February 13, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, host James Ainsworth explores the sacred dance of masculine and feminine energies within ourselves with guest Benjamin, an author and men’s circle facilitator. Together, they delve into the challenges, misconceptions, and power of embracing both energies to find harmony and purpose in life.
🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ Why balancing masculine and feminine energies is key to personal growth.
✔️ The impact of fear and judgment on our inner world—and how to transform them into allies.
✔️ Practical steps to create inner balance and reconnect with your authentic self.
✔️ How to redefine masculinity and integrate vulnerability as a strength.
✔️ The role of awareness, surrender, and courage in stepping into the unknown.
✔️ Why self-acceptance is the foundation for meaningful relationships and purpose.
💡 Who This Episode Is For:
→ Men feeling stuck or disconnected, searching for clarity and direction.
→ Those struggling with fear, overthinking, or societal expectations of masculinity.
→ Leaders and mentors who want to support others by embracing authenticity.
→ Anyone drawn to personal growth, emotional resilience, and finding meaning in life.
🎧 Subscribe & Listen Now to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning for inspiring conversations on modern masculinity, personal transformation, and stepping into your true path.
About Ben:
For the past decade, I have been deeply committed to men’s work, regularly holding men’s circles—often gathered around a fire. Exploring the alchemy of the masculine and feminine has been a lifelong calling, driven by a desire to welcome all aspects of the psyche into a state of wholeness. I believe that everything carries its own medicine, and I feel a deep longing to remind all beings of their inherent wholeness and beauty.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In this week's episode, weexplore the sacred dance of
masculine and feminine energieswithin ourselves, what it means
to embrace both sides, and whyit is essential for personal
growth.
We dive into the roles of fearand judgment, uncovering how
they shape our inner world andshowing how they can become
(00:21):
powerful allies instead ofobstacles.
And finally, we share practicalsteps to create inner balance,
helping you to align with yourauthentic self and find harmony
in your life.
Welcome to Man (00:35):
A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men
navigate modern life, find theirtrue purpose, and redefine
manhood.
I'm your host, James, and eachweek, inspiring guests share
their journeys of overcomingfear Embracing vulnerability and
finding success.
(00:55):
From experts to everyday heroes.
Get practical advice andpowerful insights.
James (01:02):
Believe that both masculine and feminine qualities
exist within every person,regardless of the gender.
Society has imposed rigiddefinitions of what it means to
be a man or a woman, oftenconflating masculinity with
maleness and femininity withfemaleness.
This creates confusion andlimits our understanding of
(01:23):
these energies.
Sometimes terms like ying andyang or lunar and solar energies
can better express theseconcepts, as the words masculine
and feminine carry so muchcultural baggage.
However, it is essential foreach of us to acknowledge and
integrate both aspects withinourselves.
(01:45):
When we reject either themasculine or the feminine
within, we tend to reject thesequalities outward, often in
distorted or shadowed ways,until we learn to embrace them
as part of our wholeness.
This internal division stemsfrom a cultural tendency to
separate consciousness frommatter, mind from emotion, and
(02:06):
even the divine aspects offather and mother.
Yet I feel that the universe iscalling us back to unity.
The sacred alchemy of divineunion within.
Hello Benjamin, can you explainmore?
Benjamin (02:22):
Yeah so I feel like for me, My whole life has been
like a learning to integrate themasculine and feminine and it's
only been last say 20 years thatI really realized that's been my
journey.
And it even started off withlike my parents splitting when I
was younger, when I was likefour or five, and I'm growing up
(02:48):
in a culture where there's beenthis patriarchal sort of.
Oppression of the land of thefeminine of our softer nature.
And, um, and yeah, and growingup what is it to, what's it mean
to be a man and how do Inavigate this and trying all the
different different ways andknowing that lots of those
(03:09):
didn't actually work.
Yeah, and more and more justrealizing that I need to
actually uncover what these meaninside me.
What does the masculine meaninside me?
What's the feminine mean?
Rather than just, okay, somebodysaid, I have to be like this way
and then trying to be likesomething that I don't even know
how to be.
It's so there's been a continualjourney of learning, learning,
(03:30):
what do these mean inside?
James (03:33):
Yeah, I can usually relate because I can, this last
probably two, three, four yearshave been all about me.
Embracing not only just themasculine, but also the
feminine.
So the masculine, I see as thekind of the warrior, the one who
does things, who goes out tomake things happen.
(03:54):
And combine that with the lover,who then is all to do with
emotion.
It's all to do with connectingto the earth, the land,
connecting to our own internal.
Femininity.
But also, recently, something'scropped up to do with balancing
the masculine and feminine, sothe masculine being action
(04:16):
taking and doing, and thencombining that with the
feminine, which is to do withsurrender.
So about taking action, and thensurrendering, allowing that
action to integrate, and thentaking action, and then
surrendering.
Benjamin (04:31):
That's beautiful, yeah.
There's something like thatThere's a lady called Maya Luna,
who I really like.
Lots of her work, she talksabout the deep feminine current,
and there's something she speaksabout often we say okay the
masculine holds space and thefeminine surrenders.
But actually like when these aretwo aspects inside us, it's
actually the masculine, theassertiveness that surrenders to
(04:54):
the feminine, that surrenders tothe current, that surrenders to
the isness of things, it's likewe have our will that we're
going to do this, but at somepoint.
That on its own is reallyungrounded and becomes frazzled,
actually that, like that theking goes into the underground,
has to die and be, to be reborn.
(05:15):
I feel like the masculineactually has the courage to
surrender into the mystery to godown into the unknown, to go
surrender and then be rebornagain.
James (05:28):
Yeah, I hear that.
I do hear that as well, becauseI hear sometimes that the
feminine represents the unknown.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Almost stepping into thismystery, and As from the
masculine point of view,stepping into the unknown it's
scary.
It's terrifying.
And it's requires this requirescourage to really step into that
(05:55):
unknown because in the unknown,you don't know what's going to
happen.
You almost, in fact, you aresurrendering to whatever comes
up.
Within that sense of surrender.
There's this, I but I feel it'sthis idea that it's that being
present in that moment andallowing ourselves to almost
explore not just oursurroundings, but what's
(06:19):
happening to ourselvesinternally.
Benjamin, can you tell me aboutyourself please?
Benjamin (06:24):
Okay.
I can I grew up in Wales.
And I came to university timeand I came up to Manchester and
studied physics and I think Iwas expecting it to be this kind
of mystery school really where Icould come and become like this
crazy scientist or come up withthese beautiful ideas and Yeah,
(06:44):
and I quickly discovered thatuniversity wasn't like that,
that it felt, to me, it feltlike just imposing lots of ideas
and then having to regurgitatethem and they didn't feel like
there was that space for thecreativity for the genius to
come through.
I think I secretly had this ideaof being like Einstein or
something like that.
And then it was like, okay,there's not really space for
(07:06):
that, that, that wildness andthat creativity to come through.
And they spent a long time,didn't want to just go into, uh,
conventional.
I didn't want to work for theMin Ministry of Defense or
whatever.
Lots of my friends did.
And I was like, I didn't knowwhat my soul calling was.
And so I spent a lot of timetrying to work that out.
(07:28):
And I went through a bit of akind of psychosis, spiritual
kind of dark night of soultrying to.
Figure out how to be yeah.
And then gradually started tofind my way through that and was
practice yoga a lot and thingslike that.
And and then after about 13years of that, then I went, I
(07:51):
started to explored some plantmedicines and enjoyed the
teachings from that.
And but I think a lot of thejourney is learning to trust
that wisdom inside.
Rather than oh, somebody outsidegot the answer, or some guru, or
some book, or it's oh, actually,my own heart is the best teacher
(08:11):
for me.
James (08:13):
Quickly, how did you balance between the mind and the
brain, and trust in the heart?
So obviously, a lot of peopleare very much in the head, and
they talk about droppingthemselves into the heart space,
because in the heart space, Ifeel that, that is, I feel
(08:33):
myself, that is very feminineenergy in the heart, and the
masculine feel, the mind feelsvery masculine.
How did you drop into the heart,and what did you specifically
do?
Benjamin (08:46):
Okay, so rather than answering that directly there's
something I've noticed recentlyis like how I need to actually
be kind to the heart, to, to themind.
Like when I make the mind anenemy and I'm trying to get,
stop my thinking and get into myheart or, Oh, it's bad that I've
got a mind that doesn't, itdoesn't help me drop into my
heart.
(09:06):
And like I was dancing the othernight, I was doing, I do five
rhythm dancing and somebody waslike, okay, don't, no need to
think about this.
Don't think about this.
Just be in the body.
And I was like.
That doesn't actually help medrop into the body.
What helped me to drop into thebody is to let my mind be there
and soften underneath it.
And part of me realizes thatreally the mind is just my
(09:28):
breath.
I've not got to like when Isurrender my mind, what do I
risk?
I surrender it to the breath.
And it's not like I surrender itby getting rid of it or cutting
it off.
It's almost just like Isurrender it by recognizing it's
none other than the intelligenceof the breath.
Or the imagination of the heart.
And so then rather than thisfracturing of gotta fight the
mind and get rid of it, it'salmost okay, I'm meant to have a
(09:50):
mind.
And if I'm having a go at it,there's gonna be some kind of
war.
Whereas if I can actually saywow, thank you, beautiful mind,
thank you.
And a lot of the mechanisms inthe mind are trying to protect
me.
I actually, when I try and whenI'm attacking it, one, it's the
mind attacking itself, but.
Also, it's going to get moreprotective.
(10:13):
Whereas when I actually saythank you.
And wow, beautiful mind is ableto come into its right
functioning.
And there's a word I likesometimes that is is calling it
the mind of light.
It's this is mind of light.
And when I'm treating it,funnily, it doesn't function.
It doesn't appear to be the mindof light, but but there's times
where I recognize really all themind is doing is seeing the
(10:37):
beauty.
Of creation of what already is.
So all of my ahas are just asort of almost just a seeing of
some kind of beauty.
And it's ah, and often I'll tryand grasp hold of that.
And it's oh, I've got toremember it.
But actually, really, it wasjust a blossoming of what was
already here in the mystery,already here in the beauty of
(10:57):
the feminine.
And I suppose I like that I saidabout the protection, instead of
protection, we could sayguardian.
It's like one of, for me, one ofthe main aspects of the
masculine is guardianship, isprotectiveness.
And it's here to be in reverenceof, to, to the mystery, to the
feminine.
(11:18):
Yeah, there was some otherthread on there, but that was
it.
James (11:22):
Yeah, I love that because what I'm realizing myself at
this moment in time is if I'mfeeling very heady, I'm feeling
in my head, I'll just decide,okay, I put my focus onto that
point.
And usually when I put my focusonto that point, sometimes it's
there for ages, but that's allright.
But sometimes I'm there for afew seconds, and I just
(11:43):
automatically shift down into myhealth space, and it's the same
with fear, so I've started tocreate a new relationship with
fear.
My feeling on fear is that fearwas just, fear is just there to
protect us when we're younger.
As a child, we're veryvulnerable, and it's just, if we
see people who are quite mean tous, our fear will keep us safe
(12:08):
by perhaps not going to the sameplace where they are.
Or avoiding them.
Our fear, I find that our fearis still the same fear that we
had when we were a child.
And so, acknowledging that fear,that it was there to protect us,
and allowing fear to be there,and almost allowing ourselves to
(12:29):
love that part of ourselves.
Because at the end of the day,as you said, you start trying
to, and I've done it for manyyears, you start trying to push
that fear away.
It comes back harder, but if youaccept it and allow it to come
in as part of you, it tends to,it's almost, it softens and it
(12:51):
starts to, okay, realize, okay,maybe he doesn't need our help
just yet, but it's always thereif you do need it.
Benjamin (12:59):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
I like that you've brought upfear because recently that feels
like a really a beautifulexploration.
