Masculine Feminine - Sarah Poet

Spoken & Unspoken Exchange Agreements: Who is getting your energy and why?

Some exchange agreements are laid out clearly, and many others are assumed. Are you clear about who gets your energy & why?

Some exchange agreements are laid out clearly, and many others are assumed.

At the end of a love relationship a few years ago, after I had moved in with this man thinking it was a long term agreement, and then six months later he gave my child and I the boot, we were in a counseling session.

I was speaking about the agreements that we’d had, and the counselor said to me one of the most illuminating things I’d ever heard. He said, “Sarah, were these agreements stated or written, or did you assume them?”

In fact, I had assumed them. Based on his character as I’d known it to be and his invitation to build a life together. But I had assumed that that had meant certain things about the exchange agreements.

Now, I’m not still heartbroken about that in the least, but I was reminded of this while walking and talking with a friend this morning about EXCHANGE AGREEMENTS specifically between men and women.

And I would apply this to the workplace as well.

When I took a job on a leadership team in a startup, I got a massive raise from my previous charter school job. And then I would receive texts when I was putting my child to bed, or after ten PM. When I decided that I would not be answering these texts because they were invasive, I caused some disruption. Nowhere was it written in my contract that I was obligated to answer leadership team texts at 10pm if I was not on call. The unspoken expectation was that I would answer because I’d gotten a good gig. Then it was as if they thought they owned my energy.

They did not own my energy. No one owns my energy but me, even when there is an exchange agreement in place.

For hundreds of generations, the exchange dynamics between men and women were very skewed. A woman couldn’t own land or even have her own last name, and her food and housing security depended on her husband or her father, and she had to keep them happy. So she made certain decisions about her body, who she permitted access to her body, how she gave her energy, and how she specifically did not exert her energy or risk being “too much” in order to preserve her access to resources for her and her children.

Women still carry the TENDENCY to get wrapped up in unspoken, unwritten exchange agreements with men and employers, because we’re subconsciously still wired to expend our energy in order to not piss off the man or authority figure that has control over our resources. If an employer decides whether or not you get a paycheck, and that paycheck feeds your kids, then you will do things like turn down your opinion or answer the text after hours in order to ensure your security.

This happens at every tier of employment, and women who have climbed ladders to achieve more are not immune to this.

And I’ll go on record right now and say that I believe that this is the root cause of burnout. How we use our energy based on what we perceive the unspoken exchange agreements to be is making women more tired, more depleted, and wondering how in the world their quest for leadership did not land them with a life of actual fulfillment.

Where is your energy going? Why? What is actually contracted, or agreed upon, and what isn’t? How is this happening both at work and with your spouse?

When that personal relationship ended, I couldn’t understand why this man wouldn’t have been happy. Because I had tried to keep him happy. He was, after all, inviting my son and I into his house. I’m not too proud to admit it. Of course not. How could I recommend that we take an honest look at these dynamics if I’m not willing to own it myself?

I did, eventually, piss off the employer with the edge that I was walking. I was getting too big for my britches, asking for equity in too many ways, and this was the last job I had before becoming a women’s coach and masculine feminine polarity consultant.

My friend and I this morning talked about the insidious nature of the unspoken exchange agreements between men and women, between money and sex. Who gets access to your energy? Why? Are you trying to keep them happy? Are you happy in this behavior and in your agreements?

Because I’m here to tell you, you are the only one that decides who gets access to your energy, when, and why. Every day, you get to define and redefine your agreements. You get to ask for that. You get to stop the habitual self sacrifice right now.

Now wouldn’t that just be the end to burn out right there?

If you’d like to discuss personal coaching about taking back your energy from unspoken agreements that are depleting your life, contact me by setting up a consultation at www.SarahPoet.com/book.

The purpose of fear & how to get free.

If we look at it as if everything is happening for us rather than against us, that a purpose of fear is to direct you to your sovereignty.

I find fear to be a fascinating, tricky little bitch.

And I say that with respect to the role that fear plays in our lives. If life is a spectrum of emotions, all somewhere between love and fear, how often do you lean toward fear and how often do you lean toward radical love?

How often are you choosing one or the other, versus operating on a default?

I think if most people are honest, fear is the common default.

The fear of not having money causes people to slave away their waking hours to someone else’s cause.

The fear of not having love causes people to spend endless hours on dating sites or pining for that love that might one day grace their lives.

It’s wild, how much time and energy fear takes from you.

Recently, I learned more information about my upbringing that revealed some really grotesque truths to me. I grew up in a family with deep secrets that most everyone in the family still avoids or denies knowing. But in an effort to bring the truth to light, and to liberate my psyche from habitual trauma responses, I go digging for the truth where most would prefer to avoid it.

And even when I discover a truth that is fascinatingly fucked up, at this point, I’m actually grateful for it. Why? Because it helps me to feel less fear.

Did you ever notice how fear has a tendency to become pervasive? It’s nebulous. It sneaks into places you didn’t expect it to be. If one good thing happens for you, you might find yourself wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. This is fear, just lingering around you while you let it.

The purpose of fear is so that you have less power and autonomy – words that could be used to describe what I call Sovereignty. The purpose of fear is so that you spend your time worrying or giving your power to something other than your true purpose, distracting you from your own clarity.

Fear, truly, is not working for you. It’s working against you, unless you notice it and redirect your actions accordingly. Fear will cause you to live on an adrenal-response autopilot called fight/flight. It will hijack your nervous system and therefore your attention. All of these things are taking your life force and, again, stopping you from being who you came to be.

