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Fear
Fear of not having food, shelter, safety. Fear of death. Fear is survival. Fear provides a primal urge to find food, shelter, safety.
Fear of judgment, rejection, separation. May not be a physical death but all too real. Rebuke. Disappointment. Exile. Banishment. Embarrassment. Outcast. Shame. Guilt. Blame.
Judged, rejected, separated from the tribe. Deemed not worthy. This fear also provides a primal urge, still a survival mechanism. But gives rise to something else… gives rise to the Ego.
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Separation
Rejection is separation. Separation worse than death. From an evolutionary narrative, separation is death. Separation from the pack. Separation from the unit. Separation from the tribe. Separation from the “family”. We are as much social as we are individual. We are connected, meant to survive and thrive together. Bring our abilities to the group, share our strengths, share our weaknesses, move as one.
Separation is being cut off, the disconnect. The uncertainty of being alone. Being foreign, an intruder, unwelcome, exiled. Uncared for, not given a thought, not given the acknowledgment of existence. Being lost and unretrievable.
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Rejection
Judgment is rejection, exile, disowned, abandonment, discarded. Not meeting the standard of expectation. It seeds thoughts of failure and shame. A determination for what stays and what goes. The standard by which anything less is rejected.
The unbearable sense of being rejected. The feeling of being less than. Disregarded. Not worthy. Dismissed and rejected.
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Judgment
What are those voices in our head and why does it always sound like judgment. Judgment sounds like criticism, rejection, expectations, disappointment, blame, condemnation, shame, fault, guilt…
Where does judgment come from.
Judgment comes from ourselves.
Judgment comes from others.
Judgment comes from how we think about ourselves based on how someone from our past and how they thought about us.
Judgment comes from our perception of how we think others perceive us.
Judgment comes from our expectations
Judgment comes from others expectationsOur judgement towards others is the same tool, method by which we use to secretly, inwardly judge ourselves.
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365/365
An entire year of writing.
Writing each day.
Each day writing.
Writing to write.Write to write. Not a destination. No expectations. Just a commitment to be available and present, accessible to the words. A relationship with my thoughts and organizing them into structure, formulating abstract ideas into an interface of legibility. A gratitude for writing, not dismissing or disregarding what’s on my mind, giving them a space to exist and take light.
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Polarity
Does this sound right? Is this what the polarity looks like? It might seem one side feels more positive than the other or maybe one-side feels negative but I don’t think that’s the way to look at it. For example, Love versus Fear, Love might seem like the more virtuous attribute but Fear is a survival mechanism – it’s what keeps us alive, teaches us not to touch fire, be cautious of dangerous situations.
Or we might look at Feminine energy and say that these are the more virtuous, idealistic values but someone might say it’s a little naive to try and uphold these values because in the end, it’s the competitive mindset that reaps the rewards.
And just to reiterate, these are all values we have on a spectrum and not defining men versus women, I’m talking about different energy on a spectrum, differences and similarities we share. We all have these values in some degree or another.
Feminine Energy
Love
Acceptance
Compassion
Effort-oriented
Growth-mindset
Guidance: Communication
Humility
Optimism
Present
Holistic
Parallel processing
HumanismMasculine Energy
Fear
Judgment
Competition
Results-oriented
Fixed-mindset
Guidance: Command
Confidence
Criticism
Past, Future
Compartmentalized
Sequential processing
Individualism
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Competition or Compassion?
The masculine energy is a bit messy, isn’t it? If we were still in a primal, tribal era, the masculine energy would be expected to defend our tribe, survival of the fittest. That would mean learning to hunt, fight, use weapons, kill to make sure our tribe is protected. If some other tribe was trying to harm you or your family, you may get blood on your hands. It would be dirty and you would have to go to a different mind-space to do something like that.
But I don’t see much difference when it comes to competitive culture today, in business, money, politics, sports. A masculine energy will use the competitive mindset with the fear of losing to drive them to work harder, fight and try to win and be dominant. Competition is literal survival, compete or be extinct. It’s a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog, alpha dominant culture. It can get messy, maybe dirty, maybe it’s expected, maybe it’s what’s required to survive.
We’re assuming that the primal function of fear is our only survival mechanism. So as a society we don’t value feminine energy as a driving force of competition or place of leadership as we do masculine energy. And maybe frequently someone with a feminine energy might try to replace and replicate a masculine energy in a competitive setting. If the feminine energy is not a value of this competitive mindset, the question I have is, is the masculine energy the only viable way to “win” or survive in a competition.
I think there is value in a competitive mindset, but the value isn’t in just “winning” or “surviving”. The value is in, who you become in this process. Does “winning” only serve to prop up and bolster a sense of worth, self and ego? Or can “winning” be a function of learning more compassion, care and empathy. We live in a time where winning or surviving doesn’t have to be the ends. And I think we live in a time where we can learn, inherit and embrace more feminine energy to fulfill leadership and competition with compassion, care and empathy on a path toward valuing, learning and embracing both as equivalents.