “I’m ready for the trip.” He’s excited and he’s got the whole plan. The feminine comes in and says, “Honey, on the way down, can we stop at this little tea shop in Moss beach?”

The masculine goes, “Moss beach is on the Coast. For us to get there, we’re going to have to travel from San Francisco down Highway 101 to Highway 1 and then go to Moss beach. Then there’s this cut off at the 152, but that’s going to add an incredible amount of time to our trip and it’s not very efficient. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” The feminine is like, “I’ve heard about this. It’s really pretty and we can have a cup of tea and we can enjoy the ride.” Instead of the boring ass straight highway, “Let’s go and see the magnificent Pacific Ocean.” The masculine is like, “This is so inefficient.”Then maybe the masculine says, “That could be an adventure.” Then they have a great time going down the Highway 1 and then campout by the beach and have tea and buy pattern things for the walls in their house.

That’s the difference between the masculine and the feminine. The masculine really likes that direct line down and the feminine just wants to open up new possibilities. For people who are very feminine, the masculine feels really constraining. It feels really tight and orderly and stifling. For people who are very masculine, the feminine feels wild and crazy, unruly. It feels like the possibility of where they’re going to lead us could destroy our sanity because of all the insanity of the feminine. People who are really rigid on their poles are challenged in life because of their differences between the two. Everyone has a ratio of masculine and feminine inside of you. For people who think they’re very manly and masculine, “I don’t have a feminine inside,” well you do. For women or people who think they’re very feminine think, “I don’t have a masculine inside,” well you do. I don’t think many people would debate me on this and some people would say, “I have a very small masculine,” or, “I have a very small feminine,” but we all have this ratio. This ratio changes over time and this ratio grows and expands as you develop your own personality, your own ego structure, your own life. Also it does change from moment to moment.

People think I’m going to walk into a situation and bring out my masculine conscious or unconsciously, and then all of a sudden the feminine little bell goes on. All of a sudden the computer program, the ratio, lower the masculine, rise the feminine. The feminine comes and takes over the situation. You might see this at times. You might walk into a situation with someone you love and they’re crying on the couch and then all of a sudden you think, ” Okay.”A little brand are just like time to turn on the empathy. It’s time to run that piece up and maybe it’s time to soften things in our system and sit down like, “Honey, why are you crying? What’s happening?” She’ll just like, “I really want to go to this tea house at Moss beach.” You’re just like, “We can go to the tea house in Moss beach. It’s 140 miles out of our way, but I love you. I want to have this experience with you.”

We have this ratio between the two. The healthy soul, the healthy ratio is someone who goes up and down that ladder and changes that ratio in a moment by moment piece of mind based on the stimuli of what’s happening. We all have the ability to do it. There’s a lot of talk about women and the society especially in the west who are really living inside their masculine. They’re really living inside this masculine world were in the workforce and having trouble translating from the masculine to the feminine. There’s a lot of talk about men who on some level their masculinity has been persecuted and the toxic masculinity and men just being men is really being persecuted. They amped down their masculinity to fit in, to get approval from society. Women then are upset because men aren’t masculine even though on some level, they’re the ones who requested us to be more feminine. Then there’s all this confusion between the two and it’s mayhem.

It is a significant issue in today’s society. Back to this concept of this healthy ratio between the two. We have this opportunity to really discover these parts of ourselves. We have shame about different aspects of our being. There are people who have a lot of shame. A man has shame around his masculine thoughts because of that desire or has a lot of shame about his feminine thoughts. How many conversations do we have about people who want to cross-dress, who want to be more feminine, who want to wear clothes that have them feel feminine? It’s against society’s biases to do that. We shove that part down. We bring the shame. We put shame on top of it. Women who were denying their feminine aspect because feminine has a bad wrap or even their masculine. There’s a bulk load of shame. We are the one to persecute different parts of ourselves at all times. When you persecute or shame that part of yourself, you are taking out of commission one of your most powerful tools, one of your best self-empowerment, self-creation tools, based on your judgments. What these judgments do is they stop you from seeing the vastness and the infinite nature of who you are.