After finding out about another layer of horrific family secrecy that was used to control me as a child – with effects lasting in my subconscious well into adulthood – I was watching the mechanisms that had been put into play long ago. I was, to be clear, not in a fight/flight response about what I’d found out, but rather, I was observing it neutrally so that I could study the response patterns in my thoughts and body.

I became the watchful observer, to witness the cause/effect, and to change my behaviors accordingly. To get more power and sovereignty back.

What I found was that I was actually living, to some degree, from a fear-based energy due to a trauma response from long ago. I couldn’t see it before now, and then, by shining the light of day onto it, the patterns became clear.

And then it became relatively simple to see what to “do” about it.

First of all, don’t react. Don’t give the fear more fear.

Second, don’t turn away. See it, look at it, stare it down. Fear lives in the dark, so shine the light. (Light-shining podcast forthcoming.)

These two things together, simple in concept only when the nervous system has the capacity not to engage in the fear trigger, can neutralize a fear.

The purpose of fear is, honestly, to control you. Fear lives off of your energy while you spin in circles trying to outrun it. Fear that is the result of a trauma keeps you in a loop of victimhood, wherein your energy is perpetually wasted.

To get sovereign, we have to look at our fear patterns. We could say, I suppose, if we look at it as if everything is happening for us rather than against us, that a purpose of fear is to direct you to your sovereignty.

What are you afraid of?

Where are your fears running your behavior?

Where is fight/flight fueling your decision making about how to spend your time, energy, and attention?

Where are you checking out in your life in order to avoid feeling the fight/flight?

If you’re courageous enough to look at these answers, you can get in front of the fear. You can neutralize it. And in that way, the purpose of fear, when you get wise to it, can be to help you stand in the full power and truth of who you are.

Sarah Poet is a polarity integration expert with a knack for seeing the hidden shadows that result from this bizarro separation matrix we inhabit. To book a consultation for individual or couples coaching, or workplace gender reconciliation counseling, please visit www.sarahpoet.com/book.

Photo: Stock, pexels . com

The feminine in you holds your deepest wisdom.

The feminine has been something that we seek to reclaim – something that we seek to bring into “equal balance” with the masculine.

It is as though the feminine was always the underdog, or made to be the underdog, fighting her way back.

In a world of masculine/feminine archetypal imbalance, the feminine was secondary.

The feminine has been something that we seek to reclaim – something that we seek to bring into “equal balance” with the masculine.

It is as though the feminine was always the underdog, or made to be the underdog, fighting her way back.

Always trying to prove herself, and prove her worth.

When I talk to modern women on a personal journey of feminine / masculine reclamation, most often, their feminine re-discovery is something they are “fitting in” at the end of the day, or on weekends. They are unsure how to actually integrate it fully into their lives.

Many women – maybe you – have a “hunch” that there is more, or that you have special gifts inside of you that are waiting to emerge. (You do, no doubt.)

But how long are you going to hold that as a “hunch” and not act on it? How long are YOU going to push the feminine to the side while you continue to over-rely on your inner masculine?

I’ve said it before, but the feminine isn’t “cute.” She isn’t optional. And she isn’t secondary, just because patriarchy positioned the greatest power play this planet has ever known.
But here’s the point of today’s email: The feminine, reclaimed, is the greatest thing that will ever happen to your life.

In it contains your true wisdom, your magical gifts, your mystical sight. It contains your capacity to love (men) without the trauma of past relationships plaguing you – your heart finally open wide.

It allows you to lead with your body wisdom, unlocking pleasure potential, aligning to the truth of your own soul that it feels f*cking good to be alive.

The feminine has been repressed for thousands of years. It is awakening within you and me – in each of us – and INSIDE OF US contains the true depth of wisdom that isn’t written in books or taught in schools. You can’t get certifications for actually turning on your own innate wisdom.

The feminine = Sophianic Wisdom. And she wants to come alive through you.

I have helped women on the other side of the world become pregnant after an infertility journey. No one but my own soul taught me how to do that, but only after I fully opened to letting HER, the feminine, fully flow through me.

I have helped women who had been abused leave their partnerships and stand in energetic and financial sovereignty. I have helped women trust their inner knowing, sight, and intuition, and watched as their gifts as a mystic, healer, or seer came online.
I have built my entire business based on my soul’s hunch, my relationship with the feminine, and yes, my deep re-unification of both masculine and feminine archetypes. I CREATED MY OWN TEMPLATE. And I could not have done this if I’d left Her behind.

We are remembering our truest gifts.

We are activating our gifts – the true gifts of the feminine – by prioritizing HER.

We are bringing an ancient and new wisdom to the planet, now, when the planet needs new solutions.

I believe those solutions lie in the feminine wisdom, inside of you.
Unlock her, free her, know her, release her.

We don’t want to “rebalance” the archetypes. We want to LIVE OUT their fullest expression.

Let her teach you. Let her live through you.

ACTIVATE YOUR GIFTS THROUGH PRIVATE MENTORSHIP

Opening the Heart

When there has been trauma in the body, what does it look like to begin to truly trust the opening and guidance of the heart?

We have so many reasons to close. To protect our hearts. It’s tragic, really, all the excuses we could have for self protection.

I’ve had plenty.

And I’m happy to say, they are being challenged at the next level as I’m being invited to open in places that I maybe didn’t know I was closed.

