The Missing Balance: How Masculine and Feminine Energy Shape Who We Become
Dear fellow Happy Neurotic,
Have you ever thought about your upbringing in terms of masculine and feminine energies? What if the struggles in your relationships are actually reflections of imbalances you took on in childhood? It’s something we rarely reflect on, yet it’s key to understanding how we show up in our relationships.
As children, we might label our parents as present or absent, strict or permissive, loving or critical. But beneath those labels lies something deeper: the balance (or imbalance) of masculine and feminine energies we absorbed early on. And, it can be incredibly revealing to understand how those dynamics are likely to still be playing out in your life today.
Beyond Gender: The Energies We All Carry
By masculine and feminine, I don’t mean gender. These are universal human qualities.
The feminine is about nurturance, attunement, creativity, flexibility, the body.
The masculine is about direction, structure, boundaries, safe containment, the mind.
Think of it like a river and its banks. The river (feminine) flows with ease only when the banks (masculine) provide safety and direction. We all contain both energies, though we tend to lean toward one.
For clarity, I’ll frame this through the traditional father/mother model (the father as the predominantly masculine partner, the mother as the predominantly feminine). Of course, families come in many forms, but this archetypal model makes the dynamics easiest to see.
In a healthy family dynamic, the father provides the structure and safety for the mother to fully nurture and attune to her child during pregnancy and early childhood. Children experience the feminine deeply from birth to around the age of seven, when safety and connection with the mother form the foundation of self. Then, ideally, the father takes on a more predominant role to help guide individuation, teaching agency, structure, boundaries, confidence, and the courage to step into the wider world.
When both are present in balance, we grow into adults who can lean into nurturance when life calls for softness, and into agency when it calls for strength. But when one is distorted or missing, imbalance sets in.
How Imbalance Shapes Us
Today, many households show a lack of healthy masculine energy. This may look like a father who is emotionally/physically absent or authoritarian (two sides of the same imbalance), or a mother, shaped by her own fears, who overprotects and resists the father’s role.
In these cases, the mother is unlikely to be modeling healthy feminine energy either. In fact, she is likely to be largely out of touch with her feminine essence and compensating, by being in her masculine. If we take the analogy of the river again, think about what a river without a bank would look like. The words that come to mind are uncontained chaos.
Studies suggest that children who grow up without a father or a healthy masculine role model (like an uncle, coach, grandfather) are at greater risk of experiencing depression, and in some cases, substance misuse later in life. Boys raised without safe masculinity often struggle with agency, boundaries and direction. Girls raised without healthy masculine role models may struggle to trust men or over-identify with their masculine side, becoming overly independent and guarded.
In our upcoming episode, I shared that I’ve worn what I jokingly call my “man haters glasses.” My default has been to distrust men, not because they are inherently untrustworthy, but because of the lenses I inherited from my own childhood. To cope, I swung hard into my own masculine, always self-reliant, always in control. But that rigidity is its own imbalance, and over time it creates distance where I long for closeness, and the cycle repeats.
Dr. Todd added that in couples therapy, he often sees partners locked in these unconscious dances. A woman who unconsciously distrusts the masculine may dominate her partner to feel safe, yet consciously yearns to relax into her feminine. Meanwhile, her partner feels emasculated and resents being treated like a child. The result? Both feel alone, despite being together.
Relationships as Mirrors
So how might this be affecting you today? The best way to find out is to take a look at your closest relationships and what they are mirroring back at you.
As I said in our upcoming episode: you don’t need to go to Tibet or sit on a mountaintop to discover your patterns. Just look at your partner, your family, your colleagues. The traits that most trigger you often point to the qualities that are likely to help you gain greater inner balance.
For example you might be someone who can’t stand people who appear to be vulnerable, needy or weak. What would your life look like if you allowed yourself to soften, express your needs and receive support? Or maybe, you are someone who tends to attract partners who are controlling, take the lead and even mother you. Are they showing you your growth edge? What would it look like to embody more of the river bank qualities yourself, by taking more initiative and being more assertive?
These triggers are teachers. They shine light on the places where your own relationship with masculine or feminine energy is incomplete.
Flexibility: The Missing Ingredient
If there’s one word that sums up the antidote, it’s flexibility.
It’s not “bad” to be protective, but if you only ever protect, your child never individuates. It’s not “bad” to be directive, but if you only ever command, your child never feels safe to soften.
The same applies in adulthood. If you’re always the caretaker, what would it look like to step back and let someone else lead? If you’re always in control, what would it feel like to trust and receive?
Through the work we did together, one of my students realised she wasn’t allowing her husband to step into his role as a father, even though he was objectively a great father. Having had an authoritarian father herself, her nervous system was on alert any time her husband was trying to set some healthy boundaries with the children. She would step in and undermine him.
She decided to step back despite the discomfort. They started by having him put the children to bed at night. At first, she was literally sitting on her hands in the living room to resist intervening. Over time, their family dynamic transformed. The kids began respecting their father, she felt more supported, and he finally could step into his role.
Flexibility opened the door to balance.
A Reflection for You
So here’s your invitation:
Do you tend to lean too heavily into your masculine or your feminine side?
How does that show up in your relationships?
And what small act of flexibility could you try this week—something just outside your comfort zone—that might restore balance?
Our childhood scripts don’t have to be our destiny. With awareness, reflection, and a willingness to experiment, we can integrate both sides of ourselves, and break cycles that go back generations.
Warmly,
Dannie
🎧 If this resonates with you, join Dr. Todd and me this Wednesday on The Happy Neurotics Podcast for our new episode: The Missing Balance: How Masculine and Feminine Energy Shape Who We Become.