As a guy, I could think I’m always going to be masculine because that’s what men do. I was a child of the ‘70s and ‘80s and this is what my parents taught me to do. That’s one option. Then there’s really moments where my feminine side is really important. When I coach, I’m constantly turning up and down that ratio based on what my clients are asking for. When I’m with Morgan, it is like the Olympics of turning up and down the ratio of masculine and feminine. Because she is a dynamic shape shifter and I want to always be in tune with her. It is a fun game to figure out what wants to show up. Sometimes I’m awful at it. Sometimes she was having feelings. The other day, she asked my opinion about something and I went right to my masculine mind. I was like, “Technically this is something you should do to enable to solve the problem. If you change this with this wrench and turn this thing 108 degrees, everything will be fine.”Then she got more and more distant and I was like, “What?” She’s like, “I just really want you to acknowledge my feelings first.”I could have done that before too, and I forgot to upload the feminine program. I work on this every single day. We got through it and we love each other through it and I learned something and now hopefully you learn something.

The point is that we have these different parts of ourselves and it’s learning how to pay attention. The kids are someone who really brings me into feminine because I’m co-parenting two young girls. They’re not interested really in any of the boy stuff. They’re into the cartoons and the Justice League and the Teen Titans Go. All that masculine stuff, the spreadsheets and the cool shit that I do, they’re not interested at all. They want to play. They want a pillow fight. They really encourage my feminine to come out. It’s an interesting thing to learn these different sides to myself to bring it out. How does this translate into the whole conversation? When I’m able to be in agreement with my vastness, my infinite, the different sides to myself, then I give permission for people around me for the vastness and the infiniteness about themselves. If I have thoughts that men should be masculine and I have a man friend who shows up more of as feminine, if I’m not in agreement with my own feminine, I am not going to treat that person well because of my internal judgments.

If I can get in agreement with my own side, then I can get permission to him for his own side. Then when he feels my approval of who he is, then he could bring that side out. All of a sudden, I’m actually interacting with a much larger person. My approval can create so much space for them to be bigger and better and fuller. That’s the kind of relationships I want. Morgan reads all these weird books about aliens and plebeians and maybe we’ll do a show on the plebeians and maybe I’ll get her to come on to talk about all this stuff but I don’t quite understand. She hand me a chapter on the masculine and feminine and then a chapter it said, “No, the feminine has really been persecuted by a masculine.” I was like, “That’s true.”Then also the masculine has been persecuted by the feminine. It’s both sides.

Neither of us are in agreement with ourselves, therefore we’re not in agreement with others. If you translate that back to Virginia, all rightness is not in agreement with their all leftness, and their all leftness is not in agreement with all the rightness. I’m not trying to excuse or equate. I’m not going to pull a trump and equate these two sides. I can say that if people can start to get an agreement with a vastness of themselves, then they have more space for the vastness of others. That is where the true intimacy and connection arises. It’s really up to us to not only fix the shame and disconnection in ourselves, but also encourage people for the vastness of each other through our approval. You want a homework assignment? Take this one.

Look at yourself and see where you have shame about who you are. Look at yourself and see where you shamed others for parts you don’t feel an agreement with yourself. You can get off the masculine and feminine trait. You can get into the lazy. You can get into the overwork. You can get in to the alcohol, you can do the drugs, you can get to wherever you feel shame or fear inside yourself and how that’s affecting your relationships and how that’s causing disconnection. Go forth. Embrace your enemies, fall in love with yourself. That is this week’s rant.

Live Coaching

I have a volunteer. Mark, long-time listener, frequent participant on Tuff Love. Welcome back to the show, Mark.

The thing that I’ve been grappling within a lot of my back and forth with people in social media about the events that have happened in Charlotte was this idea that somehow the real path to undermine Nazism and white supremacy is what they did which was clown noses and clown costumes. Showing up with hilarity as the weapon as opposed to meeting their opposition. That was the inspiration I had. It’s been confronted a couple of ways like we appeased the Hitler’s people in World War II and then look where that lead us. It feels like there’s this psychic aikido move in what I am suggesting that really robs the Nazis, of the conflict that they’re trying to generate. I want to go forth and with a sign that says “free hugs for Nazis” really try to undermine it in that way.

