Let’s be honest, we all live in a world where worth is measured through the lens of “masculine energy”. In other words, we’ve elevated things like self control and all or nothing thinking as the key to keeping us on track and successful.
But what if that approach is simply leaving you more disconnected from yourself, your body and the very consistency that you’re craving?
In this episode we’ll explore how we can step away from the all or nothing control that’s making you feel “off your game” and instead how we can step into the under appreciated, but super powerful feminine energy. And then use that to create deeper self belief and self leadership that comes from learning to respond rather than constantly manage yourself.
This is about creating a calmer, more grounded way to move through life — one where you can actually hear your own needs and trust them.
Takeaways
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Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Wellbeing, the podcast for women who are done with the hustle and are ready to feel at home in their own skin. I'm your host, Alix Life, therapeutic and fitness coach for busy women who want to do less, live more, and feel good from the inside out.
Every week I'm going to help you to cut through the noise, challenge the should, and find new ways to live and move that actually feel like you. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Busy Woman's Guide to Wellness.
And this week we are diving into control, consistency, and the idea of self leadership. And we're going to really be talking about this today in relation to how we're utilizing both the masculine and the feminine energy in our lives.
Because what I see a lot of is that we have a tendency to think that the consistency that we want, particularly around things like food and fitness and eating better and all those kind of things, things, the consistency that is going to help us to reach our goals, it's going to help us to feel good in our bodies, is going to be reached by having more control, by having better follow through, by being stricter, by having somebody give us a good kick up the bum. And so when we do wobble, when things aren't quite going to plan, our answer is often right.
I need to recommit, I need to reset, I need to be stricter with myself. I need to have more control over this situation.
So what a lot of us do is we build this relationship with ourselves on the back of pressure, on the back of monitoring ourselves all the time, on the back of judging ourselves by our level of control or otherwise. And then we wonder why we feel out of sorts. We wonder why we don't know what we really want or who we are.
We wonder why we're on this train that never seems to stop or we never seem to get towards the goal. And I think that so many of us have learned to relate to ourselves through more control. And that control is a very masculine lens.
It's a lens which leans into things like productivity. So we judge our worth on how much we produce, on how much we do, on how busy we are, on how much we create. That becomes a big thing.
That gives us our sense of achievement, that gives us our sense of self worth, that gives us our sense that we are doing the right things. So productivity is a very masculine and leaning thing, restricting food.
So that very black and white thing of it's just calories in versus calories out. And this is something that actually drives Me up the wall.
Because there's so many people out there, when you get onto social media, who we're going on about, it's simply just calories in versus calories out.
Or you'll see people saying, oh, you know, I've really been trying to lose weight lately, but even though I'm eating well and I'm doing this and I'm doing that, nothing is happening.
You can bet your bottom dollar there'll be at least a few people that will come in with a comment around, well, it's just because you're not actually in a calorie deficit, isn't it? And you really need to be concentrating on calories in versus calories out. And we make it sound so simple.
It's this very masculine equation of, well, you just eat less, don't you? You just eat fewer calories, and then you'll get to your goal. What's your problem? But of course, life is a lot more complex than that.
If it was really that simple, then we'd all be doing it, wouldn't we? And it's not to say that equation doesn't work. The equation does work. It is absolutely true. It is calories in versus calories out.
But what that ignores is all of the other stuff that we've got going on as well. But of course, through a masculine lens, we are looking at, well, this is the equation. Let's just do it and let's just get on with it.
So that masculine lens leads us towards the idea of restriction, the idea of managing ourselves and controlling ourselves. It also leads us to judge our progress in a very linear way. If we're not moving forward, we are doing something wrong.
So again, that puts a lot of pressure on us to always be doing more, to always be improving, to always be seeing results. And when we're not seeing those things, we feel like we are failing. We feel like we are not sufficiently in control of ourselves.
And the masculine side of things also comes through with pushing through, with seeing our body as a machine. Let's just give it the right fuel, and it's going to give us the right output all the time.
