The Inner Marriage: A Guide to Masculine and Feminine Polarity Work

ISBN-13: 9781644116043

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company

Publication Date: 11-08-2022

Pages: 240

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Elliott Saxby spent six years in an ecovillage before traveling to Asia, where he studied yoga, massage, and Taoist and Tantric practices. The founder of the School of Energetic Bodyworks, Elliott teaches and trains therapists in non-dual therapy and Kundalini bodywork around the world.

Read an Excerpt

From “Moving between the Masculine and the Feminine”

We all have an inner masculine and inner feminine which is not dependent on gender. Both our masculine and feminine have mature and immature expressions.

If our feminine is in her mature, then our immature masculine will try to bring her down through suppression, control and domination, and if our masculine is in his mature, then our immature feminine will try to bring him down by playing the victim, being the center of attention, gossiping, manipulating, blaming, and other immature feminine traits.

They can only rise up into their mature expressions together. To bring the immature masculine to his mature, we need to know the mature feminine within ourselves. And to bring the immature feminine to the mature feminine, we need the mature masculine within ourselves. This is very similar to raising children, in that:

• for a child to step into their mature feminine power, the child needs mature masculine presence within themselves and for this the child needs a model, someone they can take their masculine imprint from, generally a father figure;

• but equally important for a child to develop mature masculine presence within themselves, they need love from their mature feminine which they also need a model for, generally a mother figure.

Similarly, in our partnerships the same dynamic is going on. If we see our partner acting from their immature in an unhealthy way, then we need to embody the opposing mature trait, not the same one that they are in and not the opposing immature. By doing this as adults, we are able to take healthy mature imprints of masculinity and femininity (which we are subconsciously doing all of the time) from the people closest to us, in the same way that we hope children do through access to good role models. Thus, no matter our age, we are all constantly learning from and influencing each other whether we like it or not. Learning to use polarity and duality in our life, is learning to evolve our emotional dynamics and traits, so that nearly all our expressions are healthy.

Once we understand how to work with polarity, we no longer need to be afraid of it. Polarity, especially emotional polarity, can be difficult for some people as they create a black and white existence, becoming trapped in judgements of good and bad, right and wrong, happy or sad. The framework gives insights into our pain and suffering so that we can use them as a gift and tool for growth. The key to not becoming stuck in polarity is learning to use duality, learning to embody the masculine, and feminine traits and the polarities within them.

Common Traits

What we believe and feel in relation to what is masculine and what is feminine is our truth and no one should take this away from us or tell us that we are wrong. But for the purpose of learning to use the polarity framework traits have been identified as either masculine or feminine, mature or immature and arranged in a way to support you to see how emotional polarity and behavioral polarity can work, positively or negatively in numerous ways. The labelling is not intended to be definitive but to teach you how to work with the polarity framework in your own way with any and all emotional and behavioral traits that emerge throughout your life.

Our mature masculine is wisdom, intellect, knowledge, and cooperation. It is our safety, our boundaries, our yes and our no. It is discernment and the right application of free will.

Our mature feminine is everything that we enjoy about life. It is beauty, music, dancing, food, and language. It is everything that we can see, taste, touch, smell and hear. It is everything in creation, as well as diversity, empathy, and our intuition. It is our yes for life, a yes with no judgement, no comparison, or thought of good or bad. It is the complete expression and acceptance of all life.

Our immature self creates conflict, but it is this conflict that spurs us on and instigates change, transformation, and our deeper insights. When we can recognize the gifts within our conflict, we will grow, learn, and develop, whether enjoying the process or not. Our immature self lets us know when something is out of balance and needs attention. By cycling between our mature and immature self with awareness, we develop a healthy ego. A healthy ego makes life beautiful, while allowing us to acknowledge that it is not who we really are. While our unhealthy ego can still create feelings of joy, it is always perpetuating our sense of “separate self” through fear and suffering.

Our separate self is best described as: our experience of the world from the mind. Reacting to the world from memories and mental programming, creating fear, and opposition from greed and survival needs, or attacking others from these same places. As we gain more access to empathy, emotional intelligence, intuition, and a sense of the collective consciousness, we come to know that the separate self is a partial truth, not the truth.

Fundamentals of the Framework

If we feel we are in our immature feminine, bringing our masculine down, we need to stop and move into our mature masculine’s values and traits: looking at how we are not supporting our feminine. We need to ask questions like:

• What have I said yes to, that I should have said no to?

• Where have I crossed my own boundaries, or allowed someone else to do so?

• Where does my feminine not feel safe?

• What mental concepts or knowledge have I learned that I am not applying to life?

• And where am I not using discernment to choose the best outcome?

And if we feel our immature masculine is bringing our feminine down then we need to stop and start focusing on our mature feminine’s values and attributes in order to bring our masculine up:

• looking to see where inspiration, creativity, and diversity are lacking in our life?

• where we are failing to listen to our intuition?

• where we are not accepting ourselves enough?

• and why we are not feeling self-assured?

Masculine and Feminine Polarity work, or working with polarity and duality in its simplest form is about:

1. embodying the opposing mature pole, to bring the immature up;

2. making our immature healthy;

3. learning from, and transforming our shadows.

When we are able to work with the masculine and feminine polarities within ourselves, developing our ego, navigating between our inner and outer expressions, our mature and immature, and using our shadow as a tool for growth, we come closer to mastering duality.

Practical Examples

Example 1: Attention-Seeking

We are going to use the immature feminine’s attention-seeking as an example, believing that everything is about us, thus taking everything personally in a self-obsessed, self-absorbed and selfish way.

The immature feminine’s attention-seeking opposes the immature masculine’s arrogance. Relating this to taking everything personally, the masculine will be locked into his state of separation, reaffirming that he and his arrogant beliefs are the correct way. Generally speaking, the more arrogant we are, the more attention seeking we will be, whether we admit it or not.

