Getting in touch with ones inner feminine

[THANK...]

I don't know where this goes, but it seems like a healing adventure, so here goes:

I just got done helping a long time friend with a school project where she analyzed a dream of mine that really hit home. It basically comes down to me being able to nurture an inner feminine child until she can grow and express herself as a beautiful strong, and able woman. Sounds easy enough, but it seems hard due to the fact that I am a straight male that is conditioned to be very masculine. How would someone such as myself go about learning to emanate this aspect of myself?

It may sound odd to some, but I am quite serious. I am not transgender nor care to be, nor am I confused about my sexuality, but I have an innate feminine aspect that is so real yet seems so elusive. I have worked predominately with Goddesses and listen to a lot of 'feminine' music, being that I am actually a fan of Taylor Swift because she has a wonderful way with words and bringing out emotions I forgot, more like denied, I had, which may not seem to weird, except I grew up in the punk scene and still love to listen to and play the music. I also love the Gothic fashion, and it is not a fetish, but a genuine interest in the beauty itself of the design.

Anyway, does anybody else ever feel like this (in the opposite sense as well, such as an inner masculine just waiting to emerge from the very feminine aspect of your being)?

[Medusa]

I have worked predominately with Goddesses and listen to a lot of 'feminine' music, being that I am actually a fan of Taylor Swift because she has a wonderful way with words and bringing out emotions I forgot, more like denied,
I'm going to be delicate when I say this. This is not what femininity is about. Like zero. Like so off the path you are in some weird stereotypical land of what you think it is to be a woman. It's not like you need to know. I will never understand what it is to be a man because I do not have those hormones coursing through me. I can academically knowledge the male anima etc. But I'm going to come up short if I think it's listening to Ramstein and grabbing my crotch. Know what I mean? In as kind a way as possible I just literally cringed at my screen.

[THANK...]

I didn't mean to offend, and you're right, it is a sickening idea of what is socially conditioned to be feminine, and that stereotypical land is how I was conditioned to see aspects of the feminine. I was brought up in a land of roughians where that type of music was scoffed at and you were seen as weak and lesser somehow. In a punk scene that talks about unity, there really isn't much of it if you do not adhere to the costumes and soundtracks, and in a street life, it is was seen as a weakness to be male and have feminine traits and one of those traits was listening to stereotypical touchy-feely music like Taylor Swift or Avril Lavigne. Same thing with the girls that listened to metal and 'gangster' rap, they were perceived as more masculine, tougher, and the like. Like I said, I didn't mean to come off as offensive, but it was just the way it was where I grew up. This is exactly why I wrote the post! Thank you for the feedback.

[Medusa]

Oh no. Don't get me wrong. I'm not offended at all. In fact I think it's really sweet of you to want to get in touch with your 'feminine side'. I just want you to understand this. If you never do, you are still perfectly the 100% person you were meant to be. There is nothing inherently wrong or missing from your being. It's ok to be a male and to have male thoughts and to not be in touch with your female side. Your body is its own level. Let it just be.

There is no flaw in you.

:)

[Dumuzi]

A great way to deal with this, is to understand that emotions and feelings don't really have a gender. So don't think of the emotions you are experiencing as being in touch with your feminine side. Think of it as a truly human exercise where you are getting in touch with your true unbound emotions.

Compassion, courage and perseverance are all genderless human emotions. There is absolutely no shame in embracing them.

[MaskedOne]

Compassion, courage and perseverance are all genderless human emotions. There is absolutely no shame in embracing them.

Ahh, the reason I don't do compassion. It's a human thing. :)

[monsno_leedra]

I wonder if your confusing the idea of masculine & feminine as defined against energy being forceful or passive? For many males masculine energy is seen as being projecting and forceful and things that are receptive or passive are seen more as feminine energies. So anger / violence is masculine lets say yet feeling deeply for something is more feminine. It also crosses over into how we view the world and things within it. So things such as sports, hunting what you might call physical things were masculine pursuits while things such as music, fashion, teaching, office work, etc were often seen as feminine. Of course even within those items there is a further break down of so called masculine and feminine energies. Consider for many softball is feminine and in schools many times its only played by women. Yet many adult leagues are in fact softball leagues and the constructs change.