I saw on Facebook that there’s a dance anti-violence movement for San Francisco. That’s a group of people. I think they’re trying to organize an All Right protest in San Francisco and all those people organizing a dance-a-thon. Basically they dance around all the protesters. I thought that was great. I totally agree with you. It’s good and it’s good to find that connection. It’s the start, people embrace. There used to be the scene about debate among gentlemen which of course is sexist. The concept behind it is like people showing up active listening, active speaking and embracing the difference because that’s where the expansion has. Once people feel heard, their fear gets arising, then actually there can be more connection.

The other side, the masculine side that showed up for me prior of that was in 2017 if you’re walking down the street with a swastika on your arm or carrying a flag, we should just shoot you right then. That plays into this polarity that you were talking about before, because on the one hand there’s this game, this acknowledgement, and on the other there’s this hardcore like we can’t afford to appease, allow these people. That there needs to be some serious consequences for them.

What do you think that masculine inside of you was trying to a, communicate or b, protect? Why the anger and the choice to go to violence as a way to stop the stimuli of the tattoo or that flag?

It’s a sense of wanting to exert ultimate power like you are not allowed. “We will end you because our grandfathers already fought this war and so much suffering has gone before. We are, therefore, righteous in our adjudication of the demise of you.”

Masculine is to condense, control, it’s to overpower in order to not feel the feelings. I think it’ll work but it won’ work because we’ve tried to do that since 1940s and white supremacy is not going away. The KKK is not going away, Nazism. I saw this other great article on Facebook that basically said, “Why is there a KKK in America but not in Germany?” It’s because the anger and the difference underlies us in our country, in ourselves.

I noticed also in Germany, they have a practice of literally laughing at them when they marched. They like people show up and they’re like, “Really? This is ridiculous.”The Nazis are asking us to engage them. They want attention. They were just begging for a fight which is why they come in armed. I don’t want Antifa to deliver that to them, but I don’t want to restrict Antifa’s right to express themselves. There are limits to the first amendment like there are things where Nazism is not allowed. That’s just really my belief and if you look at my genetic heritage, I’m blue eyed and my ancestors come from the Germanic territory. I feel a great sense of guilt and shame about my white privilege. I’m just scratching a surface of that and having the hard conversations. It’s just so tough to watch all this go down. I don’t feel empowered to change it. I feel fearful. I think that’s the thing, that’s the spot. Where do I shift from fearfulness to fearlessness and how do I employ something that we can all collectively combine with to feel safer and to feel like we’re neutralizing this cancer.

When you push down and try to shut down the Nazism, Unite the Right went and try to get a permit from Charlottesville or somewhere in Virginia and they were shut down. They want to use the ACLU to go the courts, to get the permit, to march which is amazing. It’s like they went that system and they actually had permits to march. I don’t know if that included shields, spray and guns and hatred, but when you try to shut the masculine and tries to shut that side down, that’s where the connection occurs and the separation. That’s, I think the violence arose from us not giving it a space to breathe and feel. I am not looking forward to any conversations about Nazism as a Jew. I’m not interested in that conversation and there’s a part of me that’s like, “If this could solve the separation, if they could see the human in me and I could see the human in them, maybe that would solve and help one person which propagates out.”

There’s something in them that’s wounded and feels disassociated and disempowered. It doesn’t feel like hugging Nazis the right move, but somewhere in there, I think is the colonel and that feels like the feminine side.

We’re going to have Chris Miller. I’m going to keep you too, Mark. Go ahead, Chris.

It’s me, Robert. It’s Anne.

Hi Anne.

Two things are occurring on the market. Appreciate that when you said, “How do I move from fear to fearless?” The word breath comes from me like what’s the source of my safety? Is it convincing someone else of something or is it sourcing my own breath spray that one, breathing with my fear. This issue, to me, is very personal in the sense of how do we let two people exist like when we feel scared whether it’s with my husband or protesters. That moment where I noticed I’m tense. There’s only room for one of us to exist, so I’m going to try to dominate you because otherwise, I’m out. It’s the either/or paradigm. To me is the consciousness trying to be busted now. Is making room for two that are different which means you really in your core have to have love?