I recently found myself in a situation with a man where I did not expect there to be attraction. We’d gotten together as friends and colleagues and then, on this particular day, as he said later, as I’d opened the door and he found me to be “radiant.”

Radiant. What an “open” expression. I am quite sure that that is the first time a man has ever called me radiant, which is such a beautiful compliment. More than a compliment, it’s an affirmation that as I have been doing the good work of tending to this feminine essence, it is reflecting outward.

The thing was, however, I felt quite tired on that particular day. I’d had a really deep session with a practitioner the day before, and perhaps I’d describe myself as tender. I wasn’t sad or armored or anything like that. I was just integrating some information that was making me a little tender. So perhaps I was even more unguarded than usual.

I’ve done a lot of work on my body and the traumas it had endured, and I’ve done a lot of work on my heart to unguard it. I think the feminine heart could be at any given point tender, or elated, or somehow otherwise feeling deeply. If we’re not guarding our hearts, then it will be feeling something, because that’s what it does.

And so I’ve been contemplating this thing of opening. There’s always the interesting thing we do as humans where we ask, “What am I opening to?” and then we decide if we can open to meet that external thing – whether it be an offer, an agreement, a man’s invitation, etc. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I immediately noticed that the external situation was not my first reference point. For decades in my life it had been. “What is the man doing? What is the man feeling? What is the man offering and am I open to it?” But this was entirely different.

My reference point was entirely internal. I was pacing with my nervous system. “Is my body opening toward this idea, or closing?” Did I feel the familiar old closure of guardedness, and if so, what did the body need? I was tracking my opening and closing. Anyone with previous trauma related to men knows what I’m talking about – the familiar guards come up as we feel things out. There were plenty of times in the past when my body gave me “Closure! Constriction! Do not proceed!” warning signs that I did not head, which lead to more of my own depletion later. I was noticing this time that it was just natural to stay attuned to myself first – I was going to follow my body’s lead.

“No moving forward, on any given day, without openness in the body.”

That’s progress. For any woman. High fives all around when we’re listening to the body.

However.

I realized something major. When I was tracking my body’s contraction or expansion, I was essentially tracking the nervous system. I was tracking whether or not the nervous system felt safety or fear. And in doing so, I was not attuning to whether or not my heart was opening and what my heart’s truth was.

This is really important, because given the way trauma works, we could be experiencing somatic symptoms of a past trauma in a very safe present-day situation. And if we’re only attuning to that and forgetting the heart, then we’ll make it about the past, the trauma, and the nervous system. The attunement to the body is amazing, but then, there is the next-level attunement to the heart.

Beyond previous experiences of depletion or hurt, beyond how the body holds trauma patterns of constriction, there was a new invitation to notice and expand into. “Does the heart want to open? Is the heart opening?”

I’ve been traveling with the real-life sequence of the teachings I call Heartland now for over a year, but when I felt Spirit nudge me in February to open them back up in in April, I was immediately inside of a next-level learning about the heart. I was back inside the “initiation” of learning these deep transformations to leave more and more layers of feminine depletion, guardedness, and old story behind, and to come into feminine replenishment, the heart, and the experience of the spark of creation.

In Heartland, we journey to a place of prosperity in the Heart. Not just money and wealth, but true, soul-aligned, heart-opening, blissful, no longer afraid, understanding the creation energy of the cosmos HEART.

There are eight areas of the Heartland teachings, like a sequence. I had told this man, when sharing about Heartland, that I felt that I was somehow in stage seven of eight. I had conceptualized what stage eight might look like, but was still stretching into it as a woman. Well, you can’t stretch into the Heart of the Heartland until you’re really, truly, willing to move beyond the stories of depletion, fear, the times things were taken from you in the past… the traumas we’ve held in the body, and all the reasons to close the heart.

And then I saw myself doing it – tracking the sensations of the familiar fear responses in my body (which again, it is really important not to override those sensations) instead of tracking the radiance of my own heart.

And I think that’s a big part of the leap. Tracking expansion just as much as we’re tracking constriction. Tracking the heart just as much as we’re tracking the nervous system.

I am not the woman that previously attracted men who were willing to take my life force energy from me. But sometimes something in me forgets and still thinks that I am her, and then my nervous system has a closure response.

I am instead the woman who has worked on the radiance and prosperity of my own heart. I am the woman who has honored the journey of this body and soul. I am the woman who will decide how to proceed, and I am the woman who is choosing to stand now fully in the New. And the New is the land of the Heart. The place of internal and eternal prosperity. The place beyond taking, where we remember the stories of depletion as a distant memory we have overcome, but where now, we radiate. We shine. We shine our diamond, crystalline hearts, and as we are, good men like this one will not help but to be magnetized and awed by it, and because we are ready, the feminine can now open even deeper.

First open the body, as the body is ready. Then, open the heart. This is the place where the cosmos will join you in the dance of creation. This is the true Heartland, accessible beyond separation, closure, and fear. This is the place your soul deserves to reside.

Stop letting men deplete you.

the woman who has something they want. Some men will uplift women and their missions. Let’s talk about the difference.

Some men will subconsciously tear down the woman who has something they want. Some men will uplift women and their missions.

Let’s talk about the difference.

A man who wants something from a woman that he’s not getting may act in the following ways:

insatiable desire for her body, her energy
tearing her down when he sees her succeeding
feeling very lofty for his minor financial success, feels inflated when giving to a woman
desires to have a lot of conversations of big ideas, but does little with them and does not have a command of his own money or make those things happen

At the root of any of this behavior is a dis-integration of the Mother in the man.