[faye_cat]

Maybe write down a list of things you consider feminine. Then really delve into each word, study it, read essays on it, and how you can apply it to your life, and why you think it's important to you, and why you consider it feminine vs. genderless/masculine.

[pillar]

Maybe write down a list of things you consider feminine. Then really delve into each word, study it, read essays on it, and how you can apply it to your life, and why you think it's important to you, and why you consider it feminine vs. genderless/masculine.

I think this is a good idea, or do something like it. Since it was YOUR dream it's not really what is feminine, it's what's feminine to you.

[THANK...]

How would another define what is feminine? From the looks of, I have a very conditioned point of view.

[Medusa]

How would another define what is feminine? From the looks of, I have a very conditioned point of view.

Feminine is how a woman feels to herself. Only she can define it.

[THANK...]

It seems like it comes from a point of mysticism as well, such as the Chemical Wedding in Gnosticism and the co-mixture of yin-yang elixirs in Daoist Alchemy that makes it seem like there is a difference of masculine and feminine energies. There is also all the stuff that we think is feminine, but, doesn't traits of a female make it feminine if a male has those same traits, and vice versa?

[Medusa]

It seems like it comes from a point of mysticism as well, such as the Chemical Wedding in Gnosticism and the co-mixture of yin-yang elixirs in Daoist Alchemy that makes it seem like there is a difference of masculine and feminine energies. There is also all the stuff that we think is feminine, but, doesn't traits of a female make it feminine if a male has those same traits, and vice versa?

You have a very romantic notion of the fairer sex. I wish I was all mystical. A lot of times I'm just bitchfest and blood.

Let's just take this forum for example. When I look at all the females who post and I wonder what I am attracted to in them (feminine wise) it's their sheer and utter brute strength. To me that's feminine. I have no idea what half of them look like. If they speak in a genteel manner. If they are dainty. That's not what feminine is to me. And I'm almost certain that's not what it is to women either.

[THANK...]

From my perspective that brute strength can be seen as a masculine trait, where a man's compassion can be seen as a feminine trait. But what is also true is the nurturing power of the mother aspect (the idea of goddess as protector) and man's compassion as their logic that compassion breeds fair relationships. This is not to say females are not logical, but in that mystical sense, feminine characteristics are often seen as intuitive and wise and masculine characteristics as logical and experiential. Receptivity versus force.

[Hawkfeathers]

This is a HUGE generality, with many exceptions, variations, etc., but it's still obvious if you watch how people treat their small children based on gender: People still treat boys and girls very differently, right from birth. Girls are encouraged to smile, be nice, not show anger, and basically "flirt" to get what they want. Boys are encouraged to take risks, play hard, and be aggressive. Girls, having masked a lot of their true emotions, are not loved unconditionally, but rather for their "good" behavior, (and when they mature, are desperate to be loved...and go about finding it in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways). So, the real "inner feminine" IS that very brute strength we're taught to hide. It's there, it's always been there.

[Jembru]

Anyway, does anybody else ever feel like this (in the opposite sense as well, such as an inner masculine just waiting to emerge from the very feminine aspect of your being)?

That depends. I wonder if what you're really seeking isn't your 'feminine side' as in your inner female, but rather just another aspect of you. Part that, as others have touched upon, you've been forced to conceal or repress due to your physical gender. The part of you that likes listening to Taylor Swift, or watching Bridget Jones' Diary, or whatever you might want to do, isn't necessarily female. The feminine child that you seek to nurture and find, is possibly 'feminine' only in the sense that they embody those traits you've been told to hide because they're not regarded as proper behaviour for a man.

