EMASCULATION
Reverse Feeling Emasculated
How to Reverse Feeling Emasculated: 15 ReEmpowering Practices
For both a man or a relationship impacted by emasculation, learning how to reverse feeling emasculated matters, especially if a relationship is to survive. For some the relationship where the emasculation occurred has long since ended, yet the devastating impact of this often-invisible harm still remains. Any mental or emotional remnants of past emasculating experiences can quickly sabotage new efforts to cultivate love and intimacy, or even professional success.
As you’ll see, emasculation deeply affects the self-esteem of predominantly masculine beings who are often, but not always, men. Before we can understand how to reverse feeling emasculated, we have to understand what it is, who it impacts, and how to recognize it. Let’s start with what it is.
In a nutshell, any behavior that, whether intentional or unintentional, serves to minimize or take away masculine power or confidence, has an emasculating effect. Emasculation leaves a man, or masculine person, feeling less confident, less capable, less certain, and of course less powerful.
Emasculating behaviors, most often arise in feminine beings and effectively serve to disempower the masculine person with whom they are interacting. What most don’t realize is that masculine and feminine power express very differently in the world. The masculine and feminine lead and influence quite differently. They also contribute unique, but equally important, gifts in the world.
Unfortunately, in their forgetting, feminine beings all too often imagine that they gain power by reducing the power of the masculine. Women and feminine beings don’t realize that they have immense power within themselves that doesn’t require “taking down” the masculine. Even more unfortunately, feminine beings all too often emasculate and disempower someone they deeply love. In truth, as you’ll see, both the masculine and the feminine lose in the face of emasculation.
The cost of emasculation and what to do about it
To understand the impact of emasculation and why masculine beings have to know how to reverse feeling emasculated, we want to consider the relationship and interplay of masculine and feminine energies within us and between us.
Masculine energy leads and feminine energy follows. Feminine energy nurtures while masculine energy directs. Masculine energy penetrates while feminine energy yields. Masculine energy provides and protects while feminine energy receives and nourishes.
If emasculating behaviors neutralize or “remove” the masculine energy from a relationship, then correspondingly the feminine partner loses the presence, contribution, and passion she actually needs and desires in a partner. This unfortunately becomes a vicious cycle because as she loses more of what she longs for in a relationship, she will often react in more emasculating ways.
In contrast, the strength of any romantic relationship depends on the presence of masculine energy, just as it depends on feminine energy. Without the structure and container of masculine energy, relationships will tend to crumble – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly and painfully over time. In the aftermath of consistent emasculation, whether intentional or unintentional, masculine support disappears. The feminine, in her attempts to feel safe, will have unknowingly rendered the man in her life powerless. He then becomes less attractive, by her own doing.
Sometimes the feminine’s emasculating behaviors will directly disempower the masculine. Sometimes the impact will be inadvertent, such as when a feminine being retains all control and erects walls around her so as not to risk hurt. But simultaneously she shuts the masculine out and shuts him down. At that point, no matter how much the masculine tries to contribute to her life and her heart she won’t feel the love nor the support.
In a moment we’ll get to the specifics of how to reverse feeling emasculated and the 15 re-empowering practices but first let’s consider how the masculine contributes to the situation and why understanding that helps to solve the problem.
When learning how to reverse feeling emasculated, the masculine also contributes to the problem
Here we also have to mention that the masculine partner plays a complicit role in the emasculation because he allows himself to be treated that way. Acknowledging that, we must still admit that feminine emasculating behaviors themselves have a more devastating impact than anyone might imagine.
Interestingly, in contrast, those men or people who hold hyper, or what we might describe as “over-amped” masculine energy, also sometimes known as the bully or bad boy, won’t allow themselves to be emasculated in the first place. This doesn’t mean their relationships are any more successful, far from it in fact. Yet, the distinction is worth noting. Those who deeply embody the masculine, ideally consciously, cannot be easily emasculated.
A man who hasn’t found the inner strength and conscious certitude to maintain his masculine energy will, on the other hand, allow himself to be emasculated. His feminine partner will have unknowingly contributed to the collapse of the very masculine being she so desperately wanted to be loved and supported by.
Let’s look now at the solution.
How to reverse feeling emasculated: Empowering Practices
If emasculating someone takes away power and leaves the person feeling disempowered, our exploration into how to reverse feeling emasculated looks specifically at ways to reconnect to and reclaim that specific masculine power in a conscious way.
- Develop the capacity to say no. You’ll want to stop going along to get along. You’ll need to say no when something doesn’t fit for you, your needs or desires.
- Get clear on your boundaries. Be honest with yourself about what works for you and what doesn’t. When something doesn’t work for you or isn’t a fit with your values, these become your boundaries. Set them and stand by them.
- Spend time with yourself. While it may be uncomfortable at first, you’ll want to take the time to understand and remember what truly matters to you. Learn your values and use your boundaries to ensure you don’t compromise yourself. True love doesn’t require settling or selling yourself out.
