gender-o-meter, anyone?

Waking up in the middle of the night because you've woken up with words you have to write down is like tending to a crying child or something. It isn't a choice. I do it every night practically. I want my child to sleep an entire night already. But till it does, I plan on waking up whenever it cries.

I have to stop and ask myself why I think this way; why all my metaphors, all my processes, and impulses are somehow tied to the physiology of my body. Do men think about life in terms of cycles and maternity and childbirth? I don't think so. And this makes me think about the way we relate to one another across gender and the way we process life from the pure perspective of how we are embodied. It's like we're looking at the same lake, but from different shores. Cycles and web versus a linearity. Is it really true or is this just something I am reading intuitively and/or making up? I want to inhabit a male body for just a couple of months so I can fully understand what it is to think like a man. And then, just as I was pondering this the other day, I found a nifty little brochure in the waiting room of my Ayurvedic doctor's office that I felt the need to steal for the edification of my loyal four readers. So here it is, truncated for your viewing pleasure, a couple of personal notes in red. Bear in mind it is very simplistic but the lack of complexity gives a nice foundation that we can build on:

Guilt
... is quintessentially female energy. Guilt is the emotional response to cyclical thinking. Guilt is a command to return, to revisit, to repair, to recycle.

Female energies run in both male and female bodies. However, female bodies are happiest running about 70% or more female energy with 30% or less proportion of male energy. A female running toxic levels of male energy will feel stuck, unattractive, and vindictive.

Grief
... is quintessentially male energy. Grief is the emotional "trickle-down" effect of linear thinking. Grief is a command to stop, don't go anywhere, give up, forget.

Male energies run in both male and female bodies. However, male bodies are happiest running about 80% or more male energy with 20% or less proportion of female. A male running toxic levels of female energy (guilt) will feel weak, angry, and manipulated.

Guilt is "should" energy.

Guilt is very easy to find in your psychic space. You can feel the "should" pressure all over your body. You know the joke about the four major guilt groups: mother, money, mate, and mouth (Actually, I don't). There are probably more "should's" attached to our relationships with food, parents, spouse, and finance than all other topics combined! But don't limit your search for "should's" to these core subjects. "Should" guilt shows up in many interesting places.

Grief is "can't" energy.

Grief is similarly easy to spot. You can feel the "can't" pressure all over your body. Just start thinking about your major frustrations, blocks on what you believe you can't do. That's grief. Grief means it's over, done, finito. No returning, no cycling back, no second chance. Like a sports game. The team won or lost, it's an absolute win or loss (This is why I hate most sports). If our team lost, that's final. We don't complain to the judge or congress or mom that it wasn't fair (I ALWAYS complain to my mom when it isn't fair. Male energy is so fucked up; I could never be a guy). It just is what it is, a win or a loss. There's no second chance. It's like the common western concept of death. Finished, ended, so second chances. This energy is terribly sad, but also comfortingly absolute.

Guilt is passed from mother to daughter, down through the generations. Of the "four major guilt groups" :) surely the main one is Mother (Surely, it is). The most intense Guilt is passed from mother to daughter. Daughter soon has her own children and passes to them. is the energy that allows a mother to protect her children even when her children are not with her. She trains them from infancy to think of her, think of how she would feel, think of her sadness, anger, or disappointment if her children took undue risks (Like going to see an Ayurvedic doctor).

Thus her maturing children eat good breakfasts, wear their coats in winter, and finish their homework - even when she's not looking. They do this because they are thinking of her, thinking of what she wants from them.

Looking at the history of civilizations, there is no doubt that guilt is a good and useful energy for cultural survival.

Women in grief

When emotionally healthy women feel too much "can't" pressure they have weeping breakdowns which allow them to purge the toxic amounts of grief in their space (Oh my God! Like in that awful Eat, Pray Love with all the crying on the bathroom floor!).

Men in grief

Men don't necessarily feel bad when they are running large amounts of grief. They may feel a little stuck in grief, but they also feel secure in it. Men like linear process. "Can't energy" is nice for them because it sets a limit on how long any cycle can run. That makes the cycle more linear and more easy to think about and control.