If this is the case, then to answer your question, yes I have! Well, in a way. I actually have a thread all about my search for another 'me', who I call 'Chiema' (http://www.paganforum.com/showthread.php?9855-A-Second-Self). Chiema isn't my suppressed self or anything, but through Chiema I've been able to explore sides of my nature I'd never really displayed before and I've found the whole process of discovering a parallel spirituality very healing. Of course, I'm not claiming to be an expert on these things. I don't really understand it.

[THANK...]

It's actually the Vampire Diaries, but I'll let that slide. ;)

Part of the fear is that I was picked on in school growing up and called 'homosexual' (much worse words in reality, but you get the idea) and other demeaning words and as I aged and got stronger and better at martial arts in and out of the training hall I became a roughian - I started looking for fights and hung out with a rough crowd, to say the least I was emanating my so-called masculinity because of insecurity due to my past. We were violent and highly sexualized, seeing females in less than respectful ways and treating them accordingly. Nothing along the lines of rape or anything, but girls were basically objects for sex, even girlfriends... which I didn't realize until my ex-girlfriend made it clear I was, or at least came off, as a POS misogynists - then again I have met females that are just as crude towards men, so...

The alternative reality, Jembru, that you speak about is a familiar thing for me, but that place is very dark and macabre, and has been there since I was a child as long as I can remember. It is not a place of fear or hatred, it is just a place that feels like a second home to me, although I cannot talk about it otherwise I come off as sounding death-obsessed, sick in the head, and plenty of other negative connotations. I have denied it for the better half of life thinking it is just a psychological reaction from my traumatic past. Recurring and vivid dreams of being an angel walking through time, visions, or what ever you want to call them, of giant misty black figures, or figures with no faces, spectrals, and all sorts of other phantoms have 'haunted' me throughout my life and I still feel those same presence to this day, although the visuals are less and come out more through my art than anything else, but they are very real to me. No names, just a presence. Angel of Death and Hecate are the closest names that I can give them from my limited understanding. Maybe I am confusing my way of expressing my idea of beauty with getting in touch with my inner feminine.

[pillar]

Are you saying you think your feminine side hides in your Jembru?

[Jembru]

Are you saying you think your feminine side hides in your Jembru?

No but then I also said I didn't think he was really looking for his feminine side...

[Juniper]

I read this thread fairly quickly so I apologize if I missed any points that have already been discussed. I'm not really sure what your question actually is about.
Are you looking for a definition of what it means to be feminine? From what I've read here, that seems to be different for everyone that's posted so far, Woman and Man, alike. I don't really know what it means, to be honest because I've never considered myself feminine or masculine. Sadly, I have no pointers... Most of my days are spent just getting from point A to point B.

I am really curious about this dream that started the whole thing. Is this something you're willing to share with us (or me, in a PM, if you're not into sharing it publicly). I'm not terribly experienced at analyzing dreams that aren't my own, but maybe we can discern something from it that could act as a missing piece of the puzzle.

[habbalah]

If this is unrelated, please split it off, but is this the same as looking into the Sacred Feminine? That's something that I understand is prevalent in the pagan community, but I admit that I don't understand what it is.

- - - Updated - - -

Mods, I actually just started a new thread about it, so feel free to delete my posts here.

[THANK...]

Juniper, I sent you a private message of my dream (if you haven't already seen that), and there is the possibility of more than one issue, such as fear of change and releasing my inner child as well, but the inner feminine felt right when my friend pointed it out. A close friend of mine just came out that he is bi-sexual to me, so it is also somewhat in line with synchronicity (not really, considering I also wrote about the topic on the FB page and when we saw each other we talked about the femininity part, but it was a recent discovery for him).

Habbalah, it could definitely relate to the sacred feminine, as I have predominately worked with Goddess archetypes and maybe the little girl in my dream was a form of the Goddess trying to relate a message to me.