A man needs to acknowledge his insatiable thirst for Her (mother, feminine, woman) and reconcile this within himself.

When he does, he will be IN SERVICE TO a woman, her mission, her success. He will ask how he can help. He will refer her services to others, he will put her in front of his people. He will invest his energy and money into her.

Because he has no problem uplifting and sharing the wisdom of the Holy Feminine for all eyes to see.

Women, my guess is that you have a lot of experience with men who do NOT understand this yet.

My guess is also that you have a lingering imprint of depletion as a result of this.

Maybe you’re married to a good man who can’t get enough of you… but it wears you down for some reason.

Maybe you enter into relationships and receive big promises from men, rearranging your life accordingly, to find he can’t keep it and then you feel depleted.

Or you spend a lot of time with male friends who talk about deep and spiritual stuff but then you realize that this time investment hasn’t actually made you more resourceful.

Maybe you have no idea what it feels like to be uplifted by a man who doesn’t want to consume you.

In that case, my love, Heartland is for you. You can take this as a live course, offered once a year, or schedule a consultation with me about doing this in private mentorship.

Heartland is about creating regenerative energetics in our systems as women so that we are no longer in depletion – and has NOTHING to do with men.

Why are women in depletion? Because we’ve operated with distortions around what masculine & feminine really are in this silly gender construct – and we’ve given and given to men, to families, to society, to workplaces…. forever.

Women are collectively depleted.

When women are replenished, we change the entire energetics of the operating system of the planet. (Starting with your world first.)

It’s a bigger educational piece that I’m happy to get into, but my love, let me ask you this – did you relate to what I was saying here? The amazing thing is, too, that when we say “no more” to depletion and clear these lower-masculine behaviors from our lives, and/or correct the energetic template ourselves, the men who show up in our lives are the ones who have done the work with the Holy Mother and are now prepared to support you as well.

What a welcome change, right??

Change the energetics from depletion to regeneration in YOU, now. Heartland will take you there.

Woman, What is your Masculine Template?

For years, I’ve been talking about the necessity as women for us to heal our relationship to the masculine. We have an old imprint of what “masculinity” means based on cultural standards, and we have to wash that clean and open our minds to what else is possible. I’m not so much interested in defining masculinity as I am inviting us into relationship with the masculine archetype.

I’ve been upgrading my masculine template lately.

While I’ve been healing my relationship to the masculine for many years, this new language of the “masculine template” recently came into my consciousness. It’s been a really helpful conceptualization and I hope that sharing it is helpful for you as well.

“Masculinity” I see as a narrative full of cultural assumptions and that’s not really my interest. Knowing the masculine archetype in both women and men and being in right relationship to it is what I am interested in.

I want to talk about the “template” that we have of the masculine, and I mean the masculine archetype. This template informs literally everything we do as women, and we don’t even realize it. Women are literally always forming their behavior based on the “template” of the masculine they hold in their consciousness.

Just this week, in a coaching call with a woman, she was able to see that her deep resistance to the concept of structure was because she subconsciously associated structure with the masculine and oppression. So – it’s happening in your subconscious literally every day, all day, that you are behaving in relation or reaction to your “masculine template” in your consciousness. I promise you.

I’ll explain further and take us deeper into this juicy, worthy, and potentially slightly uncomfortable contemplation.

As women, we have an “orientation” to masculine. We have a set of associations with men/patriarchy that are rather subconscious. We assume certain things of men and come to expect certain behaviors from men – not all of which are positive. This orientation to the masculine also includes all of the memories and imprints of wrongdoing that men have done. And, to take this to the depth that it really needs to go – we have imprints of the wrongdoings that patriarchy and religion have done, which are both associated with domination and oppression of women and the feminine.

Let’s look at some more real life examples of how the masculine template we carry influences our lives.

A woman was raised by a single mother with an abuse history who worked her butt off to secure minimal resources and basic needs. This woman formed beliefs from her childhood such as, “Men don’t show up, I’ll always be on my own, I have to work really hard but it won’t pay off.” She still carries these in her adult life and it forms and shapes the way she interacts with work, men, money, and even the extent to which she values herself.

How can you relate to that?

Another example: A woman is super talented in her work but it goes unrecognized by her male colleagues. She forms beliefs like, “Men are just in it for themselves, I have to work twice as hard to be recognized, my ideas as a woman are undervalued.” She spends her entire workday energetically responding to these perceptions. It shapes her.

Can you relate?

Last example: A woman grows up as a girl inside traditional religion and hears messages about subservience and being seen not heard. She grows up to be a good girl, silently frustrated with kowtowing to men who don’t even live in alignment to the true virtuous messages of the religion, but use it as a way to be dominant. She forms an orientation to the masculine that says, “I need to ask permission to be me. If I don’t behave I won’t be loved or provided for. I just have to keep giving myself to men and volunteer causes even though I’m not fulfilled.”

How did your relationship with this supposed “male god” influence your relationship with the masculine?

Each of these women has an orientation to the masculine.

Each of these women have so very naturally confused the behavior of men and religion for the true masculine. It’s happening everywhere, so commonly, that we don’t even question it. Entire feminist movements have been oriented toward fighting against what is conceptually in front of them – an orientation toward an oppressive masculine.

