97. Your Most Important Balancing Act: Anima & Animus

"To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive feeling. Logic can tell you superficially where a path might lead to, but it cannot judge whether your heart will be in it."
     -Jean Shinoda Bolden 

We are talking today about the intersection between creativity and human rights. 

You might have heard people talking about an "unadulterated animus" running rampant in the US government policy lately. That is, the unchecked and unbalanced over-reliance on stereotypically control strategies, fear, and self-hate to legislate against trans people. 

This episode is all about how you can develop your own balanced psyche using Jungian Psychology. You will also learn how to understand what is happening when people in power are working with their own fear, projections, and lack of balance. 

Tell me what you think about this episode! Drop me a note!

Transcript

"To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive feeling. Logic can tell you superficially where a path might lead to, but it cannot judge whether your heart will be in it."

This quote from Jean Bolden is all about how we balance on the inside and the outside. Our masculine and feminine qualities. 

Welcome to the modern creative woman. We are exploring the art and science of creativity, and this is designed for women like you who are curious about where life could take you. If you're open to becoming the woman you've always wanted to be, if this work speaks to you, I invite you to join me inside the Modern Creative Woman membership and take a deep dive into these really important topics that make life more rich, more fulfilling, and help you live a life using your values to do what's most important. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. 

Welcome in. If this is your first time to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm so glad you're here. And welcome back to those of you who are returning listeners. We are picking up on the topic of archetypes, and if you have yet to listen to last week's episode, number 96, I invite you to start there for a basic orientation around archetypes and how they're being kind of played out in this political arena right now. What we have today is a distinct focus on one particular type of archetype, the anima and the animus, and how knowing more about it will allow us to be balanced and also understand the expression by people who are feeling unbalanced in this arena. Think about a woman you admire and how she is able to display qualities that inspire you, encourage you, and allow you to see a way forward in your own life because of how she's engaging with her life. We're talking about archetypes, and this image that you hold in your head is a powerful archetype that you can use to draw you forward towards what's most important to you. Welcome in. If this is your first time to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm so glad you're here, and welcome back to those of you who are returning listeners. We are picking up on the topic of archetypes, and if you have yet to listen to last week's episode, number 96, I invite you to start there for a basic orientation around archetypes and how they're being kind of played out in this political arena right now. What we have today is a distinct focus on one particular type of archetype, the anima and the animus, and how knowing more about it will allow us to be balanced and also understand the expression by people who are feeling unbalanced in this arena. Let's do a quick review of the archetypes. Remember, they are the fundamental components of the collective unconscious. It's within all of us, and an archetype is considered a universal primordial symbol. Could be images. It could be designs, motifs, symbols. And they reside within our consciousness, our collective shared unconscious that we all have as human beings. Now, archetypes serve as these underlying framework for our thoughts and our actions, and it allows us to gain a better understanding of what's happening when we're acting in a certain way that we're wondering about or curious about. It gives us a place to direct our energies when we want to change our behavior. And even better, it lets us understand some of the wild things that are happening out in the world. Now. Remember, the classic archetypes are the persona, the shadow, the anima, and the animus, and each of them embody this different facet of our human experience and our psychological functioning. Before we can get to our self actualized. Human being, the self archetype. We have to balance our anima and our animus. The anima and the animus relates to our inner life balance, and in fact, it is the inner force that animates us. Now our psyche contains and embraces both the feminine and masculine qualities of ourselves. And I'm talking about feminine and masculine in a traditional sense. I'll get more specific as we go on. It is internal what I'm talking about, and it is personality and how these things are expressed using different strategies. So our psyche is inherently an androgynous entity. Now, regardless of whatever gender the physical person is embodying, our personalities are androgynous. The anima and the animus are two sides of the same coin. The animus is the masculine expression within a woman, so masculine being that the personality traits logical, assertive, rational. The anima is the feminine and the feminine traits within a man nurturing, emotional, creative, etc.. And then there are so many different ways that all of these can be expressed individually. We can lean towards one internally and lean towards another externally. There are so many ways that are normal and appropriate for us to express these aspects of ourselves. Jung did not invent these descriptions. Jung is just naming what is observed across cultures and throughout time. There's not a right or wrong way to bring yourself into balance. The anima and the animus plays a significant role in