I realized that lots of times.
People are talk about thesacredness of anger or embracing
our grief, but often fears notreally spoken into is Oh yeah,
(13:22):
it's fear mentality that made usdo that.
Oh, it's choose love, not fear.
And I'm like, why don't we justchoose to love the fear?
And the times where I havechosen to love the fear, I
realized that the frightened oneis so divine is actually this
beautiful being of love.
And I sometimes I know that wecan say Oh, we can call the fear
(13:43):
excitement, but I'm realizingactually the fear is a very
sensitive one.
It's almost like this reallysensed, like the really young
newborn is in that sensitivespace.
I think before it's even beenunmet because I think a lot of
the time fear is that sensitiveone that's not been met.
(14:04):
And it's but like the newborn isin that sensitivity and it's not
even been denied yet.
And it's just that real like aloud noise and it reacts and
it's just and it's and Irealized for me, especially as a
man, we've been told like, don'tbe frightened.
Don't be sad.
And though those, for me, thosetwo soft energies, soft emotions
(14:26):
which I see more as thefeminine.
Emotions and like anger and joyis more of the young masculine
emotions, though those for men,those like fear and anger are
shut down and don't be unmanly.
And I know for myself that fearis always going to always been
here.
And when I'm told not to feelit, what I'm left with is
(14:48):
numbness.
And then I wonder why don't Ifeel my anger or why don't I
feel my joy or sadness?
It's because I've been told thatbasic sensitivity of who I am is
wrong.
And it's so realizing that as Ican actually turn to that and,
maybe the masculine of my mindturn towards that frightened one
and say you're allowed to, youdon't even have to come up with
(15:09):
a story about why you're here.
You don't have to worry aboutscenarios just to justify why
you're here.
Maybe there's that, maybethere's a robber around the
corner or.
Maybe this will end or whatever,but she hold that light, like we
would with the child.
Sometimes we'll just hold themand we won't have them justify
(15:31):
or explain why they're feeling acertain way.
We just told them.
And it's wow, I haven't learnedto do that for my own fear, my
own sensitivity.
And I think as I, I learned todo that, it's there's so many
things that come into alignment,really.
James (15:46):
It's so something that I've been working on as well is,
I realized that my dominantfeeling, emotion, tends to be
anxiousness.
But what I, when I allow myselfto, how am I feeling today, or
how am I feeling in this moment,and I feel anxiousness.
What I do then is allow myselfto connect to that anxiousness
(16:08):
and ask, what is the need?
What is your need?
And quite often the need forthat part of me just wants a bit
of love and support.
So then I'll allow myself tofeel loved and supported.
And then I'm able to shiftmyself from anxiousness.
To a sense of love, which issuper powerful, and it's quite
(16:33):
simple, it's, it might seemcomplicated to somebody who's
never tried it, but once you've,once you try it, and once you
ask yourself them questions,intuitively, you, you know what
you need, and the same withanger, same with fear, and the
same with all these differentemotions, they're just there for
(16:54):
a purpose.
And once we understand theirpurpose while they're there, we
can start to unravel not justour core underlying wounds, but
also we can understand how wecan move ourselves from one
state to another state.
(17:15):
In an instant.
Benjamin (17:16):
I realized that with it's the same with desire.
Often it's not that, that newpartner or that, job, say, pay
salary increase or whatever itis that actually I'm desiring.
Actually what's, what I'mdesiring is the one that desires
to be met.
I'm desiring to be acknowledgedby myself, by my own awareness
(17:40):
rather than it's it's almost asif I'm saying this thing like,
wow, Oh, Hey dad.
Will you get me that new suite?
And really didn't really wantthe new suite from dad.
It's just wanted dad to say,Hey, I see your son.
And it's almost like their ownpsyche.
And sometimes those desires alsothat there is something behind
them, but I think the, maybethey also need, there is
(18:03):
something neat in them, the needfor them.
But I think primarily to meetthat young one, first of all.
I remember there was a bookcalled fathered by God and it
had the different stages of ofinitiation for men.
And the first stage was belovedson.
(18:23):
And then the next one was wasadventure or something like
that.
And it was saying that.
The first stage, we need to justknow that we're just beloved of
us, the apple of our father'seye, not for any reason, just,
we're just there.
And it's and if we don't getgrounded in that.
When we go through the otherstages of initiation of our, in
(18:45):
our life, we're constantlyseeking that the previous one.
So it's like when we're doingthe adventurer one, why aren't
us doing, just doing it for thepure joy of wow, I get to see
the world and express myself.
We're constantly looking backand, Hey, look, dad, do you see
me?
I just did this.
And, unmet need beforehand.
(19:07):
I like that one.
Sometimes just that one of can Irest in, in being the beloved.
Can I just rest, sometimes, Oh,I could just let myself be the
beloved, and I love that way inwhich in our psyche, we can be
both.
I can let myself soften into thebeloved of the young one or the
feminine and also be themasculine awareness that's
(19:28):
telling it how beautiful it is.
And it's and sometimes it mightbe that I rise up into more of
the masculine, almost lookingdown to my belly, selling like,
Hey, I have a beautiful belly,you're beautiful or heart.
I love how I suppose back tothat alchemy, how we're always
both and I realized thatsometimes it's I don't realize
(19:50):
I'm always both.
And I'm I'm looking for, to thewoman, a woman outside and
going, Oh, you're the one you'rethe beloved, you're the
feminine.
And I'm trying to, one of mypatterns has been to rescue, to
want to tell the to the womanoutside how beautiful she is,
cause I can see how she's notrealizing it.
And I'm like, Hey, there'snobody telling you off, but
(20:11):
yourself, like you're beautiful.
It's okay for you to recognizeyour beauty.
But I realized that.
The reason I'm doing that isbecause I haven't fully done it
to myself.
And it's there's, in a way,there's that young one or the
inner feminine inside me thatactually wants that to be said
to me.
And it's almost like I'msourcing it, saying it to other,
(20:33):
to, to women.
And then hoping that maybe atsome stage their masculine will
rise up and say to me like, Ohyour emotional body is beautiful
as well.
But that never really happensbecause they've needed me to
play that part and yeah, so it'sjust that, I suppose that seeing
that codependence that, that,that comes when I don't
(20:53):
recognize that I've always gotboth parts.
I've got my mind and myemotional body, or I've got my
masculine and my feminine andand I feel like.
The universe is constantlymirroring back the parts that
haven't integrated.
Just say, Hey, look, you haven'tgot this bit.
You're chasing it outside.
Look here, have it.
James (21:15):
But this is on quite nicely.
So obviously in our society, inthe world generally, we have
these ideas of what masculinityand femininity is.
How do you define both themasculinity and femininity?
Benjamin (21:31):
Okay, good question.
So it's been quite a journey andlike a recognizing that,
oh,
I'm allowed to almost break from the script of what
other people say it is.
And just what do these reallymean inside me?
For me, basically just thedownward energy is the feminine,
is that dropping from up andcoming down and the upward
(21:54):
energy is the masculine and orthat's one of the ways I define
it.
But another way would be theassertiveness the fire, that's
the yang energy.
For the masculine and for thefeminine, the receptivity and
(22:15):
another one of maybe I'll justthrow a couple of quite a few in
there is the giving energy, thekind of the giving energy being
the masculine and thereceptivity being the feminine.
And obviously, obviously, likeboth men and women will have the
receptivity and theexpressiveness.
And cause I, cause often I'llhear women saying, but, ah, but
(22:37):
women are very, uh, expressiveor giving and it's see the they
are, yeah, but that's theirmasculine aspect, that's their
more outward going aspect and,and their inward coming is the
feminine.
And there's that, there's theone as well of the softness or
the sensitivity being more ofthe feminine and the protective,
(23:01):
the strong being the masculine.
And it's like a rope, we needlike the strong strand and the
powerless strand, because thepowerless strand, it's like, for
the rope to work, for it to, weneed those both aspects.
And and I suppose it's almostlike we could break any polarity
into the yin and yang aspect ofit, or the masculine and
(23:25):
feminine.
And so inside myself, I use thewords masculine and feminine
very much the way the Chinesewould use yin and yang.
And and I know that kind ofprobably clashes with lots of
people's definition of themasculine and feminine, but.
It's an interesting onesometimes within Tantra, I'll be
(23:45):
hearing something and I'llreally love what they say and
they'll say, okay, we've all gotthe masculine and feminine
inside us.
And then the next bit, they'llbe using the word masculine to
mean man.
and feminine to meet women.
It's wow, they've just, they'vefallen into that conditioning,
even though they were talking alittle bit before about the
(24:06):
opposite of that.
So one, one I have as well, it'sso something like birth that a
woman's doing, I feel that, the.
Incubating of the egg is veryreceptive and receiving and
holding, but the actual birthprocess is very masculine, it's
very into the world.
Yeah.
And it's what I love as well islike the, all of these
(24:27):
polarities couldn't existwithout each other.
They also they define eachother, up and down fear and
anger, sadness and joy.
It's they actually, they've gotthis co creation together.
And they don't even tall andsmall, that doesn't, they don't,
doesn't exist without eachother.
James (24:46):
Yeah, it's quite a hard one to to gravitate, really.
It's because, obviously, we'vebeen told, you're male, you're
female.
But, obviously, we each haveboth masculine and feminine.
And You see these, I think a lotof people have their definitions
(25:08):
of what masculinity is.
So masculinity is strong.
You can do stuff for kind offemin, fem femininities
surrendered and held back attimes.
But at the same time, I feel asthough it's more a dance.
So with Insiders, we've got, Idon't know whether it's, I don't
(25:29):
know whether it's we're equal orwe're not equal, it doesn't
really matter, but I feel as adance Insiders of where we have
to where we dance with thefeminine and the masculine.
So what I mean is that we havethis idea that When we are able
(25:50):
to dance with both the masculineand the feminine, we're able to
both give and receive.
But sometimes I feel as though,in our society, we get stuck on
this idea of what they both are,and it almost hinders how we can
(26:10):
get into the flow.
So I feel like, when we're inthe flow, we're dancing both the
masculine and the feminine.
Whereas when we are stuck, whenwe are stagnant, when we are
bored, when we are hungry orsomething like that, I feel as
though we are almost gravitatingOne way and we might be stuck in
(26:32):
that way and we don't know quitehow to get the dance to flow
again I was just thinking in themoment.
Benjamin (26:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Once you were speaking, I was Iwas on a walk with my friend and
we were you've done a podcastwith him Matthew.
And and we would just talk causehe's doing the, this massage
walk along the spine of Albionand that, and we're talking
about massage as it's it's gotboth the masculine and feminine.
There's the kind of there's the,the doing.
(27:01):
But it's like when I'mmassaging, I have to be
listening to what muscles need.
And so it's there's a doing ofthe masculine, but there's the
listening of the feminine.
So I'm realizing like anotherdefinition of the masculine and
feminine is the speaking or thesounding and the listening.
And so to me the deep feminineis the one that listens, the
(27:22):
listening.
And from that listening comesthe awareness of what to speak.
And yeah and maybe that is thatone with there's a vulnerability
in listening.
There's, there's a vulnerabilityin receiving other people's
words and sometimes it's saferto just be the one that knows
and yes, no, I'm not in themystery.
Yes.
I know what's going on in lifeand storm on through, but
(27:44):
actually the real groundednesscomes from recognizing we don't
really know.
And and from that space of notknowing there's this space for
different knowings to come andgo, but it doesn't become that
rigid stuck in one thing.
Cause like you spoke about the,sometimes we get almost stuck in
one thing.
Sometimes it's like we want tostay in the knowing and the
(28:07):
safety up in the tower ofconsciousness.
Yes.
I'm pure consciousness or, I'mstrong.
I'm not frightened.
Really it's a denial of ourwholeness because, it's not
true.