When we see the masculine as destructive, abuser, oppressor, dominator – we carry that as our masculine template. The template we then orient to. When we have the formative experiences of shadow masculine, including trauma and oppression, our psyches, our cellular structure, our bodies begin to orient to all men, all ideas of masculine, all masculine essences as oppressive. The template was formed, and then the template is what we carry out.

“Men are dangerous.”

“Men are takers.”

“I’ll have to do it all on my own.”

“I’ll have to give him sex if I want to secure my livlihood.”

It’s so common for women to carry a template of an old, wounded, shadow masculine, isn’t it? We’ve grown up in patriarchy, for thousands of years now, and so our orientation toward this immature, aggressive, dominator masculine is well formed. It is the template to which we orient our lives.

But it’s not serving us. In fact, it’s keeping women very trapped. It’s causing women to expend massive amounts of time and energy defending themselves, hustling extra hard, giving away life force energy, fighting against something, feeling as if something is being taken from them, etc.

Orienting toward an outdated template is a trap. And, it’s a choice.

Women can upgrade our template of the masculine. And we can do this whether or not we have the external evidence of it.

And we must.

When women with masculine-related trauma in this old and outdated template ask me how to heal their relationship to the masculine, the first thing I tell them is that this happens inside of their hearts.

Women habitually look outside of themselves for the examples of masculinity that they can have faith in – and when they think they’ve found that person, they put all their eggs in that basket. We enter relationships with men who we think, “This guy isn’t like the rest, he won’t hurt me.” We look for men who understand “sacred masculine” and do men’s work.

But this is not actually the way we heal our masculine template (because nine times out of ten, we’re just attracting more of the old template when we search for it in a man). We update the masculine template in our hearts, in our imaginations, in our own healing journey with the masculine and in our own contemplation.

We heal our masculine template by healing our traumas associated with the masculine, which of course can take some time and is big work. But, if you’re reading this, you’re up for that work.

Begin to ask yourself what the evolved masculine, the sacred masculine, even the masculine aspect of God looks like to you. What does your heart know and dream?
THIS is the creation of YOUR NEW masculine template! This is where YOU get to recreate the masculine that is possible and what you want to see. You get to feel it, imagine it, and then *form your behavior in relation to this new template.

Even before you have the external evidence that it exists, this is what you do.

For example, I know that the entire universe is comprised of both feminine and masculine and that there would never, ever be a Holy Father who would renounce the importance of the Holy Mother. I know that religious representation of God as a dominating force that positioned women as less-than is a total farce. Therefore, I don’t have to look for a church that understands this in order to validate my upgraded template. I can investigate what I believe and trust in my own heart. I can redefine my personal spiritual relationship with the Holy Father. In doing so, I get a new definition of that divine masculine essence, and I can orient toward that instead.

I can *choose* to orient toward the painful past template of masculine through the church or I can *choose* to orient toward a progressive and restored template of the divine masculine.

In this way, I re-imprint my own psyche and not only that, it changes the way I live. Maybe I don’t walk around as guarded or defensive anymore. Maybe I relax in how hard I push myself because I discover more trust in a benevolent provider masculine divine. (Real life example right there.)

Or, if you’ve not had good experiences in love relationships with men (maybe because you’ve been attracting from an outdated template), then you get to begin to rewrite your template of what is possible in love. You get to imagine it by developing your own relationship and reflection to the question, “What is masculine? What do I want in relation to masculine and men?” You get to dream it up, and then that dream becomes your template, and you not only orient to life from that new place and feel much better, but you also get to attract your next partner from this upgraded template.

Ask yourself what template of the masculine you are orienting to. Additional reflection questions could include:

How do I believe I will be treated by men?
How do I relate to the masculine archetype in my work?
How much do I trust I’ll be provided for vs how much do I work super hard to ensure that I meet all my own needs?
What do I believe is the definition of the divine masculine?
If I were to develop a relationship to the divine masculine, what would that look like?
In what ways do I trust or do I not trust the masculine in men or God?
What do I expect from men?

The template can always be upgraded, and in doing so, you are doing the entire world a service by re-imagining masculinity and orienting toward that upgraded template. You might not see it yet, but if you carry that template in your body, mind, psyche and orient your life and behavior toward it (instead of a victimized or wounded orientation), you will essentially birth it into being with your faith, curiosity, and the energetic template you carry.

Women, what is the masculine that you choose to relate to? Start living it. Today.

Emotional labor never motivated any man to change.

conscious, and yet, that actually gives energy toward a “fallen masculine.” He doesn’t have to be stronger if you’re giving him your energy as is.

I learned about the term “emotional labor” a few years ago, but I don’t think I authentically understood it until I studied the energetics of it in my own life.

The extent to which this is an issue in our culture continues to astound me.

I’m kind of all about energetic sovereignty, my own path of masculine / feminine union, wholeness, and energy optimization. I have this whole planner system about women’s time and energy optimization and I use it daily to track where my energy goes. (It’s called Structure & Flow and you can learn more here, but then come back so you don’t miss this key info.)

I know where my time goes. I know where my life force goes. I know how I optimize my energy with superfoods and energy practices, meditation and time allocation. And I know I do not choose to give away or waste my time, which I used to do a lot. In correlation to giving away my time and energy, I wasn’t thriving.

A woman’s greatest resources are her inherent resources – her life force energy, time, attention, mental and emotional capacity, and her body… you know, everything the patriarchy took for granted or expected she give away.

You see, the world is *used to* expecting a woman’s energy, and I’m going to make a generalization here, that men are used to asking for, even demanding, women’s energy and receiving it. It’s historic, habitual, and mostly unconscious.

