THE MAGIC OF MISTAKES: TIPS ON GAINING YOUR BALANCE

Preamble: Today I woke-up, rubbed my eyes and switched on my computer. Then I headed to the bathroom to wash my face, then proceeded to the kitchen to make coffee, there I met my sister and mother also making their daily beverages. They asked me how I slept I said well. My sister asked how my writing was going and I said, I still have to finish. I told them I went to bed thinking about work, I wake up thinking about work, now I’m talking about work and I’m going back to my room to work, work, work! I started joking with them that maybe it’s time I start to think about something else, such as going on a date with someone really nice, choosing a dress, being picked up in a nice car to go to a nice restaurant to eat a nice meal over a nice conversation where I'll be having a really nice time! Maybe I could even go ice-skating, a stroll in park? I asked as I was heading back to my room to work. They looked at me and smiled knowingly. So I was about to log out of FB when, JO NTSEBEZA accidentally tagged me to a discussion she was having with a group of people about how we are out of balance as human beings. This imbalance is expressed in all sectors of society today but is felt most keenly, I imagine from experience, in romantic relationships. She had mistaken me for someone else but this is exactly what I needed to hear before going on that nice date with someone really nice. What Jo said resonated with me in such a powerful way I thought you could also benefit from her insight.:

BEING BALANCED: WORDS BY JO NTSEBEZA

I'll do my best to explain what I have found to be a complex learning experience personally…which through experimenting can bring the real wisdom out as to what works and doesn't work.

Masculine and feminine energy are both powerful energies. True feminine power is not weak. It is the most powerful force of all for it is the seed of creative energy without which nothing can be manifested. Feminine energy is the invisible, the inner power, the creative force. Masculine energy is the visible, external active power that carries through the creative energy into a result. Men and women together create any situation in a relationship.

A powerful human being will experience an integration of their feminine and masculine; knowing when to appropriately embrace which dynamic for any given situation. For example - if a fire breaks out, masculine energy is required. A man or woman can do this equally effectively if they are well in command of the masculine energy. In the same situation, intuition is required to strategically lead people out of the fire storm. This is a feminine trait...without which one may well harness masculine traits of decisiveness, communication, managing a situation, delegating and commanding to move people but one may move them in the wrong direction with poor intuition, lack of strategic prowess, inability to read people, the situation and lack of faith as to the direction being taken. A man and a woman are both capable equally of harnessing these feminine talents.

When disempowered, both the masculine and the feminine can be used by either gender inappropriately or inaccurately causing a further imbalance in oneself and in a situation.

Someone who is truly empowered will unlikely attract many close relationships with people who are disempowered, or when someone who often feels disempowered is around an empowered person they may experience a stepping into their own power for a brief period of time.

In relationships, we attract to ourselves the same energy of disempowerment in others. We assume because a man or a woman can make big displays of external masculine power they are empowered. But if their feminine is not empowered that masculine power is actually coming from a wound, from pain, from fear. In a relationship this can manifest into a vicious cycle. Each one believing they have no choice to play the role they do. Each one blaming the other for the role they resent. Any blame is a sign of disempowerment.

To avoid the gender arguments it can be easier to speak in the language of the east. Yin and yang. Some people are too much yin /moon/water/feminine. Note how powerful water is without ever having to aim and fire itself. Softest life giving essence yet can destroy the planet. Some people are too much yang/fire/sun. Both destructive and life giving too.

NOW – ON COMMUNICATION

Masculine energy is external communication of any form. It is a giving energy. Written, speaking. What I am doing now is a masculine energy. Feminine energy is silence and communicating through BEING. It is a receiving energy that allows for intuition, strategy and vision to be effectively harnessed.

Patriarchal systems have glorified masculine energy and undermined the power of feminine so much so that people in western societies don't even believe in the power of the internal to change the world. While there is a time and place for masculine energy to instigate change, without a shift in the internal to match the vision, all the masculine can do is sweep out the old for the same thing to happen all over again, and again, and again. With no real change at all.

When truly empowered, sitting in silence and creating change from the inside first will do just as much as the masculine if not more because it is the seed. It is knowing when to do the inside work and when to do the outside work.

When the inside work is done, things happen naturally.

All human beings have every trait in them. Each of us has the trait of kindness and meanness. The trait of being victim and the trait of being a persecutor. This is the world of duality. We attract to us people of the same level of empowerment or disempowerment. In other words, a victim will attract persecutors. A persecutor will attract a victim.

In romantic relationships, often but not always because of life experiences and mental conditioning, we are all operating from pain and fear. A power struggle ensues. In the first place we attracted someone who is where we are at in their feeling of true power.

As someone takes the role of silence someone takes the role of talking. As someone takes the role of talking someone takes the role of silence. These become weapons of war rather than effective means of BEING for love.

On the masculine and problem solving. It is masculine to seek out an immediate solution. To get practical. Be focused. Being decisive. Get into details. To problem solve effectively it requires the feminine of strategic thinking. Seeing the bigger picture. Seeing the connection of how all the dots link. Being patient. Having intuition.

If we hog a role we make no space for anyone else. In other words, if we do all the talking and believe our talking is the right view point we make no space for anyone else. People learn to be quiet around us.

If we're always quiet then the people around us will take the role of communicators, and may struggle to trust us because someone who is ALWAYS elusive is hard to know

Another example is self-sacrificing versus self-care. I learnt about this from Kenya K Stevens. The thing of doing everything for everyone is masculine. To expend energy. It is feminine to rest, sleep, meditate, take long baths. To regenerate the life force.

Collectively we embrace only the one, collectively are not taught to regenerate. It is frowned upon. We get sick mentally and physically as a result.

In our relationships, many women love the role they hate - to be rescuers, to take the hero, do it all...and then resent their partners for taking the time out to relax.

Many men, resent the women in their lives for taking over but don't see they've taken the role of stepping back. There is no balance.

Both men and women can do both. Serve and self-care. Expend energy and conserve energy.

I find people get anxious with the words feminine and masculine because there are so many social and political connotations and agendas. It makes more sense to think of it as YIN (fire/external power) and YANG (water/internal power) both of which are needed and used or mis-used by any gender.

Any expending or giving of energy is YANG. Talking, spending money, and doing. Any conserving or receiving of energy is YIN. Meditating, listening, relaxing, and connecting.

JO NTSEBEZA is a relationship and life coach. Who has researched both western and indigenous system back whenshe was struggling in her own relationships with the stereotypical complaints about men/women. Those complaints felt tiring to herand she believed there was more than meets the eye. She experimented and experienced big changes in her life and in her relationships. Not to say she doesn’t still struggle. She does. But better and better. She can be found at www.kalavati.org