I don't have a clue, but whenI'm willing to go, okay, I don't
have a clue.
Then I'm in a space where newthings can arise and conversely,
we can get stuck in that almostlike refusing to take action.
(28:32):
almost sunk in the feminine inthe not knowing.
It's Oh no, the masculine's bad.
Oh, I don't want to go up there.
And it's actually they both needeach other.
Like the feminine to feel safeneeds, needs the mind, the
protection, the knowing to letit know that.
It can flow without itsgroundedness in the feminine is
(28:55):
going to become yeah isdisconnected and not connected
to that vitality of.
of the ground, of the isness oflife, sort of thing.
James (29:07):
Just when you were talking about that there, it
just came to me that, so in,when it comes to my
relationship, I'm currentlysingle, and it's the idea that
there's part of me that resists.
When I go out, it's part of methat resists almost going and
speaking to women because partof me is afraid, but it's also,
it's almost as though I feel asthough the, it's the, there's a
(29:31):
stagnant flow between themasculine and the feminine.
I feel as though if I'm in themasculine and the feminine as a
whole, there's almost this ideathat whether I go up and chat to
that woman and nothing happens.
or whether something happens, ifI was in that flow of masculine
and feminine, it wouldn't reallymatter.
(29:52):
But I feel as though sometimeswhen you're in that stagnant
state or in that state ofresisting that dance, flow of
dance, you're almost, you'reeither too forward or you're not
forward at all and you're held,holding back.
And I feel as though this isalmost once.
(30:15):
You are doing something likethis.
I feel it almost ripples throughquite a few areas in your life.
But almost thinking about itnow, in a sense that if I was to
just change one, so if I was,say, for example, completely
discover my purpose and startworking my business, that's
going to bring my, I feel it'sgoing to bring me self into this
flow of this dance of flow,which then I feel as though
(30:39):
would ripple out into otherareas, say relationships, say
fun, laughter, and I feel asthough it's almost this idea
that Once you are able to createthis area, this flow between
masculine and feminine, onearea, it ripples through the
whole of your life.
Yeah, totally, yeah.
(30:59):
That's just an example that cameto me.
Yeah, I
Benjamin (31:01):
like it, yeah.
One thing I'm aware of is howlots of these dynamics are
actually started before we evenhad words.
We're like when we were born oreven in, in the womb sort of
thing.
And there, there was certainenergetic lessons that we
(31:22):
learned like, Ooh, let's be, I'mwary of that.
That masculine energy that comesin like for me, that dragged me
out with forceps, it was justlike Whoa, I thought it was
safe.
And yeah.
So it's interesting, like thesepatterns, like we might not
necessarily know why they are acertain way.
(31:43):
With our minds.
And some maybe it is just thelearning to energetically work
through them and allow ourselvesto meet the, those different
feelings that haven't had thespace to be welcomed through in
the process of act, acting.
Creating a new neural pathwayand following it.
James (32:04):
So you mentioned earlier when you were talking about
telling the woman, she'sbeautiful and almost rejecting a
part of yourself.
How can people realize when theyactually rejecting this part of
themselves and how can peoplestart to accept or start to work
through this rejection of thispart?
Benjamin (32:27):
Okay good question.
Recently I've split up with mypartner, been going out for two
years and that that was onlylast week.
So I'm still processing that.
But I realized, even though Ithought okay, I'm holding this
together.
I'm trying to find a balance.
I realized that I'd Iprioritized her emotional body
(32:49):
over my own, like herdysregulation.
I'd be like, wait a minute, I'llget I'll get her regulated
first.
And then, I'll put my life onhold until, and yeah.
And in some ways I was trying tobe strong in that.
And it's okay, no, I can holdthat.
It doesn't matter, but really, Iwasn't fully turning towards my
own heart, my own beauty.
And there's something that Irealized as a man, it's often
(33:11):
can see beauty outside and wow,like outside almost being the
connection to beauty.
But it's can I actually see thatbeauty as myself?
Can I, how do I talk to my ownbeauty?
Do I hold boundaries for my ownbeauty?
And yeah.
So like another thing I noticedis.
(33:31):
You spoke about like the woundor the cold wound and off the
wound for me is, it's very closeto the word womb.
It is in the feminine, the woundin the tenderness and often we
don't want to go where the woundis, and so we create all these
structures or all thesemasculine protections, even the
inner critic.
(33:52):
Is, underneath the inner criticit's got the wound, the inner
critic is not feeling nice andaligned.
It's feeling oh, fuck.
And yeah how to, I'm wonderingwhat the thread was saying
there.
Yeah how often I'm either in theprotection.
Trying to like, make sure woundsoutside are out sorted out or
I'm avoiding my own or all thatone of being in the wound and Oh
(34:15):
Oh, why is everybody soaggressive outside?
And realizing that actually Ineed to myself turn towards that
wound.
And for me my, I think differentpeople have different phrases
for what they call wound is.
Mine is, I'm wrong.
Some other people, it might be,I'm not enough or I'm, I'm not
worthy or whatever it is.
(34:37):
In the end, it's still that,that same one of, this is
unacceptable who I am, there'ssomething wrong or unacceptable
with it.
And realizing that when I'm inthat codependence thing, I'm
either making outside wrong.
Or I'm making myself wrong.
(34:57):
And it's like, what, what if Ican make mistakes?
What if I don't need to makeanything wrong?
And I've been exploring recentlywhat if there's nobody left to
blame?
What if there's nobody left toblame, including myself or
particularly myself?
It's I can still, I can so mucheasier learn from my lessons if
(35:19):
I don't blame anything, Parents,past, I can acknowledge the pain
that happened or whatever.
But I think what if I don't needto blame, there's such a Oh, the
system just goes.
So I came up with this phrasethe other day, the war's over.
It's time to celebrate andrealize that, okay, there's so
(35:42):
many different wars that I haveinside my psyche, and
externalize with other people.
And it's like, all of them arebasically just this subtle
energy of blame.
Or call it blame, comparison,judgment, and it's like, all of
those are some kind ofprotective mechanism that's
(36:05):
trying to protect me fromturning towards the one that
feels wrong and letting it knowit's okay that you feel that
way.
You're allowed, you'rebeautiful.
Or to the frightened one andsaying Hey, you're allowed to be
here.
And it's suddenly it's like, Oh,like that one of people saying
like all the wars are because offear mentality.
I think all the wars are becausewe haven't turned towards the
(36:27):
frightened one and say, Hey, Ilove you.
You're allowed here.
Oh, okay.
Don't need to blame some outsidestuff.
And yeah.
I don't know whether that, in aroundabout way, answered the
question, but I thought I'd wrapon what you said.
James (36:45):
I can feel when you said that the war's over, it's time
to celebrate.
And, get rid of blame, like mybody just dropped relax, relax.
So how do, so if we do havethese say, for example,
fractured parts, or should I sayshadows, or whatever we will
call them, parts of ourselvesthat we reject, what do people
(37:07):
have to look out for in order toidentify these?
Benjamin (37:12):
One thing I've recently realized is like how
often we're quick to findsomething wrong.
Whether it be the mind, the egoor anger or fear, and even okay,
no, it's my shadow then.
Or it's my, and it's actually,what if I haven't got to find
something wrong and then try andfix it?
(37:32):
And it's so I would say just howkind are we being?
How kind are we being?
Are we are we treatingsomething?
Like we're fighting it, someaspect inside ourselves or
outside
and
it's maybe I didn't come here to fight.
Maybe I came here to welcomehome aspects in creation that
have these beautiful divineparts of creation, which
(37:55):
everything is that just haven'tbeen told that they're divine.
And it's there's I like there'sa guy called Matt Kahn, who I
follow and I like lots of stuffhe said.
And one he says is if youwouldn't talk to a three year
old like that, don't talk to anyother part in creation like
that.
And it's it's a three year oldand maybe we sometimes need to
say Hey, no, don't do that, butwe wouldn't wrong it.
(38:17):
We would just recognize howbeautiful it is.
And it's I recognize how oftenI'm not talking to myself with
the reverence of this divineyoungster that I am.
James (38:30):
That's quite, that's beautiful.
It's it's quite often you cansee it in the spirit, spiritual
realm, how we're always lookingfor the shadow parts.
But what if we, as you said,what if we don't, we don't have
to say their shadows and seethem as just parts of themselves
and you know what, you areloved, come on in, regardless of
(38:51):
the part.
Benjamin (38:53):
Cause it's you can see We can see the inner critic.
Often we can get into a fightwith the inner critic.
And it's oh, if it wasn't forthe inner critic, it's
sabotaging me.
And it's oh, wait a minute.
Underneath the inner critic,what's really going on?
Okay, there's some hurt that'shappened, and it's feeling that
pain.
And then it's repeating thatsame pattern of hurt, just to
(39:15):
make sure it doesn't get, toprotect the system.
And it's I could villainize theinner critic and make it a demon
or ah, which just create thisbig fight in my system or I can
actually learn to bless thewound that's hiding in that.
And it's maybe in inside everyshadow there, there's a wound
that's not been met.
(39:36):
And I love the word this wasfrom Maya Luna, the love secret
hiding place.
And it's ah, it's whether wecall that the wound or fear or
our deepest yearning, all ofthose, it's like calling it love
secret hiding places.
It's not even that I've got togive it love and transform it.
(39:57):
It's almost just a recognizing,wow, this is already love.
Just didn't realize it.
And
it's wow, like the idea of, telling the end of
critic wow.
Wow, you're really here tryingto help me, aren't you?
And if that inner critic is alsopart of me, then I can also
become it and allow it to do itsjob a bit better.
(40:20):
Which really all it's trying todo is bless me, to look after
me.
But when I'm fighting it, it'stotally not going to happen.
James (40:28):
That's like when we were talking about fear earlier on,
how changing our relationshipwith fear from running away from
it to almost accepting it andloving that part of ourselves
and discovering the need thatthis fear needs.
Yeah, that's comes back to thefull thing.
So what practical steps canpeople start to take to start to
(40:52):
balance their masculine andfeminine?
Benjamin (40:55):
One, one, one thing that I've realized is like how
important it is to to meet oursexuality, our innocence.
And so one I'd recommend is likea self pleasuring practice where
we're really not trying to getanywhere, but just like that
same love that we'd give apartner.
(41:15):
Where we just touch ourselves.
We're not in a rush.
We're not even gonna getanywhere, but we're just like,
almost if I was touching apartner, right?
With my hand, I'd be like, Oh,I'd almost like with my mind,
I'd be saying, Oh, you'rebeautiful.
I love you.
Wow, you're a mystery.
I don't know who you are, andit's but I haven't learned to
have that reverence for myself.
And so what I've been loving,not just with self pleasuring,
(41:38):
but it's almost like seeing,what if I see the mind and the
light and the awareness of mymasculinity?
And it's learning to romance thebeauty, and beauty is always a
mystery.
We can think of it as outsideform, but it's not outside form.
It's always a mystery.
Like, why is a flower sobeautiful?
Why is it smell?
It's just ah, and the wordbeauty is very close to the word
(41:59):
love.
It's just ah.
And so in a way, my mindalready.
Already, my mind of lightalready loves the beauty of
which I am.
It's just almost been lookingthe other way.
It's almost not realized it'sallowed to turn towards itself,
and it's actually, as I start tosee my own beauty, the start to
(42:21):
love and see the, my own beauty,it's so easier to see it in
other people because it's like,Oh, that must also be in the
other.
So I think for me, the main oneof balancing the two is.
It is yeah, the beauty, seeingthe two, the feminine as the
beauty and the masculine as theone that wants to see that, and
(42:43):
all of my mind wants to see thebeauty.
It's almost looking for thebeauty.
And when I'm looking foroutside, there's this subtle
codependence.
Whereas when I actually can, ah,oh, wow, it's here, there's the
sort of like a resting backinside myself.