determining how we think and feel about our lives deep within our heart. This balanced aspect within us is considered the the image making capacity inside of us, and it's where we draw inspirational, creative, intuitive images. That's where all this comes from is the balance between masculine and feminine. So if you're thinking about the art that you create or the table that you set for a dinner party, or how you arrange your home when it's balanced internally, you can balance it and express it on the outside. Now, understanding more and more about your Anima Animus balance requires attention, of course, through art, looking at your dreams, expressing yourself in different ways. You can do it through how you dress, how you speak, your mannerisms. There is no wrong way to express masculine or feminine qualities. Remember, this is a normal, universal and necessary aspect of being a human being. Honoring both is extremely important. Jung recognized that masculine feminine anima animus is just two sides of a whole. So think of a mandala inside that circle. One side or the other side, and then it becomes integrated. They form two halves of this whole, and they both belong to every single one of us. And there is not one that is superior. And there's no psychology text that says one is better than the other. And Jung made a great point to make sure that in his writing, he was very clear that they're both essential and important, and one is not superior to the other. This is where trouble can arise if we try and shut off one aspect of our personality by rejecting the contra, the opposite aspect of ourselves. We are in big trouble. We can end up projecting our fears of that unwanted part onto other people for how they balance themselves. And we get into really dangerous territory. When people are trying to control or judge how others express their anima and animus. I have some examples for you. If you think of a man that is too controlling. He's rejecting that anima or a woman that's too passive, rejecting her animus. And rejecting or cutting off these aspects of the self causes us to lose our rich inner experience. We wind up with some real danger in seeking to try and find balance in another person as well. If we decide, well, I'm going to reject all of this and just embody one particular aspect. I'll just be Anima, and then I go look for someone who is all animus. It leads to not the best relationships to unbalanced people do not come together to make a whole. It requires two balanced people to create something bigger than themselves. Another example is there are some people right now in politics who are fearing and judging people who express their anima and their animus in their own way. And that fear of difference, the fear of balance, gets projected onto women, onto trans people. It's projected onto anyone who is reflecting a balanced sense of self. So when people in power are projecting their fears onto other, you know that it's coming from a place of deficit and lack unbalanced, emotionally stunted expression. They're showing rigidity of thought phobia, hyper fixation. It's an incredible loss to themselves for rejecting that part of themselves. And then they're causing damage. And then finally there are people passing legislation on trans people, and they're they're looking at people who express their anima and animus in their own way, because there is no wrong way to do this. And the people who are trying to create legislation against trans people are rejecting themselves. They're rejecting others, and they're coming from a place of fear. They're acting out and they're full of hate. There is real danger of physical and social abuse when people in power are so uncomfortable with balancing their own anima and animus that they have to take their anger and their fear out on others who express their anima and animus in whatever way they want, in a balanced way. And it's a real danger to trans people and everybody else. So the underdeveloped psyche of people who are trying to legislate other people's bodies is causing real danger. And I started thinking about where does this come from? It's a really developmentally stuck place, a rigidity. It is extremely dangerous. Obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are the repetitive thoughts that someone has constantly thinking about anima and animus in other people, and then the compulsion to act on it and inflict danger upon them. These legislations are coming from a very dangerous place, and they are showing this extremely underdeveloped psyche and causing real damage. The goal, of course, in thinking about anima and animus is to balance all the aspects within ourselves to be free and not withholding or judging our own internal anima animus feminine masculine qualities. The goal is to consciously cultivate balance. And you can do that through art, through reading, through looking at art. At the museum, you can learn about your own anima and animus in your dreams. Journaling. It takes some effort to explore these parts of yourself if you have cut them off. I want to tell you the benefits of exploring your own anima and animus is when you stop fearing other people who do it differently than you. You can just live your life and they can live their life, and you can be respectful and inclusive. And I think anybody who's here listening is respectful of others. That's why you're here and you're wanting to make life more creative for yourself. So creative self-expression is encouraged. We want that. It makes life so much richer. Another bonus of coming to terms and balancing out your anima and animus is that research shows over and over again that the most pleasant, most attractive personalities guess what are people who show androgyny, and they're balanced in their anima and animus, and they show qualities on both sides of that spectrum. If you want to be more attractive, start balancing your anima and animus. Another bonus of thinking about and reflecting on those masculine and feminine qualities within you. Is your own healing, your own personal growth, and this increased capacity to love others and to receive love. And there are people who are very busy spending a lot of psychic energy, hating their own qualities, squashing them down, projecting the fears onto others, and legislating with hate. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room to love others and receive love from others. The final, really great bonus of working on balancing your anima and animus by not judging others, not judging yourself, is that you no longer feel stuck. You let go of that sense of feeling completely unbalanced in what's happening in your life, and you begin to use more of your capacities to solve problems, to embrace others and embrace yourself. You're just left with so much more psychic energy, and it feels so much better to embrace and love others and not follow along when people are using hate to express their squashed down anima and animus. I want to give you some examples of some archetypes in the Anima. And if you think about archetypes, you know there's a whole range of how women can express themselves. And what's being revealed is often easy to find, like in film or in parasocial relationships with leaders or important people that have made contributions. So if you think about Brooke Shields in her younger days, she was kind of the virginal rolls. She was pre sexual. That's like an archetype around kind of this beginning level of understanding the anima, the female aspect. If you think about Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson, just these fully developed sexual divas. Right. So they've moved into this other realm and they're expressing that aspect of femininity. Then we have kind of a more mature, supportive person. Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt. Also here we have Oprah. We have the other women who are strong feminine leaders, still feminine and also pushing in leadership. Evita Peron. You can think next. About what? About people who are embodying a more spiritual aspect. Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, women who devoted their entire lives to being of service there, really embodying the spiritual, transcendent aspect of a feminine archetype. And they're still connected to the world. They're doing service in the world. But there's this higher calling that they're leaning towards, and they're leading others towards. And finally, in the transcendent aspect of a female archetype is a goddess, a virgin Mary, other female deities that are spiritual, they're not connected to the world anymore. They're representative and they're aspirational, and they give us hope and direction. All of these aspects of expressing femininity is relevant. It's important, and it matters that we have a look at all of these in our own experience. There may be some of these women that I mentioned that you feel perhaps uncomfortable with how they express themselves. Have a look at that. That's a way to balance your own anima and animus is by looking at other women who have qualities that you think you might want to judge. That's a great opening into your own personal growth. You can also think about the masculine examples of the animus. The most obvious would be kind of a primitive like Tarzan. Moving up the ladder would be someone like James Dean, sort of this undirected masculine energy. We still remember the Rebel Without a cause. We can think about James Bond, very suave and worldly. We can think about Richard Branson or Kendrick Lamar. This really integrated, masculine, strong and creative. Barack Obama is considered this integrated and evolved masculine energy. He's very much anchored in the world and solving problems. But then we move to leaders like Gandhi or Mandela. They're masculine, but with this spiritual component, they're they're doing work in the world, but they're also transcending. And then, of course, there's masculine, you know, spiritual expressions, Buddha, Muhammad, Christ. And these are, you know, transcending the world, aspirational. The anima and the animus requires effort to balance it requires exploring. I tried to give you some examples from different aspects of life business, music, sports, philanthropy, leadership and these are all people that are embodying and expressing. And I gave you aspirational people. I did not mention on aspirational people or the people that are causing damage. So remember, the integrated, balanced archetype of the mandala that's inside a circle is considered the ultimate archetype. And so we work within that mandala to understand the anima and the animus. If you are interested in this kind of work, I really want to encourage you to go look at the artwork of mandalas. You can get a mandala, um, book that you make yourself. You don't have to buy a mandala coloring book. It's better if you do it yourself and you are using lines and shapes and colors and symbols to really express this balance. And remember, it's not exactly linear and clear and logical all the time. Our expression of these can sometimes be surprising, it can be uncertain, but the more we put it into our art and our writing, I think the better off we are, the more balanced we become. There's no wrong way to do this work, except if you're trying to squash it down. It's the pushing away from your own masculine qualities as a woman, or pushing away your own feminine qualities as a man that caused the problem. It's integrating them that is the solution, and it offers us so much more capacity to love and be loved. It stops us from fearing and judging people who express themselves differently from you, and it allows us to understand a trans nature, human as a human who's expressing themselves in their unique way. And you don't have to be afraid of that because you're comfortable with who you are. I hope this episode was helpful in understanding some of the hate that you're observing in the news, and in legislation, that it's fear based and that