Understanding Masculine & Feminine Energies

Have you ever heard the terminology of masculine and feminine energy and wondered what the hell it all means? In this episode, I’ll be breaking down:

• Why I use these terms

• What they really mean

• Why they are *not* about your gender

• How this concept can help you understand yourself and your loved ones better

I’ll be sharing with you ways to understand how you are showing up in the world, which energy is serving you, when is best to channel each and why you may be feeling burnt out or misaligned. It’s all about your energy, baby!

This podcast is for YOU, so if you ever have any questions you’d like me to answer on the show, or topics you’d like me to cover – reach out to me on email here or over on instagram @eleanorhadley

Links & Resources

Start your journey to explore your own personal pleasure language with my free quiz, including a bonus worksheet with journaling prompts to help you dive even deeper. Take the quiz now: www.eleanorhadley.com/pleasurelanguage

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Sensuality Academy Podcast!

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Episode Transcript

Hello there my love! It’s episode four of The Sensuality Academy podcast and I’m sending you some very sparkly love from Carnival Season in Rio de Janeiro. On today’s episode I’m going to be talking all about energy and the differences between what we call masculine and feminine energy. Now, I wanted to talk about this concept in an early episode as it’s something I refer to a lot in my work and it’s super helpful for you to have an understanding of what I do and don’t mean when I inevitably use this terminology in future episodes.

In my work, I help women who are very much in their masculine energy to open up to and drop into their feminine energy once and for all. The results of this work are absolutely incredible – my students are more embodied, more open to experience deep pleasure, more present, connected with themselves and their partners, and generally more calm and content.

But, what do I mean by masculine and feminine energy?

Firstly, for those of you who may not be familiar with the notion of energy. Energy is often intangible. But today I will endeavour to make the concept more tangible for you to get a deeper understanding of it. When I refer to energy, I’m referring to the way something feels. You know that feeling when you walk into a crystal shop? (Hopefully I’m not the only crystal addict here) Or just walking in somewhere and it just feels good? That’s energy. Same goes for the opposite. When a place, a person or a thing just feels dark or not quite right. You’re tapping into energy. It’s that intangible, I can’t put my finger on it but they give me the creeps or something about that place feels amazing. That’s intangible, that’s energy.

We all have different energies at play, within us and they manifest through different qualities and behaviours. A really helpful way to quantify these different energy types, which is actually very masculine to ‘quantify energy’ but this is how we often understand and we become familiar with concepts in our very masculine world view. A helpful way to do this to organise these different energies into the masculine and the feminine traits. It’s extremely important to recognise that everybody regardless of biological sex or which gender they identify as has both masculine and feminine energies within them. One might be more prominent than the other, in an individual, but when I refer to these energetic qualities I don’t simply mean masculine equals male and feminine equals female. That really over simplifies us as humans where we all have a very broad range of behaviours and tendencies and we tap into different energies in different situations and we shift depending on who we are with. There are lots of things that can affect energy we are dropping into. 

Roughly, 90% of us will identify our core energy as corresponding with our gender. Often, our core energy can be masked by the opposing energy almost as self protection. Sometimes we can feel it’s not safe to show our core energy, in particular for those who have a core feminine energy because the feminine isn’t always respected as much as the masculine. Sometimes we can build up layers – I will discuss this further in another episode. 

For now, know that you will inevitably resonate with traits from both the masculine and feminine energies – but you may notice you lean more towards one because we all have a core energy that we resonate more highly with. 

I use the terminology masculine and feminine, I find that this language is the most easy for people to understand when I talk about energy. It’s intangible, because we are used to quantifying things and logically understanding them. It can be helpful to drop into my masculine and explain things in a way that is more tangible. 

But, you could also refer to them as yang and yin or as go and flow. And I’ll explain these more in depth when I get into each type.

But first I want to share a bit about why I even bother using this terminology in my work. When I first came across this concept, and now when I share it with my 1:1 clients and my students in The Sensuality Academy program – it provides SO much clarity. Finally there’s this sense of understanding how we are showing up in the world, which energy is serving us, when is best to channel each and why we may be feeling burnt out or misaligned.

Honestly, this is such a powerful concept to understand and tap in to in all aspects of your life. It can have a huge impact especially on your career and in your relationships. I’ll do an episode in the future all about polarity and the importance of embracing polar opposite energies within a partnership – that is seriously juicy stuff!

Okay – so what are masculine and feminine energies?

Before I share the energetic traits of each – remember that these exist within us ALL. It’s not just as simple as masculine = male and feminine = female. Consider which traits you identify with at your core level, as well as which situations in your life you might exhibit some traits more than others.

Now, everything in life exists on a spectrum. At one end you have the shadow, the dark or wounded traits of an energy type, and this often gets referred to as toxic especially when we hear about toxic masculinity. We don’t often hear about toxic femininity but it exists.  Feminist movements focus on the toxic as opposed to the embodied, fully expressed light aspects of the masculine. This is why I am passionate about bringing femininity back to feminism because it’s not healthy for anybody involved when we focus so heavily on masculine being toxic. Too many people focus on masculine toxicity to the point that toxicity equates to masculinity which isn’t true. Masculinity can be divine, beautiful and fully embodied. It is important to have the fully expressed masculine in the world within ourselves and the men in our lives. It is very important. From now on, I am going to refer to the word toxic as wounded – the wounded masculine and the wounded feminine.