James (43:02):
Yeah, it's almost as though a sense of.
Deeper awareness, so almost likea leaf, looking at a leaf from a
sense of beauty, looking at aleaf from a sense of exploring
different parts, and at the sametime I feel as though What
you're saying there is aboutexploring, obviously not just
(43:26):
self pleasure in ourselves, butsay you're cooking tea,
exploring how you move thecocktail, exploring how you are
able to type on a computer,exploring the way that you are
able to speak expressively toanother person.
And it's almost a sense of,exploring, almost a sense of
(43:50):
exploring our own way that welive on a deeper, more open
viewpoint, but from a, almostfrom a higher perspective,
rather than this low perspectiveof, okay, that's just that,
let's just carry on.
And it's more of a, okay, I'm onthis laptop, how do my fingers
(44:10):
feel when I touch the keys?
How do I feel when I'm sittingdown on a chair or standing up?
How do my feet feel against mythe floor?
And it's exploring that.
Sensitivity within ourselves.
Benjamin (44:24):
It's interesting, as you were speaking, you were
like, from a higher perspectiveand things like that.
And it just reminded me of howoften we almost make high good
and low bad.
High vibes good, low bad.
And that wasn't, I was justlike, it just reminded me.
And it's so we're like, oh yeah,higher self.
But we rarely talk about deeperself, yeah.
(44:46):
And for me, the soul.
isn't up there far away, thespirit's up, but soul is
actually underneath it.
And so it feels like thatfracturing that we've had
between the masculine andfeminine is in that yeah, we
have to be high vibe.
We have to be up.
What's the highest version ofourselves?
Which, all of that is reallybeautiful, but how about what's
(45:06):
the deepest version of myself?
What's, and how.
And I feel like really the loveis between our higher self, that
which we can actualize, and ourdeeper self, which is almost
like that potential.
And it's almost like the yeah,it feels like the deeper self
for me is the mother and thespirit itself.
And the actualization is thefather is consciousness.
(45:26):
And it's us to learn thatthere's a unification inside
these two, I was dancing thatthen I was realizing, oh, Often
I've been turning into okay,feeling God within and down and
not trying to do the up aboveand leave my body.
But I was realizing just thesimplicity of Oh, I'm in God,
(45:48):
all around me is God.
And inside me.
Is Mother God, it's like FatherGod's all around me and Mother
God's inside me, and as I touchMother God inside me, I realize
it's all around, but it's justthat almost like that.
I don't know about that.
All around holding me.
And then that sacred innocenceinside that's actually birthed
(46:11):
it all as well.
And it's just wow.
James (46:13):
So I've been doing a static dance for three years
now, so I absolutely love it.
Like yourself, I absolutely loveit.
It's one of my favorite thingsto do.
And just thinking about it now,when I, obviously when I first
did it, there was a sense ofanxiousness and are people
judging me kind of thing.
But now I just allow myself justto flow and let a body to move
(46:35):
to how I want to move.
sense of surrender.
But at the same time, it'sinteresting now how I might go
to the next time and just seehow, just to be witness to the,
both the masculine and thefeminine energy, and it dance
and moves, and just see if it'sa change in how I move.
Benjamin (46:56):
Sometimes I'll, in five rhythms, they have flow and
then staccato.
Flow is more of the kind offeminine kind of, and then
staccato is more of thestructure.
And so when I'm in that flowbit, I just okay, almost just
okay, I let myself be in myfeminine.
And it's just almost let myselfsometimes also I'll, okay, I'll
let myself be in the frightenedone, not in this petrified, but
(47:19):
just in this kind of, Oh, and toeven go around the room,
welcoming, giving permission toall the fear to be here rather
than, Oh no, we're notfrightened, but Oh, okay.
Ah.
And suddenly it's In a funnyway, I'm fearless then.
And it's funny, it's once I'veactually said yes to fear,
you're allowed to be here.
Suddenly it's not what I thoughtit was.
(47:41):
And it could almost say I'mfearless in those, but then
yeah, that's maybe not the rightwords, but here's another thing
that she with judgment, Irealized that young part of me
with whether we caught, causethey say like from zero to
seven, we're in the feminine.
And then from seven to 14, we'rein the.
the father and then the next 47years we're in the wider
(48:03):
community or whatever.
But
what was it?
Yeah.
So when I'm in my feminine, inmy tenderness, in the young one,
it's very easy for me to lookaround and Oh, who's judging me?
Oh, and it's I'm projecting outthe mind.
Or the judge on to other peopleto judge me, maybe
James (48:20):
yes.
Benjamin (48:21):
And realizing that there, that's perfectly natural
thing that I do, but actuallywhen that frightened one is
allowed to have its own wait aminute.
Now that I'm older, nobodyelse's judgments need to touch
me.
They have to come through thefilter of my own judgments,
cause realizing really ifsomebody said, Hey, you're doing
this, Ben, and you're blah,blah, blah.
(48:42):
If it was something that I wasquite certain, like I was okay
about.
It wouldn't touch me, whereas ifit was something I was judging
myself about anyway, I'd belike, I'd be crushed by it.
It's almost like what Irecognize that other people's
masculine mind judgments have tocome through the filter of my
own.
(49:02):
So in a way, when I am in my, inmore in my feminine flow energy
and I'm seeing other people,what I think other people are
judging me about, becausesometimes it's not even that
they're not even doing it, butwhat I imagine they're judging
that it's almost showing me thejudgments.
And my masculine that I need tobring back for me because those
(49:22):
judgments I'm imagining they'remaking it's wait a minute.
If it's only me that's makingthem, I get to choose whether to
make them.
It's okay, I'm not going tobother making them.
And the same one around,sometimes it'll be that I'm more
in the masculine energy.
I'm like, look at them, they'redoing that.
How dare they?
It shouldn't do that.
And those judgments that I'mmaking when I'm in the masculine
(49:43):
of other people are just theways that I've learned to
protect myself.
And it's Oh, wait a minute, it'sshowing me again, like one, can
I, do I have to carry on thatway?
Or could I speak to myself morekindly?
Because they're just showing mehow I'm talking to myself.
So it's been quite a journey forme recently to like, how do I
(50:04):
integrate the teachings withinthe, within judgements?
Because it's easy to fightjudgements and make it wrong,
but actually, okay, wow what isthere in judgements?
Judgments, I think other peopleare making me or judgments I'm
making of other people.
And how do I bring them backinto a heart space?
And I realized that judgmentsare when I'm making something
(50:26):
wrong, whereas when it comesthrough the heart, it can be
more of a discernment.
I can still say no to something,but I don't have to go no,
because it's really bad.
It's not for me.
There's something as well aboutthat I have about recognizing
that.
Like the judgements, they'reactually, they're not for
(50:49):
anybody else.
They're for me.
So when they're actually allowedto be for me, they can become
discernment and recognizing thateach of my emotions is actually
for me.
Like my anger isn't caused orbecause of something outside.
It's actually for me.
And when I'm allowed to have itfor me, then it's allowed to be
more obviously a flavor of love.
(51:10):
Whereas when it's maybe angry,it's just Whoa, this big, strong
energies arisen inside me.
to look after me.
And if I haven't made it wrong,then I haven't got to catharsize
and get rid of it.
It's just whoa.
Oh, okay.
It's safe now.
James (51:25):
It almost feels though, judgment is it's there to
protect us, but it's there, it'sthere to keep us within the
boundaries of society.
And so it's like this idea thatsay, for example, Where you're
in the middle of the dancefloor, or I'm in the middle of
the dance floor, and I'm dancingaround, and I've got all these
(51:46):
people who are just watching.
There's almost part of me like,James, don't do that.
Because, I might be shot orsomething, because I'm suddenly,
my head is above the parapet, soI'm being watched.
So suddenly somebody can picksomething small out about me.
So there's a sense thatjudgment's just there, really,
(52:07):
as a safety mechanism, which Ifeel as though judgment's almost
connected to beer.
And it's this thing just to keepus, just to keep us underneath
the surface so we know we can'tbe seen.
Yeah.
And is it, I think that's the reason why when people step
out, say for example, you stepout onto social media with what
(52:30):
is your purpose and you starttalking about what you're what
you'd love to do.
Why a lot of people start to geta lot of harsh comments or
judgments is because suddenly.
They're heads above the parapet,they're out there, and now that
is a people's own judgment beingprojected back onto themselves.
(52:55):
But you see it as, oh, a strikeat you.
But it's a good indication thatsometimes you are on the right
path.
Benjamin (53:04):
And it's interesting the one you said about how their
judgements are actually almostlike the judgements that they
have of themselves that aretrying to protect themselves.
No, don't show up, don't standout too much, don't put your
head about, and then so thenwhen somebody does it, they're
like, no, don't do that.
And, yeah.
So I see that often judgmentsare almost the memory of how
(53:24):
we've been hurt, the way to whenwe were younger, the way we were
criticized by, teachers, family.
And we're repeating that as adialogue inside ourselves so
that it doesn't happen so thatwe've, we stop ourselves before
it happens.
And so there's something aboutlike, how do we, How do I
(53:45):
suppose, how do we befriend thataspect of our psyche, rather
than fight it, but how do welight the fear?
How do we turn towards it andrealize that there's something
juicy and beautiful within this,so there's some pains there that
haven't been met.
If those pains that wereunderneath those judgments that
we received had been met andalchemized, and we'd given that
(54:05):
one a cuddle.
there wouldn't be the need forthat continuation judgment
because we'd know that we've gotthis.
So it's almost like maybeunderneath each judgment, I'm
just coming to me now is amemory of some place that we've
not fully met yet.
James (54:23):
Yeah, I feel as though for me, judgment just needs to
be loved.
I can, it's just, you feel ithere, and it's the need, it just
needs to be loved.
Because I felt almost as thoughthe parts of me that have been
wronged in the past haven't beenloved.
(54:44):
And that's just what they need.
Yeah.
Benjamin (54:47):
And it seems like the word judgment, whether we call
it judgment, it feels very muchlike blame really.
It's like actually the judgmentsof the times that we've been
blamed.
Yeah.
And yeah, like how and realizing that every time that
somebody blamed me in the past,even if they really made it
about me, they weren't comingfrom a really regulated nervous
(55:10):
system and a space of lovingthemselves.
They were actually just reallyshowing me how they'd been hurt.
And then I went, Oh, it's aboutme.
How dare you hurt me that way,which, they did make it about
me.
When I was younger, I didn'thave the resources to realize,
Oh, actually, that's actuallytheir shit.
That's, they're just showing mehow they've been hurt when I can
(55:32):
actually let myself know Hey,you've done nothing wrong.
This is not your fault.
You're a beautiful being.
I can also see that, Oh,actually, even in them, even
underneath all their pain, theyare also that beautiful being.
So I think it's like one of howto alchemize my judgments and
blames into meeting the.
(55:54):
The one that's hurtingunderneath it, to turn in
towards that wound, that theblame is trying to protect in a
kind of over the top way,really.
James (56:04):
Yeah, I like it.
To finish off, can you tell us,what is it that you do, and how
can people get in contact?
Benjamin (56:13):
Okay starting some YouTube videos, I'll, Plan to do
like a weekly YouTube video andgo for walks with friends and
have chats and things like thatAnd I've written a book which
got here.
It's called What's it called?
Whispers to the subtle love thatlives in all that's on Amazon
and that, and I'm in Manchesterand help hold some men's circles
(56:36):
around a fire each week.
It's really beautiful.
So if anybody's around thatarea, around Manchester and
would like to join, welcome toget in touch.
I suppose I haven't got awebsite.
So main way to contact me wouldbe via Facebook Messenger.
yeah, one thing that I haven'tsaid that I realized that
something that's been in me fora long time that I haven't, it's
(56:58):
taken me a while to realize ishow much I love the mother, the
mother, God, mother of creation,that, that which we come from.
