We live in a realm of dualities, polarities & pluralities, and there are infinite polarities in this world.
The attempt to make every part of the universe fit into ONE facet of these polarities – Masculine/Feminine – is not only squelching our true creativity & dominating our real, embodied leadership; it is also actually killing the very (sexual) polarity it’s intended to foster.
Sun/Moon, Summer/Winter, Fast/Slow, Chaos/Order, Soft/Hard, Lead/Follow, Self/Other, Alone/Together, Agency/Communion, Hold/Relax, Expand/Contract, Light/Dark, Silence/Sound, Stillness/Movement, Structure/Flow, Work/Play.
There are just a few polarities that people have attempted to squish into the box of Masculine/Feminine, rather than allowing these energies their own true expression separate & beyond Masculine/Feminine.
Within the realm of personal growth, the idea of our polarities has taken over a lot of conversations, and is often boiled down to the concept of masculine and feminine polarity, as though all polarities can be subsumed under these two energetic poles.. Every polarity we can think of ends up being categorized as either masculine or feminine, whether it’s in the relational aspect of our lives, our bodies, or how we do business.
There are many problems with this – the major one being, first and foremost, that this framework assumes everything is either masculine or feminine in nature, which is massively reductive and also not accurate. This is a little like the saying, “When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
When we reduce the complexity of infinite polarities in the universe down to a simple masculine/feminine binary, we lose touch with our true energetic range and creative potential.
Expressing a range of polarities
There is a distinct tension between the masculine and the feminine, even if it’s not intended.
We find ourselves asking what the difference is between masculine and feminine leadership, rather than what the wholeness and the fullness of leadership is – let alone what is our personal and unique expression of leadership, regardless.
If we shift our thinking, we can begin to pull on all the different threads of expression that are inherent to good leadership, beyond just the extreme ends of these polarities, or lumping everything into only masculine and feminine.
This is the realm that I coach and facilitate within – the realm of wholeness through cultivating range and fluidity in our expression, and integrating all realms of polarities – including, but not limited to, masculine and feminine.
The capacity to feel, to see, to understand, and to embody the wide range of polarities is so important in terms of bringing the fullness and the wholeness of who we truly are to our leadership (as well as our loving, parenting, creativity, relating, and sex). In fact, we must actively work to build this capacity for practicing, expanding, and stepping into embodying wholeness if we want to bring any form of embodied leadership into our life.
Whether that’s embodied leadership as an entrepreneur, leading our team, the work that we do or as a coach, as a creative, or as a mama, this kind of whole and embodied leadership requires looking beyond just the masculine and feminine, beyond even using polarities as the only framework, and into our capacity for a full range of expression in all realms.
The gifts we’re meant to bring to the world requires the expression of range within multiple polarities. Rather than forcing everything into this one polarity of masculine and feminine, saying, well, flow is feminine and structure is masculine, or the sun is masculine and the moon is feminine, we can instead be more open to the different parts of ourselves.
We can’t just say that stillness is masculine and movement is feminine, because there are so many different kinds of stillness, and so many different ways to incorporate movement. Instead, we can ask ourselves, when and where do we hold or relax, expand or contract, sustain or maintain, move or be still, flow or create structure, work or play? What causes these balances to shift and different polarities to be expressed more than others at certain times?
The interplay between polarities is what makes them greater
We often try to mash polarities together in ways that seem beneficial but ultimately don’t work. For example, a common expression is to “make work like play”. But what if there’s a distinction for a reason?
Sometimes one polarity is called for, and sometimes we need the other. True wholeness is less about all-or-nothing, or trying to make them the same, and more about learning how they best weave together, how they dance together – within our own lives in any given moment. What is the interplay between chaos and order, and how do they influence each other? How do they impact, support, and nourish and actually make each other better?
All of these polarities actually have their right place and time, and they work together to be better and greater together than any one part of the polarity could be on its own.
The other thing that limits us when we put all our polarities into masculine and feminine containers is that it’s too easy for us to have an idea about which one is “better”.
Rather than really opening to that vast, universal curiosity around what we are most devoted or committed to, we get stuck in the rut of thinking, is this masculine or is it feminine, and which one should I be right now?
We have so many cultural and preconceived ideas related to Masculine/Feminine, and which one we ‘should’ be, that we lose touch with the innate creativity that comes from an exploration along the lines of, “Does my leadership, or loving, in this moment call for more sun or more moon? More sound or more silence? Higher tones, or bass notes? More oak or more redwood?”
This is what it really means when we say to “make art out of your life”. It means cultivating deep and abiding awareness of this wide range of polarities, and then understanding where our comfortable and habitual patterns are, so that we can begin to lean into and expand our range in some of the other arenas – in order to give us access to more of our true selves.
The invitation of the universe
We are living in a time in this world where we can no longer pretend that all parts of our lives aren’t connected or that we can only work on certain parts of ourselves at a time. Living this way doesn’t work; it’s simply not true of the way the universe works.
Being born into this universe is in itself an invitation to embody the full range of all the polarities contained within it. Understanding and embodying the interplay between them, how they make each other and everything greater than the sum of the parts, is a beautiful way to make sense of the world we live in.
What happens when we bring sound and silence together, in the right balance, in a specific moment, is greater than either sound or silence could be alone. When we work and play with polarities in this way, we come to know that – in right relationship – polarities do not dominate each other; they serve and support each other.
Silence makes the sound more true and beautiful.
Structure creates the space for flow to…well, flow!
Acknowledge all parts of your being
Any part of these polarity ranges that we don’t actively practice, or that we avoid or hide from will at some point come up and bite us in the ass.
Some of us can get away with it for a while, but I guarantee that if you only practice in the dark then the light will eventually sneak up on you. If you only move slowly, the fast will come up and surprise you. If you only work in the realm of leadership, following will soon rear its head as well.
And in each case, you won’t be prepared for the changes that these repressed polarities bring.
The more that we bring consciousness, intention, attention, and devoted practice to expressing all of the polarities in our lives, the less likely that we’ll experience a big upheaval because of it. The more we learn to navigate the weave of our lives, the less derailed we will become when the path we were following suddenly leads somewhere we didn’t expect.
Practicing with the unexpected, making the most beautiful music, the most beautiful art, the most beautiful dance, and stepping into the most holistic leadership is truly what we explore, experiment with, and embody in The Fierce Grace Incubator.
If you are a woman who desires, or longs for, or is called to this realm of exploring and practicing in a guided way, then The Fierce Grace Incubator might be for you. It’s a way to step into that whole, embodied leadership in all aspects of your life and creation.
Check it out here: https://kendracunov.com/fierce-grace/