people are showing up with very dangerous, immature psyches. That is then leading to. Unnecessary fear and hatred of people who are doing it in a much better, more balanced way. I was delighted to come across a report from a judge who described these proposed restrictions against transgender military people as unadulterated animus. And the federal judge was planning to block a ban on transgender service members. And I love that they recognised the unchecked effort to squash the balance. And this judge, anyways, is hearing arguments, but very clear that all of this is about an unchecked, over activated animus. Regulating people's self-expression is dangerous to our creativity as a human society. It matters tremendously that we're able to be who we are and who we want to be, and express ourselves in in desirable ways that feel comfortable to us. And my freedom of expression is only as good as the person with the least amount of creative expression available to them. That's why it matters that we support one another, especially these days. I want to encourage you to be active in speaking out, and when you are safe and are able to speak up, I really want to encourage you to do that in whatever way that you can. There's a Buddhist teaching that's really been on my mind a lot lately, and it says everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to help their mother with the dishes. The people who have changed the world in really powerful ways are doing it one small act at a time. Mother Teresa didn't suddenly change the world. She helped one person and another person and another person, and she invited some people to join her in her vision. And they each were helping one person at a time and look at the legacy that she has left of caring for the poor and the sick and the elderly. It's an incredible message that we can all really get behind. There are few opportunities for us to make these big, huge, grand gestures, remember? It's these small ones that are possible and they keep us inspired. Just these small little gestures. Anytime your mind says you, oh, don't don't do that. Don't worry about that. That's not going to do anything. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to speak up about that. When you hear that voice, I want you to challenge it. I was very unsure how I was going to speak up about trans rights, and I kept hemming and hawing about it, and eventually I thought, oh, that's the sign to speak up. Just take a small action. I'm excited to be supporting and be a part of a really great study that's all about trans research using avatars. And the primary researcher on this study is an incredible person who has such a generous, thoughtful way of thinking about how to use creativity in the most broad way so that people feel the most free to express themselves. It's really exciting stuff, and I hope to share more with you about that soon. This work in whatever capacity that you're doing, whatever you do, you can make a change to make the world a little bit better. I promise you, you can contribute. I don't want you to ever feel like you're not contributing. And I've said this before, if you're in school, you're contributing. If you're getting an education, you're contributing. When you're being kind to your neighbor, you're contributing. When you work on yourself, you're contributing huge, huge amounts to all the people around you. When you take care of your psyche and your anima and your animus, you benefit, and so does everyone around you. Take really good care of yourself. You can send me a message in the show notes. I would love to hear from you on this topic. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me even if you just have some questions. Go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month. All those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.  To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive feeling. Logic can tell you superficially where a path might lead to, but it cannot judge whether your heart will be in it. This quote from Jean Bolden is all about how we balance on the inside and the outside. Our masculine and feminine qualities. Welcome to the modern creative woman. We are exploring the art and science of creativity, and this is designed for women like you who are curious about where life could take you. If you're open to becoming the woman you've always wanted to be, if this work speaks to you, I invite you to join me inside the Modern Creative Woman membership and take a deep dive into these really important topics that make life more rich, more fulfilling, and help you live a life using your values to do what's most important. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. Welcome in. If this is your first time to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm so glad you're here. And welcome back to those of you who are returning listeners. We are picking up on the topic of archetypes, and if you have yet to listen to last week's episode, number 96, I invite you to start there for a basic orientation around archetypes and how they're being kind of played out in this political arena right now. What we have today is a distinct focus on one particular type of archetype, the anima and the animus, and how knowing more about it will allow us to be balanced and also understand the expression by people who are feeling unbalanced in this arena. Think about a woman you admire and how she is able to display qualities that inspire you, encourage you, and allow you to see a way forward in your own life because of how she's engaging with her life. We're talking about archetypes, and this image that you hold in your head is a powerful archetype that you can use to draw you forward towards what's most important to you. Welcome in. If this is your first time to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm so glad you're here, and welcome back to those of you who are returning listeners. We are picking up on the topic of archetypes, and if you have