And I realized that almost likefor me, all of creation is in
devotion to that great mysteryof the mother.
And and when I remember that,there, there's yeah, there's
just a softening and a warmth inmy heart that is, oh, yeah.
(57:23):
And to remember that, that everybeing, maybe they could give it
different names, is, is made andfilled with that same love.
James (57:32):
Yeah, it feels like Mother Earth.
Almost we can sit in her bosomon the ground and feel her
underneath ourselves.
Yeah.
Thank you very much, Ben.
It's been absolutely greatconversation.
Yeah, it's
Benjamin (57:46):
been lovely.
I've enjoyed it.
James (57:47):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Benjamin (57:50):
Thank you, Jan.
In this week's episode, weexplore the sacred dance of
masculine and feminine energieswithin ourselves, what it means
to embrace both sides, and whyit is essential for personal
growth.
We dive into the roles of fearand judgment, uncovering how
they shape our inner world andshowing how they can become
(00:21):
powerful allies instead ofobstacles.
And finally, we share practicalsteps to create inner balance,
helping you to align with yourauthentic self and find harmony
in your life.
Welcome to Man (00:35):
A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men
navigate modern life, find theirtrue purpose, and redefine
manhood.
I'm your host, James, and eachweek, inspiring guests share
their journeys of overcomingfear Embracing vulnerability and
finding success.
(00:55):
From experts to everyday heroes.
Get practical advice andpowerful insights.
James (01:02):
Believe that both masculine and feminine qualities
exist within every person,regardless of the gender.
Society has imposed rigiddefinitions of what it means to
be a man or a woman, oftenconflating masculinity with
maleness and femininity withfemaleness.
This creates confusion andlimits our understanding of
(01:23):
these energies.
Sometimes terms like ying andyang or lunar and solar energies
can better express theseconcepts, as the words masculine
and feminine carry so muchcultural baggage.
However, it is essential foreach of us to acknowledge and
integrate both aspects withinourselves.
(01:45):
When we reject either themasculine or the feminine
within, we tend to reject thesequalities outward, often in
distorted or shadowed ways,until we learn to embrace them
as part of our wholeness.
This internal division stemsfrom a cultural tendency to
separate consciousness frommatter, mind from emotion, and
(02:06):
even the divine aspects offather and mother.
Yet I feel that the universe iscalling us back to unity.
The sacred alchemy of divineunion within.
Hello Benjamin, can you explainmore?
Benjamin (02:22):
Yeah so I feel like for me, My whole life has been
like a learning to integrate themasculine and feminine and it's
only been last say 20 years thatI really realized that's been my
journey.
And it even started off withlike my parents splitting when I
was younger, when I was likefour or five, and I'm growing up
(02:48):
in a culture where there's beenthis patriarchal sort of.
Oppression of the land of thefeminine of our softer nature.
And, um, and yeah, and growingup what is it to, what's it mean
to be a man and how do Inavigate this and trying all the
different different ways andknowing that lots of those
(03:09):
didn't actually work.
Yeah, and more and more justrealizing that I need to
actually uncover what these meaninside me.
What does the masculine meaninside me?
What's the feminine mean?
Rather than just, okay, somebodysaid, I have to be like this way
and then trying to be likesomething that I don't even know
how to be.
It's so there's been a continualjourney of learning, learning,
(03:30):
what do these mean inside?
James (03:33):
Yeah, I can usually relate because I can, this last
probably two, three, four yearshave been all about me.
Embracing not only just themasculine, but also the
feminine.
So the masculine, I see as thekind of the warrior, the one who
does things, who goes out tomake things happen.
(03:54):
And combine that with the lover,who then is all to do with
emotion.
It's all to do with connectingto the earth, the land,
connecting to our own internal.
Femininity.
But also, recently, something'scropped up to do with balancing
the masculine and feminine, sothe masculine being action
(04:16):
taking and doing, and thencombining that with the
feminine, which is to do withsurrender.
So about taking action, and thensurrendering, allowing that
action to integrate, and thentaking action, and then
surrendering.
Benjamin (04:31):
That's beautiful, yeah.
There's something like thatThere's a lady called Maya Luna,
who I really like.
Lots of her work, she talksabout the deep feminine current,
and there's something she speaksabout often we say okay the
masculine holds space and thefeminine surrenders.
But actually like when these aretwo aspects inside us, it's
actually the masculine, theassertiveness that surrenders to
(04:54):
the feminine, that surrenders tothe current, that surrenders to
the isness of things, it's likewe have our will that we're
going to do this, but at somepoint.
That on its own is reallyungrounded and becomes frazzled,
actually that, like that theking goes into the underground,
has to die and be, to be reborn.
(05:15):
I feel like the masculineactually has the courage to
surrender into the mystery to godown into the unknown, to go
surrender and then be rebornagain.
James (05:28):
Yeah, I hear that.
I do hear that as well, becauseI hear sometimes that the
feminine represents the unknown.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Almost stepping into thismystery, and As from the
masculine point of view,stepping into the unknown it's
scary.
It's terrifying.
And it's requires this requirescourage to really step into that
(05:55):
unknown because in the unknown,you don't know what's going to
happen.
You almost, in fact, you aresurrendering to whatever comes
up.
Within that sense of surrender.
There's this, I but I feel it'sthis idea that it's that being
present in that moment andallowing ourselves to almost
explore not just oursurroundings, but what's
(06:19):
happening to ourselvesinternally.
Benjamin, can you tell me aboutyourself please?
Benjamin (06:24):
Okay.
I can I grew up in Wales.
And I came to university timeand I came up to Manchester and
studied physics and I think Iwas expecting it to be this kind
of mystery school really where Icould come and become like this
crazy scientist or come up withthese beautiful ideas and Yeah,
(06:44):
and I quickly discovered thatuniversity wasn't like that,
that it felt, to me, it feltlike just imposing lots of ideas
and then having to regurgitatethem and they didn't feel like
there was that space for thecreativity for the genius to
come through.
I think I secretly had this ideaof being like Einstein or
something like that.
And then it was like, okay,there's not really space for
(07:06):
that, that, that wildness andthat creativity to come through.
And they spent a long time,didn't want to just go into, uh,
conventional.
I didn't want to work for theMin Ministry of Defense or
whatever.
Lots of my friends did.
And I was like, I didn't knowwhat my soul calling was.
And so I spent a lot of timetrying to work that out.
(07:28):
And I went through a bit of akind of psychosis, spiritual
kind of dark night of soultrying to.
Figure out how to be yeah.
And then gradually started tofind my way through that and was
practice yoga a lot and thingslike that.
And and then after about 13years of that, then I went, I
(07:51):
started to explored some plantmedicines and enjoyed the
teachings from that.
And but I think a lot of thejourney is learning to trust
that wisdom inside.
Rather than oh, somebody outsidegot the answer, or some guru, or
some book, or it's oh, actually,my own heart is the best teacher
(08:11):
for me.
James (08:13):
Quickly, how did you balance between the mind and the
brain, and trust in the heart?
So obviously, a lot of peopleare very much in the head, and
they talk about droppingthemselves into the heart space,
because in the heart space, Ifeel that, that is, I feel
(08:33):
myself, that is very feminineenergy in the heart, and the
masculine feel, the mind feelsvery masculine.
How did you drop into the heart,and what did you specifically
do?
Benjamin (08:46):
Okay, so rather than answering that directly there's
something I've noticed recentlyis like how I need to actually
be kind to the heart, to, to themind.
Like when I make the mind anenemy and I'm trying to get,
stop my thinking and get into myheart or, Oh, it's bad that I've
got a mind that doesn't, itdoesn't help me drop into my
heart.
(09:06):
And like I was dancing the othernight, I was doing, I do five
rhythm dancing and somebody waslike, okay, don't, no need to
think about this.
Don't think about this.
Just be in the body.
And I was like.
That doesn't actually help medrop into the body.
What helped me to drop into thebody is to let my mind be there
and soften underneath it.
And part of me realizes thatreally the mind is just my
(09:28):
breath.
I've not got to like when Isurrender my mind, what do I
risk?
I surrender it to the breath.
And it's not like I surrender itby getting rid of it or cutting
it off.
It's almost just like Isurrender it by recognizing it's
none other than the intelligenceof the breath.
Or the imagination of the heart.
And so then rather than thisfracturing of gotta fight the
mind and get rid of it, it'salmost okay, I'm meant to have a
(09:50):
mind.
And if I'm having a go at it,there's gonna be some kind of
war.
Whereas if I can actually saywow, thank you, beautiful mind,
thank you.
And a lot of the mechanisms inthe mind are trying to protect
me.
I actually, when I try and whenI'm attacking it, one, it's the
mind attacking itself, but.
Also, it's going to get moreprotective.
(10:13):
Whereas when I actually saythank you.
And wow, beautiful mind is ableto come into its right
functioning.
And there's a word I likesometimes that is is calling it
the mind of light.
It's this is mind of light.
And when I'm treating it,funnily, it doesn't function.
It doesn't appear to be the mindof light, but but there's times
where I recognize really all themind is doing is seeing the
(10:37):
beauty.
Of creation of what already is.
So all of my ahas are just asort of almost just a seeing of
some kind of beauty.
And it's ah, and often I'll tryand grasp hold of that.
And it's oh, I've got toremember it.
But actually, really, it wasjust a blossoming of what was
already here in the mystery,already here in the beauty of
(10:57):
the feminine.
And I suppose I like that I saidabout the protection, instead of
protection, we could sayguardian.
It's like one of, for me, one ofthe main aspects of the
masculine is guardianship, isprotectiveness.
And it's here to be in reverenceof, to, to the mystery, to the
feminine.
(11:18):
Yeah, there was some otherthread on there, but that was
it.
James (11:22):
Yeah, I love that because what I'm realizing myself at
this moment in time is if I'mfeeling very heady, I'm feeling
in my head, I'll just decide,okay, I put my focus onto that
point.
And usually when I put my focusonto that point, sometimes it's
there for ages, but that's allright.
But sometimes I'm there for afew seconds, and I just
(11:43):
automatically shift down into myhealth space, and it's the same
with fear, so I've started tocreate a new relationship with
fear.
My feeling on fear is that fearwas just, fear is just there to
protect us when we're younger.
As a child, we're veryvulnerable, and it's just, if we
see people who are quite mean tous, our fear will keep us safe
(12:08):
by perhaps not going to the sameplace where they are.
Or avoiding them.
Our fear, I find that our fearis still the same fear that we
had when we were a child.
And so, acknowledging that fear,that it was there to protect us,
and allowing fear to be there,and almost allowing ourselves to
(12:29):
love that part of ourselves.
Because at the end of the day,as you said, you start trying
to, and I've done it for manyyears, you start trying to push
that fear away.
It comes back harder, but if youaccept it and allow it to come
in as part of you, it tends to,it's almost, it softens and it
(12:51):
starts to, okay, realize, okay,maybe he doesn't need our help
just yet, but it's always thereif you do need it.
Benjamin (12:59):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
I like that you've brought upfear because recently that feels
like a really a beautifulexploration.
I realized that lots of times.
People are talk about thesacredness of anger or embracing
our grief, but often fears notreally spoken into is Oh yeah,
(13:22):
it's fear mentality that made usdo that.
Oh, it's choose love, not fear.
And I'm like, why don't we justchoose to love the fear?
And the times where I havechosen to love the fear, I
realized that the frightened oneis so divine is actually this
beautiful being of love.
And I sometimes I know that wecan say Oh, we can call the fear
(13:43):
excitement, but I'm realizingactually the fear is a very
sensitive one.
It's almost like this reallysensed, like the really young
newborn is in that sensitivespace.
I think before it's even beenunmet because I think a lot of
the time fear is that sensitiveone that's not been met.