So let’s start by looking at the embodied traits of the feminine energy.

These are the qualities of creativity, vulnerability, softness and empathy. It’s very nurturing, open, receptive and has a focus on community and caring for others. A very beautiful energy. The embodied feminine can be seen to be vulnerable, all about flow, surrender, compassionate, playful, expressive, love to love, authentic, they know who they are, intuitive, trust their gut and heart over their mind, grounded, very loving, vibrate with energy and sound. All about creation, the ability to create life, projects, ideas, community, birthing, manifesting, connecting people together, weaving themes together, incredibly affectionate and sensual I really vibe with the embody feminine. 

Then we have the masculine energy, which strives with a single-pointed focus, it is assertive, powerful, decisive, protective, rational, logical. The embodied masculine witness without judgement, creating a sense of safety for you. Deeply present without a goal. They are goal oriented but they can be deeply present. Integrity about the embodied masculine, committed to their own personal truth. Listen deeply to understand rather than respond. Supportive, encouraging, reflective, peaceful, grounded, respond rather than react, guide, face fear, humble, they seek mentoring as opposed to thinking they know everything. They can observe beyond what we see beyond the eye. The embodied masculine is so powerful.

Now, an invitation for a bit of self enquiry. I want you to ask yourself – and even take a moment to write these questions down, maybe even pause the podcast here to answer them in your own time and come back to me.

Ask yourself – 

Which embodied feminine traits do I possess?

Which embodied masculine traits do I possess?

Which embodied feminine and masculine traits do the men and women in my life possess?

These traits don’t have to be the same binary body as the terminology masculine and feminine. Remember, the feminine can be the Yin, the flow. The masculine can be the Yang, the go.

As I keep saying, you’ll likely resonate with traits from each side – so take a moment to ponder this. Do I resonate more with the feminine than the masculine? How can I invite myself to embody more of my masculine traits?

Now, we go to the shadow side. Like everything, there is a less shiny version to these two energies. I want you to consider the same questions as before now when we look at the wounded masculine and feminine. This can be super uncomfortable and you may resist in the darkness. 

So first, the wounded feminine can manifest as manipulative, gossipy and indecisive. Insecure, seeks outside validation, needy to feel worthy. Manipulative – bitchy, inauthentic, chase love, desperate, victim mentality, afraid of loss, highly critical, martyr, project – highly emotionally charged – emotions are great but outbursts are a wounded feminine trait. Obsessive, prioritise others as a sense of self, Inability to be rational.

Whereas the wounded masculine can manifest as aggressive, power-hungry and close-minded. Overly competitive, cold and distant, withdrawn, barrier between emotions, not being to express emotions. Withdrawn, reactive, bully, inability to be present, run away from love, unable to show their heart to someone. Has to be right, blame, shame you. Can’t ask for what they want, Narcissistic – all about themselves. Terrified of failure, defensive, vicious of attacking and accusing you. Mr Fix-it, doesn’t listen. 

So you may be thinking, cool Eleanor, thanks for the lists – but how does this affect me?

Well, the reason that understanding this concept is so that you can try to find a balance of your energies. We will all have a core energy that we resonate most strongly with. But as you can see, if we are swinging too far in one way, we can end up on that wounded or “toxic” side. Also, it’s important that we have a balance of our energies and allow ourselves to equally express both.

I always love to describe the masculine energy as a vessel, a container, the space holder, and the feminine as water. 

Imagine, if I pour some water on to the floor, the water is just going to spill out everywhere with no clear direction, it’s going to spread itself pretty damn thin. Whereas if I have a vessel or a container to pour my water in to, it now has a clear direction as to where to go. It’s about creating these boundaries for it to be wild within. This is the feminine. Esoterically water is incredibly feminine, and it represents our emotions. Just like water, the feminine can be calm and contained or wild and directionless, it needs a container. If there are no boundaries, she is going to be spreading herself thin. This is why she needs the masculine container.

On the other hand, the masculine energy is that space holder. It’s powerful to be able to hold things together and support the energy of the feminine. But if a vessel or container – like in the previous example – has no water, it has no purpose, it has no softness. There’s this emptiness to it, something is missing. This is the energy of the masculine. 

So, I want you to consider – within yourself – how you can channel your inner masculine energy to hold space for yourself, to hold space and provide boundaries and direction for your inner feminine to be expressive, creative and wild. 

We ALL need BOTH energies. Too much of one without the other leads to chaos or burn out.

In a future episode, I’ll share a lot more about the power of polarity and how this concept can completely transform the way you show up in relationships, not to mention how it can seriously enhance your sex life.

But for now, I hope that you have a deeper understanding of masculine and feminine energies and perhaps I’ve inspired you to dive into some deeper self-enquiry about how you can bring some more balance into your life – by either exploring your feminine or your masculine side more.

Be sure to give both some love!

Remember, if you have any questions or comments at all, feel free to reach out to me over on instagram!

Until next time, stay sensual!