Then I’m connected to you because of something deeper than a point of view and that’s where the body and the feminine come into play for me. Returning again and again to honoring the feminine, honoring the body, sometimes I like to use those words because it can be polarizing or feminine, masculine, men and women. Everybody’s got a body that has energy and then consciousness. For me, that’s what I’m doing here. I’m like embodying consciousness and that’s an ongoing moment by moment. When am I in this mode? Where am I in that love, but it’s always about breaths.

Let me just shout-out to you because you taught me that. Anne and Chris are amazing improv teachers who came to OneTaste and taught a bunch of us how to teach improv games. It really affected a lot of my teaching and he’s the one who taught me, planning, judging. That’s an important piece is that the masculine is so wanting to beat ourselves up for our humanity and the feminine some like celebrates our humanity. Again, it’s the balance between the two, so I’m grateful for your contribution to me in that regard.

When you’re talked about Morgan, for example, wanting to see the tea shop and I love that she said, ” I just wanted you to feel my feelings,” and you starting to go, ” I want to show up as feminine.” Every time Chris isn’t available, that’s been fucking rubber to the road over 40 years of building my own masculine. The external masculine is not available. I freak out at first and they go, “This means it’s for my own consciousness.” My consciousness is my safety. It’s what lets my body breathe or not, it’s what embodying thought was. When somebody else is available, that’s my feminine edge like, “The love is out there. It’s my own. Let it in. Let myself really feel love, feel safe. Thank you. That’s what I want to say.

Do you have any thoughts, Mark?

Breath is everything. Everything that I’m being taught is that somehow it all comes back to that, whether it’s a Buddhist meditation or yoga. It’s something that my children talked about which is changing the habitual pattern. It’s where you stop in the moment and catch that toxic reaction that’s going to come up. It’s a moment where you can feel your body again, like the breath comes in and it fills the body and you go, “What am I experiencing?”Sensation gives us the clue to intuition and our gut feeling, so I totally resonate with that and that seems like a practice.

For some people don’t like the concept of breath, you can change this into the space between stimuli and response. My response to when Morgan asked me what I thought was to bring out my masculine to solve the problem. Perhaps if I had breathe in, taking a space scanter again and I might have noticed, “She really just wants me to hold her and her feelings.” I’m not being myself around it because this is part of my learning. This is part of my habits. If you can just start to look at where your habits and increase the space to make better choices in that breath, that’s where the mastery comes from.

Anne, if you were instrumental in teaching, Rob, I want to express my gratitude to you for that teaching which has been then passed onto me and is now helping me develop into a better human.

Thanks for coming on the show guys. Thanks for pinch hitting. I appreciate it. Just feel that feeling inside of us though. There really is so much possibility in each of us. If you feel stuck in your role, if you feel stuck typecast in this role, start to develop that other side of yourself. For me, I really grew up thinking I was all masculine but also I had a mother who was a therapist who taught me to connect to my feminine and she taught me empathy and she taught me to listen. As I got older in college, kids were coming to me for me to listen. You could always develop the side. Going through my whole OneTaste training, that whole revolution of who I am taught me to feel. The guy who walked in numb and dumb in this world now can help others like yesterday buying that connection that exists.

Don’t fret. Don’t give up on yourself. You do have the opportunity to expand your life, expand your soul, go forth, and be connected. I don’t know what’s going to be but Tuff Love is definitely going to be interesting. This is show 86 and I’m excited about that on TuffLove.Live. Please go to iTunes to give me a little love and write a number of reviews. Come on, take ten minutes. You can get the link to how to do that at TuffLove.Live. Send a little love. As always, I really appreciate it. Go forth. Be free. Get some nookie and take care.

Thank you so much for joining us for Tuff Love. I really had a great show. I love being part of this incredible community. I love being part of a force that add my viewpoints hopefully will entice yours to come out, your truth and your freedom to come out. I’m so grateful as always to be of service to you. You know the ways that we still need you. We still need you to sign up for my mailing list at TuffLove.Live. Like us on iTunes. Tell a friend. Thank you so much for being part of my world. Go forth and enjoy.

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