He Asked for My Femininity After a Hard Day

And giving it was just what I needed

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hey,” he responded, sounding down. “Can I ask you for a favor?” It was my friend Kevin. Something was definitely up.

“Of course — are you okay?”

“Today’s just been one of those days. I feel barren, alone, and like there’s this feeling of starkness and emptiness in life today. Too much masculine energy, not enough feminine magic,” he explained.

I had never considered what it might be like to be a man (or any person who sways predominantly masculine) with an excess of masculine energy leading to feeling empty. But of course, as the beauty of masculinity is the void, is freedom, is consciousness, is death, it made sense.

This also brings me to a little disclaimer I must start with: all genders have both masculine and feminine energy. Most of us just generally lean to one predominantly naturally. For me, my natural expression is more feminine.

At this point, you may be wondering: what is the masculine, and what is the feminine? Well, I can simplify it for you. David Deida and John Wineland describe them the best, in my opinion.

The masculine is consciousness, the feminine is energy. The masculine is awareness, the feminine is sensation.

The feminine is dissolution through fullness; love flowing through every part of you. It is infinite, with no bounds.

The masculine is infinite through nothingness; dying into emptiness.

If that all confused you, just bear with me. If you take a moment to feel into these descriptions, imagine the difference between meditation and dancing.

In meditation, you bring your awareness to something — usually your breath. You begin to notice when your mind wanders, and you bring your focus back to the breath. You notice yourself noticing your breath. You are the witness, witnessing awareness itself. And in being the witness, you are in emptiness. You become pure consciousness itself, which you’ve likely heard described as being a space, or a container. This is consciousness, the foundation of masculinity. Masculinity is also known as both freedom and death.

Dancing often involves letting go of awareness altogether. You are lost in flow, feeling the sensation of where the music lives inside of you, and how it expresses itself through your moving body. You roll through spontaneous movements that feel good; with each movement comes a new feel-good sensation that you experience. If you were to come back to awareness while dancing, you’d be witnessing the dancing — and you’d actually stop feeling it. You’d be watching it, but the pleasure of it may not be as accessible to you anymore. If you dropped back into the actual dancing, the awareness fades into the background. This is sensation, the foundation of femininity. Femininity is also known as both love and energy.

Now — back to my phone call with Kevin.

“So… Could you gift me with some of your feminine energy? Could you sing for me?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m not that goo — ”

“Hey! Don’t be hard on yourself! I love your voice. Please?” he urged. We’d played music together before, and I knew he was one of the few people on the planet who really liked my voice. I mostly sang by myself, save for the select few with whom I felt comfortable enough.

In that moment, I realized Kevin was giving me an opportunity. He was giving me the opportunity to practice my femininity, which — yes — is useful to be seen as a practice. As a woman who grew up in a world where toxic masculinity unconsciously ruled, I had grown to be masculine to protect myself by default. Most of the feminine energy I had was wounded at best.

Evolving into adulthood, as I learned about masculine and feminine energy, I began learning about reconciling with the feminine, and healing the masculine. It had already been quite a few years of this practice, but femininity was still a challenge at times. It felt vulnerable and weak. It felt like I was opening myself up for failure, control, and humiliation. (A lot of people feel this about expressing their femininity, actually.)

So, with this opportunity at my doorstep, I accepted, and I began to sing. I let myself drop into a flow state, fears of failure, control, and humiliation melting away. At the end of the song, Kevin sighed, and I could hear his smile from the other end of the phone.

“Thank you,” he said. “I feel warmth and love.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you asked for my femininity. It feels good after a long day of working. And it feels good to have my femininity be wanted.”

Fast forward a year, to yesterday. I was talking to another friend of mine, Eric. I was interviewing him for a new relationship coaching offering I’m in the process of creating for men. In the middle of the interview, he said something familiar. I was asking him what his love life was missing, when he said:

“I miss femininity, Leighann. I miss the life that it brings. The inspiration. The juice. I’m focusing on my business all the time, and I never talk to women, or receive outside sources of feminine energy,” he explained, deflated.

“What’s the impact on you of not having this energy in your life? Where are you seeing this impact?” I asked him.

“I’m less productive and motivated at work. I generally feel a mean-ness to life. Everything feels stark and harsh,” he described. It all sounded so familiar.

It became even more clear to me that femininity is something that is truly needed. And if I think for long enough, I can recall countless men with the same complaint. Hell, I can recall women with the same complaint, too. Having an absence of femininity creates an unbearable staleness in life. We need it. All of us. To express it, to receive it, to be enveloped by it. Every gender, every human.

These phone calls, and this inquiry in general, have changed my life. My femininity got to be something that contributed. It wasn’t devalued, it was asked for. I got to experience my femininity as a needed part of life. Being asked for it furthered my reconciliation with it, and encouraged my own education and studies with both masculine and feminine energy. It’s now a crucial part of my coaching practice with my clients.

Most of us have deep conditioning to be distant from our femininity. Today, I encourage you to explore it. Or request it of someone else, and be nourished by it.

Drink it up.