And again, it ignores all of the other things that our body needs. It means that we start to ignore things like rest and all those kind of things as well.
And so what happens is we see everything or we see a lot of things in our lives through this masculine lens of I must be more in control if I want to be consistent, if I want to see the results that I want to see, if I want to get where I want to go in life, whether it's with my body, whether it's with my career, whatever it is, then I, I must be in control. And then, like I say, we end up thinking, well, why do I not feel quite right? Why do I not feel like I'm moving in the right direction?
Why does it always feel like this is hard? Why does it always feel like it's a battle? Because we are living through this particular lens.
What I do want to say about that is it's not saying masculine energy is wrong. The problem is that it becomes the way that we live everything in our lives, the way we do everything in our lives.
So everything goes in that direction of travel. And as women, what we end up doing is we end up elevating the status of those masculine attributes at the expense of a more feminine healing energy.
Because, number one, that's how society works. If you look at the economy, for example, the economy always has to be growing. The minute the economy is not growing, something is wrong.
There is a problem. We have to sort this out. And so much of the way that we live our lives these days is based around masculine energy. And we need some of that.
We absolutely need some of that. That gives us our get up and go, it keeps us moving, it pushes us when we need to be pushed.
But the problem is when we elevate the status of that, when we prioritize that over other stuff, and then what happens is we end up out of whack in our lives. And so what we get into is this situation where we are always managing ourselves, we're not leading ourselves.
And this is particularly true of high achieving women. We have this internalized, masculine coded way of operating, of control, of overriding, of performance, of self management.
And that works great in some contexts. Having some of that is really, really important.
But when it becomes the only way we know how to relate to ourselves, it really kills that self TR that we need to have with ourselves.
And that means, particularly for women, it means less ease, it means less peace, it means trouble staying consistent with the things that you know are actually going to serve you better. Because that energy is saying, behave, perform, don't slip.
Whereas in the feminine energy, the leadership energy, the self leadership energy is saying listen, respond, decide and trust.
So this is not about throwing out all of the masculine energy, but it's about us allowing ourselves to rebalance those energies, to recognize that there is real value in a more feminine energy in a way that we might not have allowed ourselves to recognize before, especially living in the world as it is. And I think maybe we are beginning to see even more these days.
And I've spoken about this in recent episodes around the rage, the anger about this world that has been created by and for old, privileged, white, rich men who live in a very masculine, coded way. I think maybe we're beginning to see that is not all it's cracked up to be. That maybe, maybe, maybe that is not the best way for this world to run.
That maybe a bit more feminine energy might make for a better world. And as with anything, we don't change that outside of ourselves without changing that inside of ourselves first.
And by looking at our own lives and saying, actually, I want to feel more balanced. I want to feel like I trust myself better.
I want to be able to live in a way that feels good to me and not in a way that is always about performing control. So we need to rebalance those energies.
We need to recognize that there is also real value in the feminine, because the feminine energies have been downplayed, disregarded, made less than.
And I think that it's really important that, particularly as women, that we are allowed to lead ourselves into a more feminine way of living, into a more feminine rhythm in our lives as well.
Because what happens then is rather than managing ourselves all the time, we are moving into a place of self leadership in a way that allows us to work with our bodies, that allows us to have a deeper understanding of our own needs, that allows us to listen to our bodies, listen to our intuition, create more trust within ourselves.
And that really helps us to relieve some of the pressure, relieve some of the overwhelm, relieve some of the sense that our body never does quite what we want it to do, so that we can remove some of that pressure and we can respond to ourselves in a different way. So if you have a suspicion that that masculine energy has been in charge, then let's take a look at what that feminine healing energy can offer us.
Because I think that once women start to lean into this, we start to feel more like ourselves. We start to feel more able to express ourselves. We feel more able to make those changes that are going to change the world around us as well.
Actually, not just change us, but change the world around us. So what does that really look like? I think, first of all, it looks like nourishing ourselves.