Women and Cyclical Energy

For women, nothing is more satisfying than an eternally long unbroken repeating cycle (yeah, this is pretty true for me, looong, unbroken cycle). The cycle of the generations, the menstrual cycle, the cycle of the seasons: these comforting repetitive dances of the life force can bring deep cleansing awareness and happiness to the healthy woman.

Men and Cyclical Energy

Too much cyclical energy is hard on men. Men like a big burst of productive drive, then a full stop. Like a sports game, or a short war - that's a nice playing energy for men. Huge and small eternal cycles are exhausting for men. No wonder men get so toxic from female energies like guilt!

Manipulation through Grief

Men manipulate women by injecting the men's excess grief, which is highly toxic to women, into the women's psychic space. Women are multi-taskers who need to keep moving. Too much "stop" or "can't" energy is very unpleasant in the female space. Women get horribly stuck when they are overloaded with the excess grief of the men around them - especially their fathers & husbands.

Psychically, women can do anything. They can (and really naturally must) do two or three things pretty much all the time to stay at a nice female buzz. Feed the baby, fix the printer, dinner cooking on the stove, laundry washing, on the phone, planning events, staying in touch with family - that's a happy buzz for most psychically healthy women (I don't know, fixing the printer and feeding the baby aren't usually components of my "happy" buzz).

How could a woman possibly get stuck in "can't" energy? How can such eternal creativity ever "stop"?

It goes "stop" when excess male energy - the calm, linear, single-process energy that male bodies know and love - jams up her space.

Clearly, some problematic elements there, but also bear in mind that this is waiting room reading material. That I have posted up on my blog.

But some parts of it make me think. I have to admit that I am far more comfortable with guilt than with grief. The idea of something - anything - ending is anathema to me, but I like repetition. I like exploring a singular topic from various angles. I like the concept of return, of things coming back. Psychic volver is really important to me. (BTW, that's a good band name, don't you think? But it would be a lame band.)

Also, I don't know where the percentages come from. How the fuck do I know whether I'm running on 70% female energy? Do I go to an Ayurvedic practitioner (read below and you'll find out)? Is there a gender-o-meter around that I can check this stuff on?

So I asked my Ayurvedic practitioner what my male/female energetics ratio is and after running some tests, he informed me that my female energy is fine, and not at all threatened by my male energy. They're sitting side by side, relatively happy, not squabbling about asking for directions or needing space or open communication or anything like that. Apparently this is unusual for our era. Most women, according to my doctor are running highly toxic levels of male energy. It's just the pressures of living in the western world today. Sad, but true. Glad that I am keeping that male energy at bay. I guess. Is it something I'm eating? Is it my waist to hip ratio? Is it healthy levels of estrogen to testosterone? It's apparently all of that, according to my doctor. Or includes all of that in some form, either as a symptom or as a factor. It's all about chemical balance/emotional health. Mind-body connection, y'all.

I know, you guys. I make fun of it on my blog and then I go to this guy and pay him in full for a consultation because of course my insurance doesn't cover it. Clearly there's some sort of internal dilemma here that I need to work out. Actually, I shouldn't make fun because I've totally been into Ayurvedic medicine my whole life. But there are still some parts of it that my dad would call "hocus pocus." I think what confounds the whole thing for me is when they start using the 70%/30% ratios to please people who aren't into Ayurvedic medicine to begin with. Just lose the ratios and then you won't lose your core-demo. Me. I seriously need to do marketing for these people.

Also, and this is with regards to both men and women - when someone tells you you "can't" do something don't you just want to throw a tantrum or key their car when they're not looking? because I certainly do. In fact, I'm having trouble locating my "can't" energy right now so maybe this just confirms that my female-male energy is well balanced.

Also, this part struck me as interesting - that men don't necessarily feel bad when they're in grief. They just accept certain endings rather gracefully. I've had discussions with men in my life about this and most would agree with this idea on some level. Grief, for me, is just a terrible dead end that makes me want to kill myself/not get out of bed in the morning. Bargaining is like my favorite activity. Also wild speculation. Both of these activities allow me to never fully accept ends (And you wondered how I did it! I swear, my mind amazes me sometimes). But why would you accept ends when your mind refracts the world as cyclical? You can't even see a real end, it doesn't exist.

Guilt is so much cushier, you guys. You can just slink into it like it's this comfortable chair with big fluffy cushions that you can just sit in your whole life.

And then, when you have kids, you can just dump it on them.