Bring back the Feminine (Yin and Yang)

Written by listed counsellor/psychotherapist: Judith Schuepfer-Griffin Registered MBACP, BA Hons

3rd March, 20150 Comments

A while ago when on holiday in Malaga, Spain, I went to see a Basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The magnificent church contained many statues of the Virgin, some with child, some without. They were all of life size and dressed in splendid and rich real garments of velvet and silk. I slowly walked around and at the end came to a statue of Mary alone, dressed in a white opulent dress, tears streaming down her face. I was very moved by this depiction and found myself speaking to her: "I know, it's so painful. But we're working on it, we'll do our best to bring you back into this world."

To me she symbolised the Feminine that is outcast from our world, from our lives. It is treated with condescension, trampled, attacked. It is feared and hated. As persons and as a culture we're out of balance; the Masculine is domineering and the Feminine suffers, in men and in women, because we all contain both. I'm not saying that the Feminine is better than the Masculine, they're both equally important, but they need to be in balance. The Masculine is about strength, logic, order, structure, achievement, power. The Feminine is about relating, feeling, creativity, inspiration, intuition, spirituality. It's in flux, always changing and oscillating.

If a man has a good connection to his inner Feminine (also called The inner She or the Muse) he will be confident and comfortable with his Masculinity, strong but with warmth; his decisions will come from reason but be inspired by creativity and intuition. If his relationship to The inner She is problematic, she will express herself "sideways", in a twisted way, and the man will be moody, sulky, or a bully; he will be emotionally underdeveloped, maybe prone to depression. If the Masculine in a woman is too weak she may appear volatile, "flaky", chaotic, over-emotional. But if the Masculine in her is too dominant she will feel constantly under attack from an inner bully, telling her that she's not good enough, or she will appear hard, perfectionist, over-achieving or even obsessive.

If they are in balance she will be strong and clear but also be able to be soft and warm. She will be creative in her thinking and connected to her emotions but not overwhelmed by them. We could call them Yin and Yang instead of Masculine and Feminine. To me this seems more abstract, less tangible, but the principle is the same. If we're troubled and unhappy we could have a look at these inner dispositions and see whether some balancing is needed.

Counselling can help with this so that we can disentangle ourselves from what often feels like inner chaos that makes no sense, and live a happier life.