Polarity Impossibilities or Something

I was talking with a friend about energetic awakenings, and something she said has stayed with me all year. She noted that from the people she knows who have gone through experiences like this, men seem to have more trouble with them than women.

In her description, she said something like this:

Awakenings like this require a certain style of surrender. You have to give up your own ideas, let go, and trust what’s going to happen, trust that the process has an intelligence that’s going to work out better than your attempt to control things. Something in the feminine polarity makes this… not necessarily easy, but definitely more natural. An available move. For the masculine though, it can be almost impossible — the whole masculine polarity is set up in opposition to surrender, so it can literally feel like dying to let go. And that’s where I’ve seen a lot of men get stuck. To them, letting go feels impossible, it’s like dying. Telling them to let go is like telling them to ignore gravity and start floating.

There was something to what she said, the way that surrender is built in to the feminine polarity and almost an oxymoronic impossibility in the masculine polarity. Men can let go, but they have to have some development of their feminine side first — and in order to develop their feminine side they have to let go… there’s something that can feel like a catch-22 there, especially when the pressure is high (as it is in energetic awakening experiences).

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I’ve noticed a complementary dynamic that I have a hard time pointing directly at, so I’m barely gonna try, I’m mostly leaving this here as a mile marker to look back at in the future, or to attract someone to come yell at me and fill in my blind spot/lack of clarity on this.

But it’s something like: Masuline:Surrender::Feminine:Sovereignty.

If letting go, dropping control, trusting in the generative void of uncontrollable Process is uniquely crazy-makingly difficult for the Masculine, since its energetics are ontologically in opposition to that whole thing — then in a complementary way, Feminine energetics are set up in opposition to forcing, drawing fixed lines to contain experience, enacting its own Will onto Reality in accordance with personal, singular Vision.

Which I’m very roughly pointing at with the word “sovereignty” here, even though it’s not quite right. Hopefully gives a flavor though.

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I’ve had some similar conversations across gender/polarity lines over the past couple years. These places where it feels like talking in circles with someone.

Luckily, everyone, male or female, contains both Masculine and Feminine polarities, and thus it’s not actually impossible for anyone to lean into their non-dominant.

But sometimes it really feels like it.

With men, some conversations feel like they go round and round and round, where he’s tied himself in a knot that’s shaped like “i could control x if only I could control y, but y is uncontrollable, so how can I control x?” — and all I can say is “you can’t. so let go and find out where things land when you get to the space where you can take control again.”

And it’s like they literally can’t hear that answer. Even when they’re open to letting go, it becomes a matter of “what button do I push to let-go? how do I control that process?”

“… you can’t. Drop control and just let things happen.”

“…???…”

There’s a failure mode here where if they could just let go and be carried to the next place where they can exert control, there wouldn’t be a problem left. Zero crisis. Just the next area to exert Will on, and then let go, and then the next exertion of Will, and the next letting go, etc.

But because they can’t Let Go, they get stuck and spin in circles and become increasingly out of control even of the things they usually are able to exert their Will and Vision on. More and more control is lost, so they cling and cling harder instead of letting go.

(I say “they” — I’ve definitely done this, obviously. It’s just easier to spot when I’m talking to someone else.)

Eventually, they do of course engage their feminine polarity, out of sheer inescapable necessity if nothing else. And after we’ve done that a couple times, it tends to get easier. But it can be a rough ride for folks who are heavily identified with and invested in their Masculine.

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The same conversation on the other end of the polarity looks pretty different, but also gives me a Spinning in Circles vibe.

I don’t think this is the only way it looks, but the most striking repeating pattern I’ve seen is something like this:

“I finally had an experience where [someone/something] gave me exactly what I needed in life, a safe, structured, protected space to let life Flow in, and it was amazing. But now that [person/thing/situation] is gone, and I don’t have that space they provided anymore; I feel it’s absence so badly.”

“Wow, that sucks. How about providing that space for yourself?”

“I’m trying, but I can’t find another person/situation that provides it in the same way.”

“…right, but how about developing your ability to do it for yourself? It’s a supportive inner sense that they gave you — which means that it existed inside you, which means it can exist in side you… so you could follow that thread, so that you don’t need to depend on an external source for it?”

“definitely, and I think I’ll finally have the space to provide that for myself once I find someone/something to provide it for me again.”

“…but…”

Again, everyone does have Masculine in them, so they do tend to get this at a certain point, but when someone is quite identified with their Feminine, it can feel like this rut gets circled over and over again before something clicks.

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Side note worth bringing in: the above are polarity dynamics, not gender dynamics. There’s definite gendered tendencies in there, but I’ve seen men get stuck in their wounded Feminine patterns and women get stuck in their wounded Masculine patterns, all of it is complex and multifaceted and all these things — I am not trying to be particularly careful or nuanced here, this blog is explicitly my notebook-scribbling place, cut me some charitable reading if you would.

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Both of those “going in circles” dynamics above, I’ve seen very real despair on the faces of people caught in them.

For the Masculine stuckness, it’s the despair of “HOW? HOW DO I LET GO? WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN?” — Again, it feels almost like telling them “just detach from gravity and float up.” They try and try and cannot find the move, which wounds the sense of Masculine control and competence, which leads to despair and shame and frustration.

In the Feminine stuckness, there’s a flavor of the “HOW???”-despair, but it looks to me more often and more strongly like “WHY???”-despair. There’s more of a sense that, yes, sure, they could provide this inner sense of safety and structure for themselves and their own lives… but there’s almost an existential sense that it’s wrong and unjust that they would have to do so, that the universe couldn’t possibly be so cruel and lonely-making. It wounds the Feminine sense of surrender, trust, and communion, which leads to despair and loneliness and anger.

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As far as I can tell, across all of these dynamics, a very annoying rule is at play: once you step on a developmental/spiritual path, needing something seems to repel it.

We can all recognize this dynamic in some relationships: when one person is very needy, it can engage a pattern in the other that wants to avoid them. You need someone, and they pull away. You don’t need them, and there’s room for them to come in closer.

I forget where I saw this, but someone defined charisma as not needing anything from whoever you’re talking to. When you don’t need, both you and the other person are free to simply be, to see where you do or don’t naturally meet each other, without needing to push or pull each other around.

The energetics of reality seem to have some similar stuff going on, and it gets much stronger when you start to live more intentionally.

If you need to take control of whatever situation you’re in, to shape it according to your own Will and Vision — you’re only going to be allowed to do that once you no longer need it; once you’ve proven that you’re capable of and comfortable with surrendering control and allowing Reality to flow and carry you.

If you need to let go into an external person/situation in order to flow freely, to let your aliveness and sensitivity light up the world — you’re only going to be allowed that situation once you no longer need it; once you’ve proven that you’re capable of and comfortable with exerting your own Will and Vision onto your life, providing yourself with the safe, structured space you need.

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Okay that’s all I’ve got today. I’m gonna keep ranting about polarities probably, because they’re what’s most active for me and I seem to be trying to figure something out about them. I recognize that this whole topic area can be triggering and contentious, and Iiiiiii am just gonna accept that and hope that god brings me the right responses at the right time to affirm where I’m onto something, point at where I’ve got a blind spot, and serve up information or perspectives I’ve been missing.