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Inspiration 

Why A Relationship with Polarity Scares Me (and Why I will Continue to Teach and Practice it Anyway)

4/15/2019

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​I long for a partnership in which I get to rest in my feminine and my partner leads from his masculine. This also terrifies me.

I am terrified to be in my feminine more than my partner is. Why? You might ask. Don’t get me wrong; the perks of getting to fully feel and express my feelings, to surrender into the leadership of my partner, and let go of the incessant doing that I must carry to survive as an adult are what draw me in to desiring a relationship in which polarity is an emphasis. But the terrifying part is that in order to do that I HAVE TO LET GO OF CONTROL!

It means being touch with my vulnerable heart and revealing that to my partner.

t means not meditating as a way to soothe my anxiety anymore, but rather letting myself actually be with and FEEL my anxiety, to put on a tribal song and shake as I feel my fear, to let tears stream down my face on the way to work, with my heart full of grief and longing, and with no real content behind, just pure feeling. It means, according to one of my main teachers of polarity, John Wineland, that as the partner more in the feminine in the relationship that I will be more focused on love and that my masculine partner will be more focused on purpose. That also scares the bejesus out of me!

I am terrified of getting into another relationship in which I am the anxiously attached one constantly wanting more attention and love, and he is the avoidant one
, feeling burdened and guilty at my disappointment at wanting him more as he puts energy into his purpose and away from our relationship. And I don’t think that a healthy relationship in which polarity is an emphasis means that one must be in a dysfunctional anxious-avoidant cycle, but I am so so terrified that that is what being in my feminine means.


It is so interesting to be teaching this work from a place of experience. As a therapist I have taught primarily from theories, and that does work well (a surgeon does not have to have had heart surgery to be a kick ass heart surgeon) but this kind of work is different. I want to feel it from the inside as I teach it, not just tell people what research and other people say.  I want to share it from my own experience. And that makes it all the more vulnerable. As I am unfolding along with my students. We are learning together the joys and terrors of what happens as we drop into our feminine and learn how to cultivate our inner sacred masculine to hold ourselves just enough, in those moments when our partner needs a break or is not there to hold us, but to relent again when the timing presents and gift our partner once again with the opportunity to be in the masculine and lead us well. But that’s scary because it is not a guarantee. We may be dropped. We may not hold ourselves enough when our partner needs us to. We may demand too much or hold on too tight and never let go of control.


I don’t have the answer but I do have these inquiries. And it feels good to have them. It feels good to know that I am afraid to let go of control; to know that I have a choice; and to know that even when I do choose to let go I will feel fear and uncertainty. But I have faith that more love and trust is on the other side, because I have glimpsed it. I have seen the ways that life starts to open up more, I feel healthier, my relationships feel more intimate, I feel more on my purpose and vital when I practice trusting my feminine and practice seeing the TRUSTABLE MASCULINE that does exist all around me, rather than focusing on the fear and mistrust that is also there. I am still completely terrified to let go and be in my feminine...and I will continue to do this work.
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How to Get Your Partner to Lead you

11/25/2018

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The Biggest Complaint Women have about Men

So many of the women who I work with complain that their partner does not lead them enough. They are furious and devastated that their man (or masculine-identified partner) doesn’t reach out to make plans for dates together, to help get the kid’s lunches ready, or know the directions to get to their planned dinner. But these same women have a nasty habit that so many women I know have, and that I myself have had to work hard (and continue to work hard) at undoing. This nasty habit is taking the lead.


So many women are deeply longing to surrender and be lead well.

But instead of letting our partner lead, we get frustrated and irritated that he isn’t doing it right or isn’t fast enough so we give in to that impatience and take over the reigns. We tell ourselves we need to do this in order to get our needs met. Our need for connection, for a clean home, for getting to appointments on time. But all the while we are resentful at our men because what we really want is for them to share in those responsibilities with us and we feel angry that we are “doing it all by ourselves.” But the reality is that we are castrating him before he even has the chance to try to meet us in these ways.

What we really want is for him to reach out to us and make plans for what needs to be done, but we don’t give him a chance to. We feel the pain of not having what we want and react by taking over then blame him for taking the back seat. Over the last two years in the Embodied Relationship Training with John Wineland and Kendra Cunov I have learned that this dynamic is created because the feminine and masculine in each person want to become polarized.

Each person has a feminine and a masculine within. The feminine is like a wild river: it’s our feelings, pleasure, movement. The masculine is like the banks of that river: it’s the structure, the containment, the silent loving presence that witnesses all.

When one of us takes the masculine in a partnership, the other person will automatically take on the feminine (and vice versa). ​

​
Because nature loves polarity, as opposites create a field of energy (think of the magnetic field created by the north and south poles of the Earth or the electricity created by the positive and negative ends of a battery). So when we as women take on the masculine by creating the structure of WHEN we will meet and HOW we will get there, our man drops into his feminine and simply receives the WHAT of what is happening. The feminine is in charge of the energy in an experience, the “what” of what is wanted or felt. The masculine is the master of time and space, figuring out the “how” it will happen.

So how do we switch this? How do we as women (or the feminine-identified partner in a given moment) create the dynamic we are really wanting, instead of just trying to get what we think we want and then becoming resentful? How do we support our partner in claiming their masculinity rather than psychologically castrating them?

As the feminine there are two things we can do that can begin to dramatically change this dynamic:

1-Wait

2-Reveal your heart's longing 


What this means is


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How I came to practice Orgasmic Meditation

9/26/2016

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March 14, 2015, Pi day, I started practicing Orgasmic Meditation. It was a long journey up to that point, and now 8 months later the journey continues to be one of interesting and at times challenging curves, but always ones that lead me to some new part of myself.

Let me start at the beginning.

I started birth control at age 18. I was (and am) a very responsible person and did not want an unwanted pregnancy. What I wouldn’t know for nearly a decade was that an integral part of myself would be masked from me by taking that daily pill: my sexuality. I thought I was “just not a sexual person.” It seemed to match the culture of my loving but very prudently catholic family that none of me or my three beautiful sisters or mother identified as being sensual or sexual. So I thought that sexuality was just something for others. I didn’t need it. And so when I fell in love with my best friend while away at college at 19 and he gave me the ultimatum to kiss him or never see him again, I figured the lack of sexual attraction was a small price to pay for the comfort, love, and care I would get with him. Sexual attraction just wasn’t important to me, or so I believed.

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    Author

    Karen Wolfe, MFT offers depth therapy with practices to deepen your connection to your Self and to others for individuals and couples in the Bay Area and via video conference across California

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