(14:04):
And it's but like the newborn isin that sensitivity and it's not
even been denied yet.
And it's just that real like aloud noise and it reacts and
it's just and it's and Irealized for me, especially as a
man, we've been told like, don'tbe frightened.
Don't be sad.
And though those, for me, thosetwo soft energies, soft emotions
(14:26):
which I see more as thefeminine.
Emotions and like anger and joyis more of the young masculine
emotions, though those for men,those like fear and anger are
shut down and don't be unmanly.
And I know for myself that fearis always going to always been
here.
And when I'm told not to feelit, what I'm left with is
(14:48):
numbness.
And then I wonder why don't Ifeel my anger or why don't I
feel my joy or sadness?
It's because I've been told thatbasic sensitivity of who I am is
wrong.
And it's so realizing that as Ican actually turn to that and,
maybe the masculine of my mindturn towards that frightened one
and say you're allowed to, youdon't even have to come up with
(15:09):
a story about why you're here.
You don't have to worry aboutscenarios just to justify why
you're here.
Maybe there's that, maybethere's a robber around the
corner or.
Maybe this will end or whatever,but she hold that light, like we
would with the child.
Sometimes we'll just hold themand we won't have them justify
(15:31):
or explain why they're feeling acertain way.
We just told them.
And it's wow, I haven't learnedto do that for my own fear, my
own sensitivity.
And I think as I, I learned todo that, it's there's so many
things that come into alignment,really.
James (15:46):
It's so something that I've been working on as well is,
I realized that my dominantfeeling, emotion, tends to be
anxiousness.
But what I, when I allow myselfto, how am I feeling today, or
how am I feeling in this moment,and I feel anxiousness.
What I do then is allow myselfto connect to that anxiousness
(16:08):
and ask, what is the need?
What is your need?
And quite often the need forthat part of me just wants a bit
of love and support.
So then I'll allow myself tofeel loved and supported.
And then I'm able to shiftmyself from anxiousness.
To a sense of love, which issuper powerful, and it's quite
(16:33):
simple, it's, it might seemcomplicated to somebody who's
never tried it, but once you've,once you try it, and once you
ask yourself them questions,intuitively, you, you know what
you need, and the same withanger, same with fear, and the
same with all these differentemotions, they're just there for
(16:54):
a purpose.
And once we understand theirpurpose while they're there, we
can start to unravel not justour core underlying wounds, but
also we can understand how wecan move ourselves from one
state to another state.
(17:15):
In an instant.
Benjamin (17:16):
I realized that with it's the same with desire.
Often it's not that, that newpartner or that, job, say, pay
salary increase or whatever itis that actually I'm desiring.
Actually what's, what I'mdesiring is the one that desires
to be met.
I'm desiring to be acknowledgedby myself, by my own awareness
(17:40):
rather than it's it's almost asif I'm saying this thing like,
wow, Oh, Hey dad.
Will you get me that new suite?
And really didn't really wantthe new suite from dad.
It's just wanted dad to say,Hey, I see your son.
And it's almost like their ownpsyche.
And sometimes those desires alsothat there is something behind
them, but I think the, maybethey also need, there is
(18:03):
something neat in them, the needfor them.
But I think primarily to meetthat young one, first of all.
I remember there was a bookcalled fathered by God and it
had the different stages of ofinitiation for men.
And the first stage was belovedson.
(18:23):
And then the next one was wasadventure or something like
that.
And it was saying that.
The first stage, we need to justknow that we're just beloved of
us, the apple of our father'seye, not for any reason, just,
we're just there.
And it's and if we don't getgrounded in that.
When we go through the otherstages of initiation of our, in
(18:45):
our life, we're constantlyseeking that the previous one.
So it's like when we're doingthe adventurer one, why aren't
us doing, just doing it for thepure joy of wow, I get to see
the world and express myself.
We're constantly looking backand, Hey, look, dad, do you see
me?
I just did this.
And, unmet need beforehand.
(19:07):
I like that one.
Sometimes just that one of can Irest in, in being the beloved.
Can I just rest, sometimes, Oh,I could just let myself be the
beloved, and I love that way inwhich in our psyche, we can be
both.
I can let myself soften into thebeloved of the young one or the
feminine and also be themasculine awareness that's
(19:28):
telling it how beautiful it is.
And it's and sometimes it mightbe that I rise up into more of
the masculine, almost lookingdown to my belly, selling like,
Hey, I have a beautiful belly,you're beautiful or heart.
I love how I suppose back tothat alchemy, how we're always
both and I realized thatsometimes it's I don't realize
(19:50):
I'm always both.
And I'm I'm looking for, to thewoman, a woman outside and
going, Oh, you're the one you'rethe beloved, you're the
feminine.
And I'm trying to, one of mypatterns has been to rescue, to
want to tell the to the womanoutside how beautiful she is,
cause I can see how she's notrealizing it.
And I'm like, Hey, there'snobody telling you off, but
(20:11):
yourself, like you're beautiful.
It's okay for you to recognizeyour beauty.
But I realized that.
The reason I'm doing that isbecause I haven't fully done it
to myself.
And it's there's, in a way,there's that young one or the
inner feminine inside me thatactually wants that to be said
to me.
And it's almost like I'msourcing it, saying it to other,
(20:33):
to, to women.
And then hoping that maybe atsome stage their masculine will
rise up and say to me like, Ohyour emotional body is beautiful
as well.
But that never really happensbecause they've needed me to
play that part and yeah, so it'sjust that, I suppose that seeing
that codependence that, that,that comes when I don't
(20:53):
recognize that I've always gotboth parts.
I've got my mind and myemotional body, or I've got my
masculine and my feminine andand I feel like.
The universe is constantlymirroring back the parts that
haven't integrated.
Just say, Hey, look, you haven'tgot this bit.
You're chasing it outside.
Look here, have it.
James (21:15):
But this is on quite nicely.
So obviously in our society, inthe world generally, we have
these ideas of what masculinityand femininity is.
How do you define both themasculinity and femininity?
Benjamin (21:31):
Okay, good question.
So it's been quite a journey andlike a recognizing that,
oh,
I'm allowed to almost break from the script of what
other people say it is.
And just what do these reallymean inside me?
For me, basically just thedownward energy is the feminine,
is that dropping from up andcoming down and the upward
(21:54):
energy is the masculine and orthat's one of the ways I define
it.
But another way would be theassertiveness the fire, that's
the yang energy.
For the masculine and for thefeminine, the receptivity and
(22:15):
another one of maybe I'll justthrow a couple of quite a few in
there is the giving energy, thekind of the giving energy being
the masculine and thereceptivity being the feminine.
And obviously, obviously, likeboth men and women will have the
receptivity and theexpressiveness.
And cause I, cause often I'llhear women saying, but, ah, but
(22:37):
women are very, uh, expressiveor giving and it's see the they
are, yeah, but that's theirmasculine aspect, that's their
more outward going aspect and,and their inward coming is the
feminine.
And there's that, there's theone as well of the softness or
the sensitivity being more ofthe feminine and the protective,
(23:01):
the strong being the masculine.
And it's like a rope, we needlike the strong strand and the
powerless strand, because thepowerless strand, it's like, for
the rope to work, for it to, weneed those both aspects.
And and I suppose it's almostlike we could break any polarity
into the yin and yang aspect ofit, or the masculine and
(23:25):
feminine.
And so inside myself, I use thewords masculine and feminine
very much the way the Chinesewould use yin and yang.
And and I know that kind ofprobably clashes with lots of
people's definition of themasculine and feminine, but.
It's an interesting onesometimes within Tantra, I'll be
(23:45):
hearing something and I'llreally love what they say and
they'll say, okay, we've all gotthe masculine and feminine
inside us.
And then the next bit, they'llbe using the word masculine to
mean man.
and feminine to meet women.
It's wow, they've just, they'vefallen into that conditioning,
even though they were talking alittle bit before about the
(24:06):
opposite of that.
So one, one I have as well, it'sso something like birth that a
woman's doing, I feel that, the.
Incubating of the egg is veryreceptive and receiving and
holding, but the actual birthprocess is very masculine, it's
very into the world.
Yeah.
And it's what I love as well islike the, all of these
(24:27):
polarities couldn't existwithout each other.
They also they define eachother, up and down fear and
anger, sadness and joy.
It's they actually, they've gotthis co creation together.
And they don't even tall andsmall, that doesn't, they don't,
doesn't exist without eachother.
James (24:46):
Yeah, it's quite a hard one to to gravitate, really.
It's because, obviously, we'vebeen told, you're male, you're
female.
But, obviously, we each haveboth masculine and feminine.
And You see these, I think a lotof people have their definitions
(25:08):
of what masculinity is.
So masculinity is strong.
You can do stuff for kind offemin, fem femininities
surrendered and held back attimes.
But at the same time, I feel asthough it's more a dance.
So with Insiders, we've got, Idon't know whether it's, I don't
(25:29):
know whether it's we're equal orwe're not equal, it doesn't
really matter, but I feel as adance Insiders of where we have
to where we dance with thefeminine and the masculine.
So what I mean is that we havethis idea that When we are able
(25:50):
to dance with both the masculineand the feminine, we're able to
both give and receive.
But sometimes I feel as though,in our society, we get stuck on
this idea of what they both are,and it almost hinders how we can
(26:10):
get into the flow.
So I feel like, when we're inthe flow, we're dancing both the
masculine and the feminine.
Whereas when we are stuck, whenwe are stagnant, when we are
bored, when we are hungry orsomething like that, I feel as
though we are almost gravitatingOne way and we might be stuck in
(26:32):
that way and we don't know quitehow to get the dance to flow
again I was just thinking in themoment.
Benjamin (26:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Once you were speaking, I was Iwas on a walk with my friend and
we were you've done a podcastwith him Matthew.
And and we would just talk causehe's doing the, this massage
walk along the spine of Albionand that, and we're talking
about massage as it's it's gotboth the masculine and feminine.
There's the kind of there's the,the doing.
(27:01):
But it's like when I'mmassaging, I have to be
listening to what muscles need.
And so it's there's a doing ofthe masculine, but there's the
listening of the feminine.
So I'm realizing like anotherdefinition of the masculine and
feminine is the speaking or thesounding and the listening.
And so to me the deep feminineis the one that listens, the
(27:22):
listening.
And from that listening comesthe awareness of what to speak.
And yeah and maybe that is thatone with there's a vulnerability
in listening.
There's, there's a vulnerabilityin receiving other people's
words and sometimes it's saferto just be the one that knows
and yes, no, I'm not in themystery.
Yes.
I know what's going on in lifeand storm on through, but
(27:44):
actually the real groundednesscomes from recognizing we don't
really know.
And and from that space of notknowing there's this space for
different knowings to come andgo, but it doesn't become that
rigid stuck in one thing.
Cause like you spoke about the,sometimes we get almost stuck in
one thing.
Sometimes it's like we want tostay in the knowing and the
(28:07):
safety up in the tower ofconsciousness.
Yes.
I'm pure consciousness or, I'mstrong.
I'm not frightened.
Really it's a denial of ourwholeness because, it's not
true.
I don't have a clue, but whenI'm willing to go, okay, I don't
have a clue.
Then I'm in a space where newthings can arise and conversely,
we can get stuck in that almostlike refusing to take action.
(28:32):
almost sunk in the feminine inthe not knowing.
It's Oh no, the masculine's bad.
Oh, I don't want to go up there.
And it's actually they both needeach other.
Like the feminine to feel safeneeds, needs the mind, the
protection, the knowing to letit know that.
It can flow without itsgroundedness in the feminine is
(28:55):
going to become yeah isdisconnected and not connected
to that vitality of.
of the ground, of the isness oflife, sort of thing.
James (29:07):
Just when you were talking about that there, it
just came to me that, so in,when it comes to my
relationship, I'm currentlysingle, and it's the idea that
there's part of me that resists.