To evolve the immature feminine’s attention-seeking to her healthy, mature expression of self-assurance, we need to embody the trait that opposes it in the mature masculine, which is humbleness.

To simply say, “stop seeking attention and then you will be self-assured,” is not so easy and is the same as saying, “stop being in your immature feminine and then you will automatically be in your mature feminine,” which is generally not true. We normally need to:

• do something;

• learn something;

• or change something to get there.

By becoming the mature humble masculine, we indirectly evolve the immature feminine from attention-seeking into self-assurance. We use both polarity and duality to change or evolve our situation and understanding. So, by stepping into our mature masculine and by being humble, we remove the need for attention-seeking in the feminine, as attention-seeking in the feminine is the lack of humbleness in the masculine.

This does not mean we become less feminine, and more masculine; it simply means that we become more self-assured, and humble.

Trying to change by not being something, is much more difficult, and almost impossible, compared to changing something by being something else. Similarly, Albert Einstein (German-born theoretical physicist, 1879 to 1955) said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

When we use the Masculine and Feminine Polarity Framework to create change, it is clearer to see what we need to do in each quadrant, and this generally is:

• Embody: the opposing mature.

• Evolve: into the mature, of that same polarity.

• Avoid: the opposing immature.

By taking the focus away from the immature quadrant that we are having trouble in, we have a much better chance of evolving it. So, in relation to our example above of attention seeking in the immature feminine:

• We embody: humbleness (the mature masculine), and all the other, mature masculine traits, that are a fit for us.

• We evolve: into self-assurance (the mature feminine).

• We avoid: arrogance (the immature masculine).

And by doing this, we indirectly stop seeking attention and move out of the immature feminine.

If this sounds complex, then please read it again with the Masculine and Feminine Polarity Work Maps, until it becomes clear. This abstract theory is important to learn. The specific traits and labels we assign help, but once we really understand the framework, we will start to apply it in our life without thinking. Our brain will automatically start to think in polarity and duality, healthy and unhealthy, mature and immature. We will indirectly move away from good and bad, right and wrong; you are this, and I am that, and similar judgements.

There are many and various methods out there to help us make changes and embody qualities within ourselves, including; emotional freedom tapping technique (EFT), self-hypnosis, and basic forms of breathwork. One of the simplest ways is to just start with an intention, write it down, say it to yourself in the morning, meditate on it. Go for a massage, to the gym, or a yoga class, and dedicate that session to your intention. Imagine your life once this intention is your reality.
The hard part is learning our lessons within the polarities that we are working with, as everyone’s journey is unique, and often, so are our lessons. It is not wise for other people to tell us exactly what our lessons are, as this robs us of our learning. We have to find the answers ourselves while being inspired by those around us, in the same way that I hope you will be inspired by this book, finding your own inner truth, and your own meanings from it.

Table of Contents

Preface 11

Introduction 13

A Note … 15

Part 1 The Mature, the Immature, and the Shadow

Map

The Masculine and Feminine Mirror 18

1 Moving between the Masculine and the Feminine 19

2 Polarity and Duality: What Is the Difference? 29

3 Using the Framework with Others 34

4 Intention and Purpose 38

5 Self-Love and Acceptance 41

6 Always Four People in Any Relationship 42

7 Happy Immature Lives and Being Single 46

8 Why Women (the Mature Feminine) Seem to Be Evolving More Quickly 52

Map

Evolving the Masculine and Feminine 54

Map

Devolving the Masculine and Feminine 55

9 The Unhealthy Mature 56

10 Making the Immature Healthy 61

11 A Note on Judgement 65

12 The Good, the Bad, the Healthy, and the Unhealthy 66

13 Catch-22: No Model for the Mature 68

14 The Mature and Immature Archetypes of Parenthood 74

15 Working with Our Inner Critic 84

16 Ending Relationships 88

17 Double Masculine, Double Feminine 89

18 The immature Fights the immature 93

19 The More You Are, the More You Are 95

Part 2 Sex and Other Applications of the Polarity Framework

20 Sex 103

21 Ejaculation and Energy 106

22 Gender, Domination, and Submission 107

23 The Power I Feel When I Do Something Bad 111

24 The Empath and the Narcissist 113

25 Importance of Worship and Honouring 116

26 Surrender, Trust, Power, and Forgiveness 120

27 The Healthy Victim 128

Part 3 Shadow Work

Map

The Immature's Shadow 132

28 The Shadow 133

29 Four Schools of Shadow Work 134

30 Emphasizing Our Shadow 137

31 Transforming Our Shadow 141

32 The Illusion of Good and Bad 147

33 The Shadow in Society and Feminism 150

34 The Backlash of Duality 153

35 Dark Masculine and Feminine 155

36 Making Our Desires Healthy 157

Part 4 The Physical, Mental, and Emotional Bodies

37 Dimensions of Consciousness 161

38 De-armouring the Three Main Bodies 163

39 Unlocking Conscious Awareness from Our Mind and Developing Emotional Awareness in Our Glands 165

40 Natural Polarity 172

41 Spectrum of Emotions and How to Raise Our Vibration 174

42 The Actual Root Cause of Our Problems 179

43 Your Relationship as Its Own Conscious Entity 182

44 Working with the Collective Consciousness 184

45 The Essential Nature of Love, Fear, and Hate 191

46 A Path to Self-Love 194

47 Jealousy 199

48 Money 201

49 Creating Balance in Duality 205

Part 5 Integrative Healing

50 Healing through Polarity 215

51 Masculine and Feminine Integrative Therapy Techniques 218

Epilogue 227

Glossary 233

Recommended Reading 236

Index 237

About the Author 239