The struggle with the feminine and feeling so many of us undergo : some insights

It seems to me that the feminine in both men and woman struggles so much to express in our heroic masculine society, which is often predicated on appearances, ‘front’, action and doing, but as John Bradshaw writes we are not human doings but human beings. It is the deep feminine in us that knows how to be and to be receptive to other dimensions beyond just this earthly one as well as to the ocean of our own and others feelings that in astrology is often related to the Moon and the intuitive side..This part of us needs connection with the Solar light which is more action focused but does not need to over-ridden by it.

If you have found yourself feeling extra combattative or ground under lately its no surprise with action planet Mars in Aries soon to go direct. I have been storming around the house today cursing and cussing, then I have to get back to the Serenity Prayer to get to grips with what is and is not inside of my control. I had coffee with a good friend yesterday and when she heard how my sister and I are being treated by my brother over our inheritance she went into a tirade about masculine forces over-running the feminine and putting us down for being ‘too emotional’. But sometime this makes me uncomfortable, too as we need to remember young boys and men get savaged in the same way if they have defended parents who only value strength, bravado, ‘front’ and power over, over feelings, intuitions and soul sensitivities..

In the novel Nothing But Blue Sky that I am currently reading the man at the center of the story realises after his wife is killed in a plane crash that he did not want to bring kids into the world due to the fact of being brutally bullied and told to ‘man up’ by his Dad who also beat his mother down with words. And as my friend Jane said yesterday the scars this kind of emotional abuse by tongue lashing, contempt or sarcasm, as well as shaming, gaslighting and invalidation leaves are often hidden deep below the surface of the psyche. They are pernicious and can lead to illness and even death, not to mention a highly ‘scrambled’ state of mind.

Yesterday my friend suggested I get legal advice if my inheritance is not sorted soon (so there are times we need the decisiveness of masculine action and power to get things sorted and get some of the fog cleared we can be subjected to when actively disempowered). She also said not to say anything until I had all my information in line and sorted… Its sad to say that there are dark elements in the world that like to run roughshod over the feminine in men and woman.. It is sad to see that certain people consider themselves to be ‘better than’ and then perfectly justified in treating the vulnerable, sensitive or hurting with contempt, as well as not helping the vulnerable to becomes empowered. All that said we have to find ways to take our power back in certain situation.

It is also better to see the hard truth painful as it is AND BY GOD IT IS PAINFUL. Yesterday when I got home I felt almost driven crazy by all the insights and anger my friend expressed but then she was probably only giving voice to things I have felt myself. For myself I have to apply serenity to this angst, at least until I try to get things sorted and that may take a bit of time after Mars finally turns direct in 3 days.

Its taken a long time for me to no longer berate my damaged or feminine side. It has taken some time to see how hard it was and how wounded our family was in that way, although not that different to a ton of other wounded families. The best thing about wounding is to be able to see it and call it because something named can be understood, its a great point Dr Sue Johnson makes in her book on relationships and attachment wounding.

A friend I share with reached an insight about his own trauma lately and when he shared that with me earlier today, I thought of a profound piece of insight I learned in Al Anon many years ago, that Awareness comes before Acceptance and helpful, necessary, purposeful Action only after we have found that acceptance.. Without the acceptance our actions may be destructive of self or others as we have not learned yet to husband, or corral and channel our upset, rage or anger clearly and cleanly. We may also shame ourselves or others for expressing it and struggling with those feelings which, if disallowed, only become more confused and scrambled. This has happened to me one too many times in my own family over past years. And understanding how abandonment grief and grief over emotional absence and neglect drove my Mum and was carried has taken me many years of active sobriety..

These days when I get the chance to sort out my jumbled feelings, to take the risk to express them and fight for my right to respect and having my emotional truth heard (even though I know, realistically, by now that will not be possible with all people) then I feel better. My depressive feelings and lowered libido changes and I feel more inspired to take action. I have more energy.. Getting into my body and out of my head helps too. Even singing and dancing have been proving good for me lately.. Yesterday after having so many painful feelings triggered by that friend it really helped to clean out part of the garage and dance around to music I love on high volume.

I have been learning lately that sitting around feeling sad about certain things and not taking constructive action can make things worse, while there are also times to let things go I am powerless to effect any change over. That said it is, at times, important to be sad and let those feelings out.. Sadness always wants to tell me something and tryimg to out run necessary grief does not really work. My experience is, that once the sadness is released my actions become clearer and not as clouded, similar thing with learning not to over react when in the grip of a powerful charge of old anxiety.. Just stopping and deepening my breath and checking with my body and mind and heart to find out what is really going on at such times helps me.

I know the feminine out there in our culture will often go through a hard time when barraged by the toxic masculine in both woman and men. .This can also happen when people who have not one clue of how deeply embedded in our culture past trauma is and is carried make superficial judgments of those who struggle or bear what seem to the ‘dysfunctions’ of the collective past. I was triggered over this issue late last week listening to a radio program on the novel Bluebird by Malcolm Knox which you would have to listen to to understand. That said so much lingers under the surface of a life we do not always fully understand and may then judge superficially.

Perhaps the feminine is more able to see things in the softer light of the Moon which sheds a more gentle, understanding, nuanced light upon all kinds of trauma, wounding and scars… a kind of insight that does not cut so deeply to ribbons the hidden sensitivities of a person or society, judging them purely from how much is ‘done’, achieved, cured, fixed or corrected in line with accepted standards or ideas, and then painfully criticising, diminishing or judging those who struggle with so called ‘mental.health’ issues in the traumatic aftermath.