But we know women are used to over-giving. And conversely, men are used to expecting a woman to continue to give. I invite you to be aware of this in your life and see what you notice. Where do you give your energy because it’s expected, but it doesn’t actually feel good to you? Maybe it’s sex, or picking up the phone when your brother is in crisis, or wanting your husband to be more emotionally aware.

This week alone, I encountered this twice, where men were wanting my emotional energy instead of going deep into their own process, which is what I call emotional labor. Twice this week! And I don’t even have a lot of active male social relationships anymore because I’m so aware of where my energy goes and I’ve stopped investing my time and efforts into elevating masculine consciousness. It’s not mine to do.

I actually had super messy energetics with men for a long time that looked really conscious in disguise. I would invest a lot of time and energy (two of my greatest resources) toward helping male friends and even acquaintances elevate their consciousness. In 2018, I invested time and wisdom writing articles for a men’s group, never getting paid, until I realized that I was only outputting energy and there wasn’t reciprocation or even deep appreciation. I have historically championed men and masculinity so much that I was sometimes investing more energy into motivating men than men were investing in themselves. (Okay, this happened a lot.)

Why would I do this? Well, it’s the same reason we all do it.

We’re hoping, as women, that if we put our energy into men, that men will elevate. We love them and we’re hoping that they’ll be motivated into their masculinity if we put energy into leading him there. We hope that they will see their potential, take us deeper, be able to lead us.

But this never works. Doing this emotional labor for a man actually never works to elevate the man – which is our heart’s hope and intention.

Now that I understand energy, conscious feminine & masculine, and sovereign energetics much more deeply, I can see that a woman investing her energy into a man who is emotionally collapsed, or doing what’s called “emotionally laboring” for a man, actually never motivates him.

If a man is “collapsed,” or isn’t realizing an aspect of his personal power, consciousness, or masculinity, and he looks to a woman to assuage his feelings, and she gives it, this is called emotional labor. Or, if you care more than your man cares. Or, if you’re giving energy, feeling depleted, and not getting anything in return. The historic and perpetual depletion in women is often caused by emotional labor. You’re giving your energy, time, and valuable resources in a way where you’re trying to do his emotional or evolutionary work for him.

Back to why this never works.

A man who is asking for this kind of energy from a woman almost always has an active mother wound (I can’t think of another reason why he’d do this). He yearns for access to the deep energetics of the sacred feminine, and the Mother of creation. It’s his work to do to find this relationship with the divine, and when he does, his masculinity will elevate in the presence of that relationship. A man with an integrated relationship to the Divine Feminine or Holy Mother will not need a woman to emotionally labor for him. Because he’s met by the eternal feminine.

But most men don’t yet know this. And leading a man to this place is really never a woman’s to do. Actually her refusal to try to get him to go there potentially his greatest motivator to actually to there.

So what does a woman do to stop emotionally laboring?

She needs to stop giving him the energy of the mother, the metaphorical “mother’s breast” of nurturance, and the emotional energy.
She needs to be aware of where her time & energy go, track it, and value it more. A modern woman serious about her evolution doesn’t have time to waste on trying to convince a man of anything.
She needs to expand her relationship with the divine masculine, the eternal masculine, the Holy Father. (This is big work and requires great devotion.)
When she has this energy integrated, she’ll be running the masculine current through her body and energy system. She will feel much more whole and complete in herself and through her relationship to the divine. This is where it gets juicy, because this is where she actually starts to *activate the man.*
When a woman is in sovereign energetics (all of the above), she doesn’t need to ask a man to be anything for her, or do anything for her. She’s cleaned up her own distortions of what she needs from men, and she’s essentially good to go. So with this amazing integration in her system, she can hold a new energetic and invite him to participate in relating differently. If she is not speaking to the collapsed places in him, he will notice that she is no longer giving that her effort. When she does this consciousness work, he will automatically begin to activate and elevate. He will notice what she positively responds to, and this is enough that he will begin to change his behavior. This is the law of energetics and it must happen.

You don’t have to do anything *for* a man to get him to change. You have to follow your path, and he will naturally activate. Or, he won’t, and then you will move on.

Women have been orienting toward men and asking men to become more conscious, and yet, that actually gives energy toward a “fallen masculine.” He doesn’t have to be stronger if you’re giving him your energy as is.

I was recently explaining this to a client, and she said, “Oh no! The women have to activate the men?!” She was essentially saying, “We have to do more emotional labor?!”

I said, “No, actually, this is far less work. This is hands off. This is cultivating your evolution and sovereign energy, giving his distortion less or no attention whatsoever, and then watching for how he starts to notice and activate into an energetic match to you. Then give him attention when you see more of what you know he’s capable of. Less attention and emotional labor for the collapsed energy, and all of the natural attraction and affirmation when you see him naturally activating.”

So actually being more sovereign in your energy, and activating him in this new way, is *less work* than emotional laboring ever was.

With much, much greater results.

There are two ways to learn more about this & receive my direct support:

Lower masculine is not the destroyer, but it can be.

With so many women angry at men and with so many women lumping together “masculine” with “patriarchy,” I felt it time to address this.

With so many women angry at men, with so many women who have been harmed by men and patriarchy, and with so many women lumping together “masculine” with “patriarchy,” I felt it time to address this.

I am going to use my own vocabulary to explain this, so please first allow me to define the terms I’m using.