And when I say nourishing ourselves, I don't just mean food, although that is part of it. But it's nourishing ourselves with the way that we look after ourselves, Nourishing ourselves With things that feel good.
It's also about rhythms, about seasons, about cycles. I've done episodes about this before where I've talked about working with our cycle rather than working against it.
You know, where men have kind of the same cycle or the same hormone cycle every single day. So every 24 hours it kind of resets. And their hormones do pretty much the same things day in, day out in the same way. Day in, day out.
Women aren't like that. We're not created like that. We are created to have certain times when we need to rest, certain times when we need to push.
So it's leaning into that and knowing that we don't have to push every single, single day in the exact same way, but we're allowed to have more of a rhythm. And this is something I absolutely have learned for myself.
There are days when I will sit there and I'll try to push myself to do certain pieces of work, for example, and I'm just not feeling it. It's not feeling good to me. And it's a really important thing for me, has to be to realize I'm allowed to step away from that.
Yes, it's on my list for today. Yes, it's something that needs to be done. But does it need to be done right here, right now, or is there something else that feels better for me?
And I think the other thing that I particularly learned last year was I came off the back of many years of really pushing myself in my business, and I got to a point where it just felt overwhelming. I was trying to do all of the things and kind of nothing was quite working.
And I think nothing was working because of the way that I was pushing myself all the time. And so I took a step back and I said, actually, I'm just going to go easy on myself for a few months. I'm going to work in a way that feels good.
And I really enjoyed that. And it felt really good to do that.
And it was the start of me creating my new branding, my new business name, all of those kind of things that came out of it that feel really good. And I was looking at everything yesterday and I was going, oh, gosh, I'm really happy with where I am at the moment in the direction of travel.
Like, I've got so much that I want to do, but I'm really happy with where I am. It feels good. And that's because I allowed myself space and time.
Now, right now, I'm in a season of having to push myself a little bit more because I'VE really got that set up. And now I'm like, right. And so now I go out and I grow my audience and I promote myself and I do all of these things, and that's okay.
And some days, yeah, it feels hard to push myself to do that, but it's recognizing that sometimes it's time to just let go of it and step away and rest and do different things. And sometimes it's okay to push forward. So having those rhythms.
I think another thing about the feminine energy is being able to listen to our bodies. So listen to our bodies around food, listen to our bodies around the rest that we need. And listening to our gut instinct as well.
Again, this has been something that I've had to teach myself the last few years because I have never listened to my gut instinct, because I didn't even know it was there. And now it's learning to recognize what it's trying to tell me when it's trying to tell me things and going from that. So that's really important.
I think it's about looking at making progress through regulating ourselves as well. So letting our nervous system lead the way rather than external pressure. Lead the way. And again, this is how this is leaning into the idea of rhythm.
The idea of listening to our body is, does this feel good in my body or does this not feel good? Am I leading from external pressure? Am I leading from something that I think I should do rather than something that feels good for me?
So really keeping ourselves as much as we can in that regulated state, it's about leading with kindness, leading with a recognition for your needs, leading with a sense of compassion. And I speak to my clients about this a lot. We generally don't have a lot of compassion for ourselves. We're really hard on ourselves.
We expect so, so, so much from ourselves. How can we lead with more kindness? Again, that's that feminine healing energy. And it's about deep rest as well. It's about allowing ourselves that.
And that's not just physical, that's not just about lying on the sofa, but it's about mental rest. And again, part of that is kindness and compassion for ourselves.
Because instead of us beating ourselves up all the time, if we're allowed to just rest from that, give ourselves kindness, deep breaths is not just about lying around, but about all the ways in which we treat ourselves better, all the ways in which we allow ourselves to step away from things that are not feeling good, all the ways in which we allow our nervous system to lead the way. Those are all really, really important. Things. So that is what that feminine energy is all about. This is about guiding yourself.