- Spend time around women or feminine beings who highly respect the masculine. Expose yourself to what it feels like to be appreciated and highly regarded. These women exist. Find them and spend time with them as friends and other human beings.
- Learn to trust yourself. Clear up old consciousness and conditioning that drives you to question and doubt yourself. Lack of self trust and self doubt makes you an easier target for emasculation.
- Don’t defend. Stand in your truth without defending it. Simply honor it. The minute you move into justifying and defending language or behaviors you have once again collapsed your own energy.
- Watch out for the people pleaser in you. Keep an eye out for the people pleaser in you who searches for, or tries to keep, love by giving up, compromising, or avoiding conflict. Most importantly, learn how this type of self abandonment harms relationships.
- Get comfortable being assertive. As you learn how to reverse feeling emasculated, you’ll need to get comfortable with assertive energy in you. Of course you’ll want to do that respectfully and allowing yourself to be assertive matters. For example, if a partner nags or pushes against your boundaries you could reply, “I love you and I’ve got this. Please don’t ask me again.”
- Review your beliefs about masculinity. Many men allow themselves to be emasculated because they don’t want to fall into the “toxic” masculinity category. Yet, masculinity is not toxic. As you’re reconnecting to your power and confidence, make sure you find a way to clear out any resistance to your own innate masculinity.
- Stop comparing yourself to others. Any form of comparison will always leave you feeling less than. You don’t want to compare yourself to other men or masculine beings, and you definitely don’t want to compare yourself to a woman or feminine being in your life. Other accomplishments mean nothing about you.
- Take action. After being emasculated you can feel paralyzed to decide and to act. If you want to reverse feeling emasculated quickly, you’ll want to find a way to get back into action. This will help build self trust as well. Seriously, any action, even one you decide later wasn’t the best one, can help you feel empowered again.
- Honor your word. Staying true to your word and your commitments again rebuilds your trust and belief in yourself. Every time you’re in integrity your self esteem gets stronger.
- Commit to authenticity. If you’re being authentic, you can’t lose yourself the way you did in the presence of the past emasculating experiences. You might just come to realize that authentic relationships are the safest relationships.
- Hang out with other conscious men or masculine people. Spending time with, talking to, and witnessing the embodiment, expressions, and behaviors of other masculine beings will strengthen your knowing that masculine energy is not only conscious but is important, appreciated, and deeply desired.
- Deepen your self respect. Self respect allows you to set and keep boundaries. It makes it possible to stand for your values. If you’re really committed to reversing feeling emasculated, you’ll even learn how to love yourself. Loving yourself is not soft or weak. It’s the most important and powerful thing you could do for you or your relationship.
You’re invited to take these practices one step at a time. You won’t be able to integrate them all at once and that’s normal. We suggest starting with the practices that feel the most challenging. When you embody the most uncomfortable of the steps, you will have not only started a huge reversal in feeling emasculated, but you will also have significantly strengthened your relationship with you and your power. You’ll quickly see the differences in your life and your relationships.
Moving Beyond: the Consciously Empowered and Divine Masculine
When either masculine energy or feminine energy is weakened, the strength of the connection between the two, the trust of the other, and the honor of the other all diminish simultaneously. Herein lies the reason the vast majority of relationships struggle to stay in love and keep the passion alive today.
To have healthy and happy relationships, to end the struggles we face in the world today, and to have truly healthy bodies we must embrace, honor, and celebrate both the masculine and feminine. If you’re a predominantly masculine being, you can support yourself, the women in your life, as well as society itself by stepping into your own divine masculine embodiment.
If you want to help end the longstanding battles between the masculine and feminine, your choices matter. How you show up in your relationships matters. Whether masculine or feminine by nature, you’ll help yourself and others by understanding and recognizing these 12 emasculating behaviors to be aware of. If you’re a feminine being, please take the time to truly consider the unconscious ways you may be emasculating, and then learn how to take care of yourself in a way that doesn’t require reducing the power of the masculine. When that happens, we’ll no longer need to know how to reverse feeling emasculated.
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LOVE
Spiritual LOVE
The Meaning of Love: The Great Misunderstanding
When we contemplate the meaning of love, if we do this genuinely, we will find ourselves in uncommon and indescribable realms. We will find a sense of peace and fulfillment not otherwise available. The meaning of love is the meaning of life and every moment invites us to know it deeper. Yet, to accept this continuous invitation into love takes the most courage most humans could ever muster. To truly love is to be truly exposed, unguarded, and vulnerable – and we have been conditioned to avoid that at all costs.
If we want to know what life truly has to offer, if we want to know not just happiness, but true joy, if we want to feel deeply connected, if we want to feel true peace, then we must come to understand the meaning of love. Then, and only then, may we choose moment to moment to orient ourselves and our lives toward love, or toward the apparent absence of love.
What is the meaning of love?