Patriarchy: System of oppression that hijacked feminine energy (including the life force of indigenous people and people of color) and utilized that stolen energy for its own gain. It is a system of destruction, which I say without emotion. I’m simply stating the energetics. Patriarchy is a taker system.

Lower masculine: This is the primarily unconscious and default masculinity in a patriarchy that lives for power, greed, consumption, and its sense of provision and protection are absent or collapsed. Imagine it’s like the opposite of a Kingly masculine like King Arthur embodied. The lower masculine is present in men – for example men that want to feed off of a woman’s life force energy, men that want to have the power and control, or men that don’t have a sense of provisional capacity to care for women and children and they spend a lot of time feeling like a victim to women. But lower masculine can also be present in women, in organizations, in everyone, because everyone (and every organization, every system) has both feminine and masculine energetics.

Destroyer: This is my term for the dark energy that wants to take from the feminine, from women, from Earth, and from holistic systems. This energy wants to prevent the evolution of consciousness that would include true community values and equal distribution of resources. This energy, in my opinion, fueled patriarchy and we wouldn’t have patriarchy as it stands without it. Patriarchy was successful because of the taker energy, but resulting in massive separation and a depletion of the feminine energetic.

Can lower masculine also include the destroyer energetic? It can, but it is not always true – which is nuanced and the point of this article.

When a woman has been hurt by systems of oppression in her life, for example at work, and she looks around and sees men in suits, and women in pantsuits emulating the men, and she feels targeted by this, she may think to herself and draw the conclusion that, “Men perpetuate destroyer energetics.” But then she can look at the systems, at the fact that women also participate in these destroyer systems, and she can find examples of men who seem to want to help rather than hurt, and she’d have to admit that these two are not one and the same. Equating men with destroyer is actually irresponsible and limiting on the part of women. It limits men’s capacity and is unkind.

Lower masculine can be a destroyer. It can be out for itself and be maliciously willing to take another’s energy (or Earth energy). But it can also be more innocent. It’s still unconscious, so I’m not making excuses or letting it completely off the hook, but unconscious lower masculine behaviors look different. A man can want too much of a woman’s attention, he can put a woman above fulfilling his purpose in the world and find himself lost, or he can avoid his own quest for consciousness in favor of the emotional reinforcement he gets from women in his life, but while this is unconscious and “lower masculine,” it doesn’t make him a destroyer. It can also deplete women’s energy, which feels destructive, but it’s not malicious. Dealing with unconscious lower masculine energetics as a woman is different than a strategy to deal with destroyer energetics. This is nuanced and women may reach out to me privately with their individual situations and questions, which I can answer in private mentorships or in my membership.

A man operating in lower masculine is operating in taker energetics – yes, somewhat, but more because he hasn’t resolved the Mother Wound than anything else. This man is not overtaken by the dark of the Destroyer.

What it looks like when the Destroyer overtakes a man is when a man is in an ego-identification (unconscious) and something within his unresolved ego personality gets triggered. He gets angry about it, maybe has a defensive tendency. Maybe someone in his life asked him to take accountability for something he’s not ready to look at. And instead of allowing himself to see this as an opportunity for his own integration and advancement, he actually attacks the person or system that is trying to get him to look at himself. It’s like a little devil destroyer energy close by says, “Look, he’s susceptible to taking on our energy. Let’s infiltrate.” Or, the man is overtaken by greed, the quest for power, the willingness to destroy the feminine, to dominate to preserve the ego, and the like. A primary doorway for the Destroyer to get into men is also through their avoidant addictions. This leaves his energy body open and susceptible to dark attack.

Can the Destroyer also enter into women or any human? Yes.

Is the Destroyer the equivalent of man or even lower masculinity? No. But it is the equivalent of patriarchy, by definition of patriarchy being a system that perpetually attempts to establish dominion.

Just because a man is unconscious does not make him a destroyer. Women would do well to distinguish this, because you do not need to have so much fear. When we understand these nuances, we can not fear the blanket “masculine” and discern where to draw boundaries, where to support, where to stay in our lane. There are plenty of ways for women to relate to both lower masculine and the destroyer energetic that set them free instead of lock them into these energetics as truth. These do not have to be energetics that you even associate with, except to know your sovereign stance in reference to it.

Lastly, let’s define, for consideration, two more terms:

Conscious Masculinity: The decision to turn the inherited patterns from patriarchy and unconscious/lower masculine into conscious masculine behaviors. This requires much inner excavation and soul reclamation. It requires commitment on the part of men to look at where they sink down low into destroyer or lower masculine tendencies for attention, love, to secure resources, etc. It requires leadership to forge a new paradigm of masculinity that can be trusted and emulated into the future. And, yes, all humans are responsible for their own inner aspect of conscious masculinity. As a cis-gendered woman, I too am responsible for excavating my own inner masculine and continually bringing forth conscious masculine patterns through my actions as well.

Sacred Masculine: This is a very misused term, in my opinion, because many want to apply this to men themselves. The Sacred Masculine is the perfection of the Holy Masculine – the Yang, the Shiva, the Holy Father of Creation. These are pristine energetics that we can reference through archetypes. No doubt, these archetypal templates are activating guides on our path as humans. And, while humans are of course sacred, humans are not archetypes of the sacred. To me, the Archetype of the Holy Father (I’m not referencing religion, but rather the Father of Creation) is pure perfection, and I wouldn’t expect any one person or man to embody it fully. Not as modern day humans with so much confusion and distortion – it’s impossible to be a perfected archetype. And, that’s not the point. The point is to reference the supreme Sacred Masculine archetype as guidance, to invite this template to be an activation in the psyche, and to quest toward integrating the shadow and ego personality toward the sacred expression of masculinity.