When I go out, it's part of methat resists almost going and
speaking to women because partof me is afraid, but it's also,
it's almost as though I feel asthough the, it's the, there's a
(29:31):
stagnant flow between themasculine and the feminine.
I feel as though if I'm in themasculine and the feminine as a
whole, there's almost this ideathat whether I go up and chat to
that woman and nothing happens.
or whether something happens, ifI was in that flow of masculine
and feminine, it wouldn't reallymatter.
(29:52):
But I feel as though sometimeswhen you're in that stagnant
state or in that state ofresisting that dance, flow of
dance, you're almost, you'reeither too forward or you're not
forward at all and you're held,holding back.
And I feel as though this isalmost once.
(30:15):
You are doing something likethis.
I feel it almost ripples throughquite a few areas in your life.
But almost thinking about itnow, in a sense that if I was to
just change one, so if I was,say, for example, completely
discover my purpose and startworking my business, that's
going to bring my, I feel it'sgoing to bring me self into this
flow of this dance of flow,which then I feel as though
(30:39):
would ripple out into otherareas, say relationships, say
fun, laughter, and I feel asthough it's almost this idea
that Once you are able to createthis area, this flow between
masculine and feminine, onearea, it ripples through the
whole of your life.
Yeah, totally, yeah.
(30:59):
That's just an example that cameto me.
Yeah, I
Benjamin (31:01):
like it, yeah.
One thing I'm aware of is howlots of these dynamics are
actually started before we evenhad words.
We're like when we were born oreven in, in the womb sort of
thing.
And there, there was certainenergetic lessons that we
(31:22):
learned like, Ooh, let's be, I'mwary of that.
That masculine energy that comesin like for me, that dragged me
out with forceps, it was justlike Whoa, I thought it was
safe.
And yeah.
So it's interesting, like thesepatterns, like we might not
necessarily know why they are acertain way.
(31:43):
With our minds.
And some maybe it is just thelearning to energetically work
through them and allow ourselvesto meet the, those different
feelings that haven't had thespace to be welcomed through in
the process of act, acting.
Creating a new neural pathwayand following it.
James (32:04):
So you mentioned earlier when you were talking about
telling the woman, she'sbeautiful and almost rejecting a
part of yourself.
How can people realize when theyactually rejecting this part of
themselves and how can peoplestart to accept or start to work
through this rejection of thispart?
Benjamin (32:27):
Okay good question.
Recently I've split up with mypartner, been going out for two
years and that that was onlylast week.
So I'm still processing that.
But I realized, even though Ithought okay, I'm holding this
together.
I'm trying to find a balance.
I realized that I'd Iprioritized her emotional body
(32:49):
over my own, like herdysregulation.
I'd be like, wait a minute, I'llget I'll get her regulated
first.
And then, I'll put my life onhold until, and yeah.
And in some ways I was trying tobe strong in that.
And it's okay, no, I can holdthat.
It doesn't matter, but really, Iwasn't fully turning towards my
own heart, my own beauty.
And there's something that Irealized as a man, it's often
(33:11):
can see beauty outside and wow,like outside almost being the
connection to beauty.
But it's can I actually see thatbeauty as myself?
Can I, how do I talk to my ownbeauty?
Do I hold boundaries for my ownbeauty?
And yeah.
So like another thing I noticedis.
(33:31):
You spoke about like the woundor the cold wound and off the
wound for me is, it's very closeto the word womb.
It is in the feminine, the woundin the tenderness and often we
don't want to go where the woundis, and so we create all these
structures or all thesemasculine protections, even the
inner critic.
(33:52):
Is, underneath the inner criticit's got the wound, the inner
critic is not feeling nice andaligned.
It's feeling oh, fuck.
And yeah how to, I'm wonderingwhat the thread was saying
there.
Yeah how often I'm either in theprotection.
Trying to like, make sure woundsoutside are out sorted out or
I'm avoiding my own or all thatone of being in the wound and Oh
(34:15):
Oh, why is everybody soaggressive outside?
And realizing that actually Ineed to myself turn towards that
wound.
And for me my, I think differentpeople have different phrases
for what they call wound is.
Mine is, I'm wrong.
Some other people, it might be,I'm not enough or I'm, I'm not
worthy or whatever it is.
(34:37):
In the end, it's still that,that same one of, this is
unacceptable who I am, there'ssomething wrong or unacceptable
with it.
And realizing that when I'm inthat codependence thing, I'm
either making outside wrong.
Or I'm making myself wrong.
(34:57):
And it's like, what, what if Ican make mistakes?
What if I don't need to makeanything wrong?
And I've been exploring recentlywhat if there's nobody left to
blame?
What if there's nobody left toblame, including myself or
particularly myself?
It's I can still, I can so mucheasier learn from my lessons if
(35:19):
I don't blame anything, Parents,past, I can acknowledge the pain
that happened or whatever.
But I think what if I don't needto blame, there's such a Oh, the
system just goes.
So I came up with this phrasethe other day, the war's over.
It's time to celebrate andrealize that, okay, there's so
(35:42):
many different wars that I haveinside my psyche, and
externalize with other people.
And it's like, all of them arebasically just this subtle
energy of blame.
Or call it blame, comparison,judgment, and it's like, all of
those are some kind ofprotective mechanism that's
(36:05):
trying to protect me fromturning towards the one that
feels wrong and letting it knowit's okay that you feel that
way.
You're allowed, you'rebeautiful.
Or to the frightened one andsaying Hey, you're allowed to be
here.
And it's suddenly it's like, Oh,like that one of people saying
like all the wars are because offear mentality.
I think all the wars are becausewe haven't turned towards the
(36:27):
frightened one and say, Hey, Ilove you.
You're allowed here.
Oh, okay.
Don't need to blame some outsidestuff.
And yeah.
I don't know whether that, in aroundabout way, answered the
question, but I thought I'd wrapon what you said.
James (36:45):
I can feel when you said that the war's over, it's time
to celebrate.
And, get rid of blame, like mybody just dropped relax, relax.
So how do, so if we do havethese say, for example,
fractured parts, or should I sayshadows, or whatever we will
call them, parts of ourselvesthat we reject, what do people
(37:07):
have to look out for in order toidentify these?
Benjamin (37:12):
One thing I've recently realized is like how
often we're quick to findsomething wrong.
Whether it be the mind, the egoor anger or fear, and even okay,
no, it's my shadow then.
Or it's my, and it's actually,what if I haven't got to find
something wrong and then try andfix it?
(37:32):
And it's so I would say just howkind are we being?
How kind are we being?
Are we are we treatingsomething?
Like we're fighting it, someaspect inside ourselves or
outside
and
it's maybe I didn't come here to fight.
Maybe I came here to welcomehome aspects in creation that
have these beautiful divineparts of creation, which
(37:55):
everything is that just haven'tbeen told that they're divine.
And it's there's I like there'sa guy called Matt Kahn, who I
follow and I like lots of stuffhe said.
And one he says is if youwouldn't talk to a three year
old like that, don't talk to anyother part in creation like
that.
And it's it's a three year oldand maybe we sometimes need to
say Hey, no, don't do that, butwe wouldn't wrong it.
(38:17):
We would just recognize howbeautiful it is.
And it's I recognize how oftenI'm not talking to myself with
the reverence of this divineyoungster that I am.
James (38:30):
That's quite, that's beautiful.
It's it's quite often you cansee it in the spirit, spiritual
realm, how we're always lookingfor the shadow parts.
But what if we, as you said,what if we don't, we don't have
to say their shadows and seethem as just parts of themselves
and you know what, you areloved, come on in, regardless of
(38:51):
the part.
Benjamin (38:53):
Cause it's you can see We can see the inner critic.
Often we can get into a fightwith the inner critic.
And it's oh, if it wasn't forthe inner critic, it's
sabotaging me.
And it's oh, wait a minute.
Underneath the inner critic,what's really going on?
Okay, there's some hurt that'shappened, and it's feeling that
pain.
And then it's repeating thatsame pattern of hurt, just to
(39:15):
make sure it doesn't get, toprotect the system.
And it's I could villainize theinner critic and make it a demon
or ah, which just create thisbig fight in my system or I can
actually learn to bless thewound that's hiding in that.
And it's maybe in inside everyshadow there, there's a wound
that's not been met.
(39:36):
And I love the word this wasfrom Maya Luna, the love secret
hiding place.
And it's ah, it's whether wecall that the wound or fear or
our deepest yearning, all ofthose, it's like calling it love
secret hiding places.
It's not even that I've got togive it love and transform it.
(39:57):
It's almost just a recognizing,wow, this is already love.
Just didn't realize it.
And
it's wow, like the idea of, telling the end of
critic wow.
Wow, you're really here tryingto help me, aren't you?
And if that inner critic is alsopart of me, then I can also
become it and allow it to do itsjob a bit better.
(40:20):
Which really all it's trying todo is bless me, to look after
me.
But when I'm fighting it, it'stotally not going to happen.
James (40:28):
That's like when we were talking about fear earlier on,
how changing our relationshipwith fear from running away from
it to almost accepting it andloving that part of ourselves
and discovering the need thatthis fear needs.
Yeah, that's comes back to thefull thing.
So what practical steps canpeople start to take to start to
(40:52):
balance their masculine andfeminine?
Benjamin (40:55):
One, one, one thing that I've realized is like how
important it is to to meet oursexuality, our innocence.
And so one I'd recommend is likea self pleasuring practice where
we're really not trying to getanywhere, but just like that
same love that we'd give apartner.
(41:15):
Where we just touch ourselves.
We're not in a rush.
We're not even gonna getanywhere, but we're just like,
almost if I was touching apartner, right?
With my hand, I'd be like, Oh,I'd almost like with my mind,
I'd be saying, Oh, you'rebeautiful.
I love you.
Wow, you're a mystery.
I don't know who you are, andit's but I haven't learned to
have that reverence for myself.
And so what I've been loving,not just with self pleasuring,
(41:38):
but it's almost like seeing,what if I see the mind and the
light and the awareness of mymasculinity?
And it's learning to romance thebeauty, and beauty is always a
mystery.
We can think of it as outsideform, but it's not outside form.
It's always a mystery.
Like, why is a flower sobeautiful?
Why is it smell?
It's just ah, and the wordbeauty is very close to the word
(41:59):
love.
It's just ah.
And so in a way, my mindalready.
Already, my mind of lightalready loves the beauty of
which I am.
It's just almost been lookingthe other way.
It's almost not realized it'sallowed to turn towards itself,
and it's actually, as I start tosee my own beauty, the start to
(42:21):
love and see the, my own beauty,it's so easier to see it in
other people because it's like,Oh, that must also be in the
other.
So I think for me, the main oneof balancing the two is.
It is yeah, the beauty, seeingthe two, the feminine as the
beauty and the masculine as theone that wants to see that, and
(42:43):
all of my mind wants to see thebeauty.
It's almost looking for thebeauty.
And when I'm looking foroutside, there's this subtle
codependence.
Whereas when I actually can, ah,oh, wow, it's here, there's the
sort of like a resting backinside myself.
James (43:02):
Yeah, it's almost as though a sense of.
Deeper awareness, so almost likea leaf, looking at a leaf from a
sense of beauty, looking at aleaf from a sense of exploring
different parts, and at the sametime I feel as though What
you're saying there is aboutexploring, obviously not just
(43:26):
self pleasure in ourselves, butsay you're cooking tea,
exploring how you move thecocktail, exploring how you are
able to type on a computer,exploring the way that you are
able to speak expressively toanother person.
And it's almost a sense of,exploring, almost a sense of
(43:50):
exploring our own way that welive on a deeper, more open
viewpoint, but from a, almostfrom a higher perspective,
rather than this low perspectiveof, okay, that's just that,
let's just carry on.
