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:
- Private mentorships for high-powered, conscious women.
- Conscious Couples Coaching for the two of you together.