What is the true meaning of love? Although many have come to believe that love is something we do, something we give and receive, or something we choose, love is actually something we experience. We create the spaces in our lives, in our beings, where we can feel this powerful force that always surrounds us. Even when we “love” someone, in the verb form of love, we simply allow another to witness our experience of love. We don’t give it away. And, neither can they give it to us. They can demonstrate their experience of love, but for us to share their experience, we must find the resonant vibration of love within ourself.
Too often, we make the mistake of putting so much effort into trying to find love. We work so hard to make sure others will love us, or won’t stop loving us. Ironically, our efforts to seek the fulfillment of love, can’t possibly sustain a fullness of love within us. We may get a “hit” of love, like a drug, but we can’t hold on to love. Nor can we lose it. Love surrounds us every moment of every day. Always. Forever. Eternally.
“Love surrounds us every moment of every day. Always. Forever. Eternally.”
If we have been to a wedding most of us have heard the Bible verse, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” If we watch popular TV right now we’re invited to consider if “Love is blind”. Genuine love is all of those things, including blind.
Yet, also contrary to popular belief, love does not mean we have to accept and allow everything. Absolutely not. Love means we can say no. And, here is where it gets interesting.
The question, what is the meaning of love, has a very simple answer. In one word, love means unity. The meaning of love is to be united, to experience the oneness of being where we realize we are never ever separate. Real love means embracing one another, accepting each other, and allowing the inherent imperfection of being human. Genuine love is unconditional. It requires nothing, demands nothing, expects nothing.
Returning to the “no” of love, embracing the unconditional acceptance at the heart of love, we also need to, at times, say no and create distance. This expression of healthy boundaries does not preclude us from the experience of love. We may experience love from a distance.
We need the experience of love
Since the meaning of love is unity, then by definition, love connects us to everything. Without love we find ourselves lonely. We may feel as if we don’t belong or fit in. Without knowing and feeling love, we may “hover” through life disconnected from the very things that truly matter to us. Alternatively, when we don’t know the meaning of love, and don’t live it, we may also feel heavy, depressed, and burdened.
In the perceived absence of love, we may say we don’t need it. We may pretend we don’t want it. Yet, this can never be true. Love is the heart of human existence and human relating. Our experience of love makes life light and beautiful. Our resistance to love makes us miserable. It brings us pain. Yes, our disconnection, and perceived separation, from love causes physical pain.
So without a doubt, we need love. Hence we need to make ourselves available to the experience of love. Fortunately, love is always on offer, always available – every moment of every day. Our problems arise because we deeply misunderstand it and how to experience it. For us today, the greatest reminder of the omnipresence of love comes from the ancient mystic and poet Rumi who says…
“It is not for us to seek for love, but for all of our barriers against it.” ~ Rumi
Seeking the barriers
If we want to know and experience the true meaning of love, we must commit ourselves to searching out the barriers we have unconsciously built against it. This commitment to living in the experience of love becomes our gateway to peace, passion, beauty, and joy – all precious experiences we need to live as fulfilled and happy humans.
Here’s the real beauty of it. Love is one of the most powerful activators of our tear ducts – both when we experience its presence and when we imagine its absence. We cry when love touches our heart in ways we can barely express. We cry when love seems to break our heart. When we let ourselves experience the emotions that arise when we feel disconnected from love, those very feelings will lead us right back to love.
What if seeking our barriers to love in order to dissolve them was guided by the moments when we feel disconnected from love? What if our willingness to feel an absence of love reveals the absolute presence of love? What if “broken heartedness” was simply a direct reflection of, and correlation to, the very existence and power of love itself?
You are invited to feel – to feel love and to feel disconnection from love. We must allow the natural expansions and contractions that innately expand our capacity to experience real love. In other words, if you protect yourself against the powers of love, you will never know its full might, its immense generosity, its profound healing, nor its miraculousness.
Love is such a powerful force. Let it fill you. Let it break you open. Let love love you.
In our clarity that unity, divine union, defines the real meaning of love we have the opportunity to create a very different experience. In love, whether in a relationship or not, we have the chance for the most extraordinary and ecstatic life. If you’ll open yourself and your heart to love, you will find it a boundless and infinite experience that can continuously take your breath away.
In closing, we must say that our journey of love expresses 360 degrees. Everywhere. Everyone. All the time. Remember that you’ll want to know how to love yourself as much as you want to know how to share love with another. Then, how we love ourselves and how we love one another, has the opportunity to change the entire experience of humanity. Your capacity to love directly influences the availability of peace on earth.
If we all understood and felt the true meaning of love, there would be no wars. Peace arises from love and we need peace more than ever. So, if you’re willing, if you’re courageous, please come to know love in its fullest form. For you, for your heart, for your beloved, for all.
Since 2006, highly conscious men and women, with a commitment to extraordinary relationships, have chosen Ecstatic Intimacy to find and cultivate Soul Partnerships from their bedrooms to their boardrooms. Ecstatic Intimacy believes in coveted relationships, for all.
You too, are invited…