This is about leading yourself rather than bullying yourself. This is not about being more in control, it's about being more self led.
So understand responding to your own needs and this is where we can become more responsive instead of reactive. So when I say that, what I mean is reactive is, oh my God, I'm so frazzled.
At the end of the day I'm just gonna have that packet of biscuits and I just don't care about the consequences. That is the reactive energy, the responsive energy is, oh, do you know what? I fancy a couple of biscuits right now.
And I'm gonna do that without beating myself up, without guilt, without any of those things.
And then, yeah, I feel better and I can move away from that because I know I've also got other tools that are going to help me to deal with life because I've leaned into a more feminine healing energy. So yeah, that feminine energy allows us to become more responsive to ourselves rather than just reacting to stuff that happens to us.
And I think it also means that we can make decisions from our body rather than based on what you think is the right thing to do. So let's think of an example around boundaries.
Let's say, so you're at work, you get asked to take on another project because you're a safe pair of hands, right? But your gut is saying no. Your gut is saying, I've already got enough going on. Your gut is saying, I need to focus on this other thing first.
Or your gut is saying, actually no, I don't want to be the safe pair of hands. I'm ready to step up in different ways. That's not what I'm here for. I want to prove myself in different ways in this particular job.
And it's about being able to put those boundaries in place and say, actually no, I don't have the capacity for that right now. Because you, you know deep down that in doing that it means that you can't step up in the ways that you want to.
In doing that, it means that you are admitting that yeah, you're just a safe pair of hands, but you want to be something more than that. So yeah, it's about making those decisions because your body says no rather than your body kind of saying no.
And you kind of know you're going to resent it in a couple of weeks time, but you say yes anyway because you think you have to.
That feminine energy means that we're able to eat in ways again that Feel nourishing in ways that revitalize us instead of being something we force upon ourselves. Like the masculine way is watch your calories, count them every single day. Make sure you don't go above that number of calories.
You need to lose a dress size by the summer or else you're going to look terrible in the photos. We don't want that. We want to approach it from, what's going to make my body feel good, what's going to give me energy?
How am I going to make myself feel better? And ironically, you're probably going to end up eating better.
There's going be less of that binging on biscuits because you're actually nourishing yourself. You're actually going, what does my body need right now? How can I treat my body in a better way?
And that is again going to lead you to make those decisions in a slightly different way. And I think ultimately, when as women we can find more balance between the masculine and the feminine, we find more balance in our lives.
There's just this greater sense of calm, this greater sense of self trust, this greater sense of being able to respond to situations.
And it doesn't mean that you don't end up in those sticky situations or you don't end up in places where you are resenting something or something feels really hard. But it's being able to step back from that and go, oh, hang on, I wonder why I said yes to that thing that I'm now resenting.
I wonder how I could respond differently to that next time. So it's starting to trust yourself more deeply.
And that's really, really important because the masculine is needing to be in control of everything all of the time. The feminine is, is knowing that you can't be in control of everything all the time.
But what you can do is you can respond to your body, you can respond to your needs, you can be responsive instead of reactive. And that in turn is going to create so much more peace with yourself. So I'd love you to reflect on that.
Where in your life are you trying to force control right now?
And what might change if your next step came instead from self leadership, if it came from a more feminine energy rather than and need to control the situation? Are you tending to prioritize the masculine energy much more in your life?
What would change if you could balance that out a little bit more with the feminine energy? Because I think the world needs more of that. I think we need more of that as individuals, but the world needs more of that more generally as well.
We can't control everything. We just can't. But what we can do is we can respond, we can listen, we can trust ourselves.
And that that will help you to feel more connected to yourself, more balanced, more at ease. So I'll leave you to think about that, about taking your next steps from self leadership, from that more feminine energy.
But for now, with all that said, I'm gonna love you and leave you. I'll see you back here again next time. Thank you, as always, for joining me.
If this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to hear it. And come connect with me on Instagram @lifeeditwithalix for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.