I don’t expect men to be perfect emanations of the sacred masculine. I do expect men to become conscious of lower masculine, integrate and heal their Mother Wounding, be as conscious as possible, and not only do I expect men to not perpetuate the Destroyer energetic, I expect men to help set it straight as they embody their warrior nature in preservation and protection of all that is innocent, and that which has been oppressed.

And I expect men to disarm the Destroyer alongside conscious women, if not more so. When men recognize the destroyer for what it is and rise into conscious masculinity, the destroyer will be far less powerful and systems of oppression will lose quite a bit of power.

There is sacred, holy power in masculinity. It should not be cut down, diminished, or lumped with the destroyer.

Conscious Love Relationships

A couple came to me a few months ago wanting to take their relationship through a repeating, trauma pattern to conscious love.

A couple came to me a few months ago wanting to take their relationship through a repeating, traumatized pattern to conscious love.

I love this goal of conscious love. I asked them what conscious love meant to them. And, what we found was that while they wanted it, it was difficult for them to explain it, or even know what to ask for.

“Maybe we’ll know it when we get there…?”

When you’re in the repeating, looping patterns inside of a relationship, you don’t quite see how to get out of them. You don’t quite see how to make the unconscious conscious, which is what needs to happen.

Hint: it’s usually not about the communication.

How couples typically try to go through these trauma-looping patterns is to talk about it, to rationalize it, in endless, long, laborious, not-fun conversations. But the material isn’t rational, that’s why you’re stuck. And that’s why the conversations aren’t moving the dial on the actual issue.

The stuff of what keeps a relationship looping is the stuff of the deep subconscious. What you’ve wanted from love in the past but didn’t get. Or how you say you want love, but you stay self-protected and avoiding depth. These are just two examples.

But there is actually massive opportunity in these exact places of confusion – inside the blind spots. And you may think me some kind of freak that I get excited about the opportunity inside of chaos, but as a conscious couples coach, I do get very excited about this. Being willing to go there is a significant aspect of conscious love. And, the exact place that is driving you crazy in your relationship has the capacity not only to reveal the deepest truth about each of you, but also to actually help you discover conscious love.

If a couple chooses to walk to move through a deeply stuck situation, through exactly the places that they want to avoid, blame, rationalize, or run away, and if they can stay with the triggers and learn to presence with one another, they will find that they are actually learning conscious love.

It starts with developing abiding presence.

When I work with a couple, I teach them how to presence with one another – how to notice the contraction or expansion in their bodies, how to notice their breath, how to honor the truth of the moment for themselves and not get lost to their partner or pressure.

I teach couples how to stay conscious in the moment, so that their relationship can become a conscious relationship longterm.

Conscious love sounds like an amazing idea but it may also sound pressuring to some. It doesn’t require a lot of spiritual knowledge or the transcendence of all of your flaws, as the words may imply.

What actually is required is the willingness to stick with even a difficult moment, to learn about yourselves, and to be with what is, in any given moment. If you are willing to do these things, you can have a conscious relationship that evolves over time. You can have a relationship that takes you deeper into connection and intimacy in the body and beyond.

Anyone can have a conscious love relationship. It just requires the adjustment of some skills.

You will discover and define what Conscious Love means to you in your relationship – once you can see the possibility.

For the couple I mentioned, their definition evolved to include the following: full acceptance of the other without judgement, active masculine feminine polarity, breathing together regularly, learning from one another, trusting one another fully and trusting the divine more, surrender, conscious love making and intimacy, greater connection, authentic desire, and more.

I take couples through the stuck point of habitual trauma and into established, conscious love. Learn more and schedule a consultation at www.sarahpoet.com/consciousrelating.

How a woman heals her relationship to the masculine.

Healing the relationship with the inner & divine masculine is the foundation of our own inner safety, provision, space holding, and discernment.

Last weekend, while hiking in the very cold woods with my pup, I listened to an interview I did with Artemis Rose for her Embody U Podcast. She asked me to come on her show and talk about how a woman heals her relationship to the masculine.

I actually really love this topic. As she says, it’s not talked about enough. But, I do think that it is some of the most crucial work a woman will ever do on herself.

Women often want something from men and judge men for not being able to give it to them.

Or, we spend a lot of time and energy looking for a man that embodies certain characteristics.

No doubt, we are doing what’s called “projecting” our inner, unmet needs of the masculine onto men. It’s very common to do that in our culture, especially as women have been oppressed as a gender for a long time. In the psyches of women, we are very hungry to know and be in relationship with the “sacred masculine.” But what does that mean?

It starts within.

Listen to the episode HERE. This is an important transmission.

Artemis writes, “In today’s episode, Sarah dives deep into a discussion around healing our relationship with the masculine (our own inner masculine, men, and our relationship with God).

How do all of these relate to embodying who we truly are? How does this relate to the feminine? You must listen. She does a beautiful job of simplifying, defining, and articulating how our sacred remembrance rests on the Truth of us diving deep within to reclaim both the sacred feminine and masculine for our own homecoming and inner union.

However, in this episode, she focuses on how important it is to see our relationship with God and our inner masculine as being the foundation and sustenance of our own inner safety, provision, space holding, and discernment.”

To access the Modern Women’s Pathway to Feminine / Masculine Reunification, CLICK HERE.