And it's more of a, okay, I'm onthis laptop, how do my fingers
(44:10):
feel when I touch the keys?
How do I feel when I'm sittingdown on a chair or standing up?
How do my feet feel against mythe floor?
And it's exploring that.
Sensitivity within ourselves.
Benjamin (44:24):
It's interesting, as you were speaking, you were
like, from a higher perspectiveand things like that.
And it just reminded me of howoften we almost make high good
and low bad.
High vibes good, low bad.
And that wasn't, I was justlike, it just reminded me.
And it's so we're like, oh yeah,higher self.
But we rarely talk about deeperself, yeah.
(44:46):
And for me, the soul.
isn't up there far away, thespirit's up, but soul is
actually underneath it.
And so it feels like thatfracturing that we've had
between the masculine andfeminine is in that yeah, we
have to be high vibe.
We have to be up.
What's the highest version ofourselves?
Which, all of that is reallybeautiful, but how about what's
(45:06):
the deepest version of myself?
What's, and how.
And I feel like really the loveis between our higher self, that
which we can actualize, and ourdeeper self, which is almost
like that potential.
And it's almost like the yeah,it feels like the deeper self
for me is the mother and thespirit itself.
And the actualization is thefather is consciousness.
(45:26):
And it's us to learn thatthere's a unification inside
these two, I was dancing thatthen I was realizing, oh, Often
I've been turning into okay,feeling God within and down and
not trying to do the up aboveand leave my body.
But I was realizing just thesimplicity of Oh, I'm in God,
(45:48):
all around me is God.
And inside me.
Is Mother God, it's like FatherGod's all around me and Mother
God's inside me, and as I touchMother God inside me, I realize
it's all around, but it's justthat almost like that.
I don't know about that.
All around holding me.
And then that sacred innocenceinside that's actually birthed
(46:11):
it all as well.
And it's just wow.
James (46:13):
So I've been doing a static dance for three years
now, so I absolutely love it.
Like yourself, I absolutely loveit.
It's one of my favorite thingsto do.
And just thinking about it now,when I, obviously when I first
did it, there was a sense ofanxiousness and are people
judging me kind of thing.
But now I just allow myself justto flow and let a body to move
(46:35):
to how I want to move.
sense of surrender.
But at the same time, it'sinteresting now how I might go
to the next time and just seehow, just to be witness to the,
both the masculine and thefeminine energy, and it dance
and moves, and just see if it'sa change in how I move.
Benjamin (46:56):
Sometimes I'll, in five rhythms, they have flow and
then staccato.
Flow is more of the kind offeminine kind of, and then
staccato is more of thestructure.
And so when I'm in that flowbit, I just okay, almost just
okay, I let myself be in myfeminine.
And it's just almost let myselfsometimes also I'll, okay, I'll
let myself be in the frightenedone, not in this petrified, but
(47:19):
just in this kind of, Oh, and toeven go around the room,
welcoming, giving permission toall the fear to be here rather
than, Oh no, we're notfrightened, but Oh, okay.
Ah.
And suddenly it's In a funnyway, I'm fearless then.
And it's funny, it's once I'veactually said yes to fear,
you're allowed to be here.
Suddenly it's not what I thoughtit was.
(47:41):
And it could almost say I'mfearless in those, but then
yeah, that's maybe not the rightwords, but here's another thing
that she with judgment, Irealized that young part of me
with whether we caught, causethey say like from zero to
seven, we're in the feminine.
And then from seven to 14, we'rein the.
the father and then the next 47years we're in the wider
(48:03):
community or whatever.
But
what was it?
Yeah.
So when I'm in my feminine, inmy tenderness, in the young one,
it's very easy for me to lookaround and Oh, who's judging me?
Oh, and it's I'm projecting outthe mind.
Or the judge on to other peopleto judge me, maybe
James (48:20):
yes.
Benjamin (48:21):
And realizing that there, that's perfectly natural
thing that I do, but actuallywhen that frightened one is
allowed to have its own wait aminute.
Now that I'm older, nobodyelse's judgments need to touch
me.
They have to come through thefilter of my own judgments,
cause realizing really ifsomebody said, Hey, you're doing
this, Ben, and you're blah,blah, blah.
(48:42):
If it was something that I wasquite certain, like I was okay
about.
It wouldn't touch me, whereas ifit was something I was judging
myself about anyway, I'd belike, I'd be crushed by it.
It's almost like what Irecognize that other people's
masculine mind judgments have tocome through the filter of my
own.
(49:02):
So in a way, when I am in my, inmore in my feminine flow energy
and I'm seeing other people,what I think other people are
judging me about, becausesometimes it's not even that
they're not even doing it, butwhat I imagine they're judging
that it's almost showing me thejudgments.
And my masculine that I need tobring back for me because those
(49:22):
judgments I'm imagining they'remaking it's wait a minute.
If it's only me that's makingthem, I get to choose whether to
make them.
It's okay, I'm not going tobother making them.
And the same one around,sometimes it'll be that I'm more
in the masculine energy.
I'm like, look at them, they'redoing that.
How dare they?
It shouldn't do that.
And those judgments that I'mmaking when I'm in the masculine
(49:43):
of other people are just theways that I've learned to
protect myself.
And it's Oh, wait a minute, it'sshowing me again, like one, can
I, do I have to carry on thatway?
Or could I speak to myself morekindly?
Because they're just showing mehow I'm talking to myself.
So it's been quite a journey forme recently to like, how do I
(50:04):
integrate the teachings withinthe, within judgements?
Because it's easy to fightjudgements and make it wrong,
but actually, okay, wow what isthere in judgements?
Judgments, I think other peopleare making me or judgments I'm
making of other people.
And how do I bring them backinto a heart space?
And I realized that judgmentsare when I'm making something
(50:26):
wrong, whereas when it comesthrough the heart, it can be
more of a discernment.
I can still say no to something,but I don't have to go no,
because it's really bad.
It's not for me.
There's something as well aboutthat I have about recognizing
that.
Like the judgements, they'reactually, they're not for
(50:49):
anybody else.
They're for me.
So when they're actually allowedto be for me, they can become
discernment and recognizing thateach of my emotions is actually
for me.
Like my anger isn't caused orbecause of something outside.
It's actually for me.
And when I'm allowed to have itfor me, then it's allowed to be
more obviously a flavor of love.
(51:10):
Whereas when it's maybe angry,it's just Whoa, this big, strong
energies arisen inside me.
to look after me.
And if I haven't made it wrong,then I haven't got to catharsize
and get rid of it.
It's just whoa.
Oh, okay.
It's safe now.
James (51:25):
It almost feels though, judgment is it's there to
protect us, but it's there, it'sthere to keep us within the
boundaries of society.
And so it's like this idea thatsay, for example, Where you're
in the middle of the dancefloor, or I'm in the middle of
the dance floor, and I'm dancingaround, and I've got all these
(51:46):
people who are just watching.
There's almost part of me like,James, don't do that.
Because, I might be shot orsomething, because I'm suddenly,
my head is above the parapet, soI'm being watched.
So suddenly somebody can picksomething small out about me.
So there's a sense thatjudgment's just there, really,
(52:07):
as a safety mechanism, which Ifeel as though judgment's almost
connected to beer.
And it's this thing just to keepus, just to keep us underneath
the surface so we know we can'tbe seen.
Yeah.
And is it, I think that's the reason why when people step
out, say for example, you stepout onto social media with what
(52:30):
is your purpose and you starttalking about what you're what
you'd love to do.
Why a lot of people start to geta lot of harsh comments or
judgments is because suddenly.
They're heads above the parapet,they're out there, and now that
is a people's own judgment beingprojected back onto themselves.
(52:55):
But you see it as, oh, a strikeat you.
But it's a good indication thatsometimes you are on the right
path.
Benjamin (53:04):
And it's interesting the one you said about how their
judgements are actually almostlike the judgements that they
have of themselves that aretrying to protect themselves.
No, don't show up, don't standout too much, don't put your
head about, and then so thenwhen somebody does it, they're
like, no, don't do that.
And, yeah.
So I see that often judgmentsare almost the memory of how
(53:24):
we've been hurt, the way to whenwe were younger, the way we were
criticized by, teachers, family.
And we're repeating that as adialogue inside ourselves so
that it doesn't happen so thatwe've, we stop ourselves before
it happens.
And so there's something aboutlike, how do we, How do I
(53:45):
suppose, how do we befriend thataspect of our psyche, rather
than fight it, but how do welight the fear?
How do we turn towards it andrealize that there's something
juicy and beautiful within this,so there's some pains there that
haven't been met.
If those pains that wereunderneath those judgments that
we received had been met andalchemized, and we'd given that
(54:05):
one a cuddle.
there wouldn't be the need forthat continuation judgment
because we'd know that we've gotthis.
So it's almost like maybeunderneath each judgment, I'm
just coming to me now is amemory of some place that we've
not fully met yet.
James (54:23):
Yeah, I feel as though for me, judgment just needs to
be loved.
I can, it's just, you feel ithere, and it's the need, it just
needs to be loved.
Because I felt almost as thoughthe parts of me that have been
wronged in the past haven't beenloved.
(54:44):
And that's just what they need.
Yeah.
Benjamin (54:47):
And it seems like the word judgment, whether we call
it judgment, it feels very muchlike blame really.
It's like actually the judgmentsof the times that we've been
blamed.
Yeah.
And yeah, like how and realizing that every time that
somebody blamed me in the past,even if they really made it
about me, they weren't comingfrom a really regulated nervous
(55:10):
system and a space of lovingthemselves.
They were actually just reallyshowing me how they'd been hurt.
And then I went, Oh, it's aboutme.
How dare you hurt me that way,which, they did make it about
me.
When I was younger, I didn'thave the resources to realize,
Oh, actually, that's actuallytheir shit.
That's, they're just showing mehow they've been hurt when I can
(55:32):
actually let myself know Hey,you've done nothing wrong.
This is not your fault.
You're a beautiful being.
I can also see that, Oh,actually, even in them, even
underneath all their pain, theyare also that beautiful being.
So I think it's like one of howto alchemize my judgments and
blames into meeting the.
(55:54):
The one that's hurtingunderneath it, to turn in
towards that wound, that theblame is trying to protect in a
kind of over the top way,really.
James (56:04):
Yeah, I like it.
To finish off, can you tell us,what is it that you do, and how
can people get in contact?
Benjamin (56:13):
Okay starting some YouTube videos, I'll, Plan to do
like a weekly YouTube video andgo for walks with friends and
have chats and things like thatAnd I've written a book which
got here.
It's called What's it called?
Whispers to the subtle love thatlives in all that's on Amazon
and that, and I'm in Manchesterand help hold some men's circles
(56:36):
around a fire each week.
It's really beautiful.
So if anybody's around thatarea, around Manchester and
would like to join, welcome toget in touch.
I suppose I haven't got awebsite.
So main way to contact me wouldbe via Facebook Messenger.
yeah, one thing that I haven'tsaid that I realized that
something that's been in me fora long time that I haven't, it's
(56:58):
taken me a while to realize ishow much I love the mother, the
mother, God, mother of creation,that, that which we come from.
And I realized that almost likefor me, all of creation is in
devotion to that great mysteryof the mother.
And and when I remember that,there, there's yeah, there's
just a softening and a warmth inmy heart that is, oh, yeah.
(57:23):
And to remember that, that everybeing, maybe they could give it
different names, is, is made andfilled with that same love.
James (57:32):
Yeah, it feels like Mother Earth.
Almost we can sit in her bosomon the ground and feel her
underneath ourselves.
Yeah.
Thank you very much, Ben.
It's been absolutely greatconversation.
Yeah, it's
Benjamin (57:46):
been lovely.
I've enjoyed it.
James (57:47):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Benjamin (57:50):
Thank you, Jan.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.