A DEEPER STORY OF GENDER
As I sit here at my desk, staring out the window at the view of the mountains for the 100th time today, I am struck by the something fundamental around the emerging story of gender energy on the planet right now: The paradox how our old stories about what is masculine and what is feminine no longer seem to apply.
Let me explain.
When I was a kid in the 80’s, traditional male / female personas had already started to transform (at least in the UK where I was growing up). To name just a few of the social groups that I belonged to, you had ‘tom boy’ girls and ‘emo’ boys; you had goths who merged gender roles pretty fluidly, a new mixing and merging of gender roles was being birthed, some polarising and some harmonising. It wasn’t clear cut.
As time moved on, we have become even more transformative in our approach to gender. I look at the freedom that my step kids (aged 16 and 20) now have to experiment with (should they chose to) across gender stories and identities and celebrate, to a large degree, how we are evolving our sense of gender diversity and unity.
So all of this got me to thinking and feeling this week as I retreated to the mountains to catch my breath, sleep and write. There is something much more fundamental emerging for me underneath the outer expressions of feminine / masculine that is very much alive.
It almost sounds cliché to state that we each have feminine and masculine poles of experience. Certainly with my husband living half a world away from me for most of the year, I employ both my masculine ‘doing’ and direction on a daily basis as well as my feminine ‘being’ and embracing.
That’s not to say however, that any of these definitions are clear cut and that the masculine side of my nature can’t ‘be’ and the feminine side can’t ‘do’. Not so. It’s just that the being and doing for me have very different qualities and essences depending on whether I am acting from my male or my female pole of existence.
We have all been taught many masks of femininity and masculinity from our cultures, families and media but none are entirely true. Each one of us has a story about our gender that is uniquely ours and needs to be discovered and evolved as we grow.
How is our feminine essence expressing itself in our times of change? How is our masculine essence responding to social turmoil and upheaval? Which one is your comfort zone?
I believe that our main quest in our precious human lives is one of self-understanding and self-actualisation. This means embracing all seeming opposites and polarities in order to find our personal truth within the stories of the world. Gender is one of the fundamental aspects to our existence on the planet and will influence our life to a greater or lesser extent depending on how ‘fluid’ your relationship with this alchemical factor is.
What is your current story about gender?
Is it empowering you or not?
Do you feel overly influenced by the stories and expectations of others or are you grounded in your own evolving truth?
Where are you protecting yourself from the shadows of your past?
And the killer question I always ask myself being:
Where is my current story of gender holding me back from fully expressing my gifts to the world?
For years I realised that I had an underlying story (probably inherited from my ancestors) that it was dangerous to be soft and ‘feminine’ in the world and that if I displayed my full, voluptuous, passionate, transpersonal loving energy to others, I would be hurt, ridiculed and punished for it.
And yet here I am on the mountain, being soft, feminine and pausing to wonder and love each and every living being that surrounds me in these quiet, intimate, love filled moments. The first step begins by bridging polarities and paradox and not trying to make one thing right and another wrong.
So I have chosen to move beyond outer expressions and stories of gender and head towards my inner sense of these creative energies. I have chosen to embark on a new adventure into exploring these ancient and alchemical roles, to see and experience my own unique alchemy of male / female.
Why not join me in your own exploration?
Ask yourself some difficult questions.
Contemplate your discomfort zones.
And then let all of that go and just stare at your own mountain.
From there your true story will reveal itself.
This Sunday 8th March is International Women’s Day and I am LOVING the #EachforEqual campaign that states –
An equal world is an enabled world.
Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.
Check it out – our stories really are changing!
