Image by Keila Maria Designs
In This Article:
- What defines a healthy and empowered masculine identity?
- How is emotional expression part of masculine strength?
- Why freedom and logic are essential masculine qualities
- How the masculine and feminine work best in balance
- How men can lead with purpose, love, and nurturing energy
Real Men Do Cry: Finding Love, Freedom, and Integrity
by Alanna Kaivalya, author of the book: The Way of the Satisfied Woman.
While this book (The Way of the Satisfied Woman) is dedicated to femininity and the feminine woman, it is also helpful to understand what the healthiest expression of the masculine looks like, because we do not exist in isolation, and the feminine actually thrives in balance and harmony with the masculine.
Even though the patriarchy is problematic and prompts distortion of both masculine and feminine energies, we must know the positive power and potential of the masculine so that we may seek it out in our intimate partners, allies, family members, friends, and colleagues.
The Best Masculine Traits
The most fundamental energy of the masculine is logic based and goal driven, but the masculine is much richer and more textured than it is often given credit for. The best masculine men have big, big hearts filled with the courage to walk through fire to protect loved ones and do the right thing. They’re purpose-driven, and often their purpose is prompted by their commitment to being a provider: their ability to create a solid foundation and stability for those they love.
They derive great joy and delight from being generous, especially toward the feminine. They are leaders and love making confident decisions that they know are in the highest interests of those around them. They value integrity and strive to make their actions match their words and ideals.
They also crave freedom — but in a different way than the feminine. While the feminine usually finds freedom through her creative expression (which feels wild to the masculine), the masculine finds freedom in unscheduled time (which feels unpredictable to the feminine).
During unscheduled time, when no external demands or expectations are placed on him, the masculine is most energized and enhanced through passionate pursuits like sports, tinkering, adventure, or thrill seeking. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever stumbled into a man cave during halftime or driven by a campsite filled with male best friends.
The Absence of Freedom
When the masculine feels controlled or senses an absence of freedom, rather than be energized by unscheduled time, his behavior distorts into procrastination — putting important things off for far too long because the notion of time itself feels like another constraint.
Clearly, no one benefits from procrastination, and it increases pressure on everyone. Optimally, the masculine leans into free time as a respite from the pressures of life and uses it to re-energize himself into pursuing his passions and following the needs and desires of his courageous heart.
The Healthy Masculine is Intensely Loving
The healthy masculine is intensely loving. Indeed, love transcends the polarities and is a human quality. The primary way the masculine loves is through committing and cherishing. This level of devotion means that the masculine man remains committed to his partner, his family, his ideals, his values...to the sacrifice of all else.
He is deeply devoted and cherishes his intimate feminine partner by honoring her emotions above his own and by never leaving her alone in her pain until a solution can be reached. He is committed to resolving his partner’s pain or discomfort through his ideas, logic, and action.
Outdated notions of the masculine typically feature emotionless stoicism. What this emotionally sterile model leaves out is a critical quality of masculinity, which is nurturing. We often think of nurturing as a feminine quality, but in fact, nurturing is defined as encouraging growth and development, which are intrinsically masculine traits.
That’s right, men in their balanced and thriving masculinity are always encouraging the healthy growth and development of their relationships, their children and family members, their partners, their careers... you name it. Think about wise masculine characters such as Gandalf, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Morpheus. Those are the kind of nurturers the healthy masculine becomes: the kind who fosters heroes and world-saving adventures.
Questioning Traditional Roles
Of course, our men live in this modern-day world, too. One where traditional roles are being (rightly) questioned and more options are available. Gone is the notion of the man being absent from the home, a heartless robot simply meant to pay the bills.
Today, men have choices, just like women do, to participate more fully in their own lives, families, and life trajectories. No longer do they have the societal requirement to hold the same job for thirty-five years only to retire and then slowly wither. No longer are they expected to be the harsh disciplinarian to the children when they return home from a long day of work. No longer are they relegated to being emotionless “boys who don’t cry.”
Real Men Do Cry
Real men do cry. In fact, healthy men embrace the feminine aspects within them. When emotions run high, they look to their feminine partner to comfort them... but they don’t leave their feminine partner in the masculine nurturing role forever. They use the support and the space to properly process their emotions, work through them with their partner (or family or therapist), and then reorient themselves to their essential masculine nature. Fully developed healthy masculine men always return to themselves and never abandon their feminine counterparts to don the masculine mask permanently.
Balanced and healthy masculine men want to be respected for who they are: for their clear decisions and leadership, their delightful generosity, their clever ideas, and their proud contributions.
For feminine women, it is easiest for us to respect these men when we are confident that they have our best interests at heart, whether they be our intimate partner, family member, colleague, ally, or community member. Wherever we find masculine men, may they cherish the highest needs of the feminine and remain in symbiotic balance with her.
Copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission from New World Library.
Article Source:
BOOK: The Way of the Satisfied Woman
The Way of the Satisfied Woman: Reclaiming Feminine Power
by Alanna Kaivalya.
Although women today have greater opportunity to make our own choices, build independent lives, and craft powerful careers, we all too often forge our path by following the trajectory laid out by men. By emulating what men identify as desirable goals and strategies, we deny our truest, most innate feminine qualities and desires.
The Way of the Satisfied Woman offers an alternative path for women, and for any person who cares to focus more on the feminine than the masculine. The path of the feminine is simply different — perfect in its own right yet integral and complementary to the path of the masculine. Alanna Kaivalya shows how embodying feminine energy sets us free, relaxes us, and allows us to more completely manifest the things that are most important to us.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as an Audiobook and a Kindle edition.
About the Author:
Alanna Kaivalya, PhD, is an author, educator, speaker, and thought leader in the field of women’s empowerment and femininity. She has written five books, developed international training programs, and taught audiences around the world. She earned a doctoral degree in mythological studies and depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and spent more than twenty years studying psychology, the human condition, the nature of the feminine and femininity, and Eastern spirituality.
Her work centers on equipping women with a better understanding of what it means to be a woman in the modern world. Her day-to-day efforts are focused on offering empowering resources through her website, including The Satisfied Woman podcast, her blog, and her exclusive women’s community and online courses.
Find out more and connect with her at TheSatisfiedWoman.com.
Article Recap:
This empowering article by Alanna Kaivalya explores the true potential of the healthy masculine—emotionally present, nurturing, generous, and purpose-driven. Rather than resisting femininity, it complements it, showing how freedom, logic, and emotional strength can live side by side in a modern, balanced world.
#HealthyMasculinity #MasculineEnergy #EmotionalStrength #MenWhoCry #MasculineFeminineBalance #TheWayOfTheSatisfiedWoman #AlannaKaivalya