yet to listen to last week's episode, number 96, I invite you to start there for a basic orientation around archetypes and how they're being kind of played out in this political arena right now. What we have today is a distinct focus on one particular type of archetype, the anima and the animus, and how knowing more about it will allow us to be balanced and also understand the expression by people who are feeling unbalanced in this arena. Let's do a quick review of the archetypes. Remember, they are the fundamental components of the collective unconscious. It's within all of us, and an archetype is considered a universal primordial symbol. Could be images. It could be designs, motifs, symbols. And they reside within our consciousness, our collective shared unconscious that we all have as human beings. Now, archetypes serve as these underlying framework for our thoughts and our actions, and it allows us to gain a better understanding of what's happening when we're acting in a certain way that we're wondering about or curious about. It gives us a place to direct our energies when we want to change our behavior. And even better, it lets us understand some of the wild things that are happening out in the world. Now. Remember, the classic archetypes are the persona, the shadow, the anima, and the animus, and each of them embody this different facet of our human experience and our psychological functioning. Before we can get to our self actualized. Human being, the self archetype. We have to balance our anima and our animus. The anima and the animus relates to our inner life balance, and in fact, it is the inner force that animates us. Now our psyche contains and embraces both the feminine and masculine qualities of ourselves. And I'm talking about feminine and masculine in a traditional sense. I'll get more specific as we go on. It is internal what I'm talking about, and it is personality and how these things are expressed using different strategies. So our psyche is inherently an androgynous entity. Now, regardless of whatever gender the physical person is embodying, our personalities are androgynous. The anima and the animus are two sides of the same coin. The animus is the masculine expression within a woman, so masculine being that the personality traits logical, assertive, rational. The anima is the feminine and the feminine traits within a man nurturing, emotional, creative, etc.. And then there are so many different ways that all of these can be expressed individually. We can lean towards one internally and lean towards another externally. There are so many ways that are normal and appropriate for us to express these aspects of ourselves. Jung did not invent these descriptions. Jung is just naming what is observed across cultures and throughout time. There's not a right or wrong way to bring yourself into balance. The anima and the animus plays a significant role in determining how we think and feel about our lives deep within our heart. This balanced aspect within us is considered the the image making capacity inside of us, and it's where we draw inspirational, creative, intuitive images. That's where all this comes from is the balance between masculine and feminine. So if you're thinking about the art that you create or the table that you set for a dinner party, or how you arrange your home when it's balanced internally, you can balance it and express it on the outside. Now, understanding more and more about your Anima Animus balance requires attention, of course, through art, looking at your dreams, expressing yourself in different ways. You can do it through how you dress, how you speak, your mannerisms. There is no wrong way to express masculine or feminine qualities. Remember, this is a normal, universal and necessary aspect of being a human being. Honoring both is extremely important. Jung recognized that masculine feminine anima animus is just two sides of a whole. So think of a mandala inside that circle. One side or the other side, and then it becomes integrated. They form two halves of this whole, and they both belong to every single one of us. And there is not one that is superior. And there's no psychology text that says one is better than the other. And Jung made a great point to make sure that in his writing, he was very clear that they're both essential and important, and one is not superior to the other. This is where trouble can arise if we try and shut off one aspect of our personality by rejecting the contra, the opposite aspect of ourselves. We are in big trouble. We can end up projecting our fears of that unwanted part onto other people for how they balance themselves. And we get into really dangerous territory. When people are trying to control or judge how others express their anima and animus. I have some examples for you. If you think of a man that is too controlling. He's rejecting that anima or a woman that's too passive, rejecting her animus. And rejecting or cutting off these aspects of the self causes us to lose our rich inner experience. We wind up with some real danger in seeking to try and find balance in another person as well. If we decide, well, I'm going to reject all of this and just embody one particular aspect. I'll just be Anima, and then I go look for someone who is all animus. It leads to not the best relationships to unbalanced people do not come together to make a whole. It requires two balanced people to create something bigger than themselves. Another example is there are some people right now in politics who are fearing and judging people who express their anima and their animus in their own way. And that fear of difference, the fear of balance, gets projected onto women, onto trans people. It's projected onto anyone who is reflecting a balanced sense of self. So when people in power are projecting their fears onto other, you know that it's coming from a place of deficit and lack unbalanced, emotionally stunted expression. They're showing rigidity of thought phobia, hyper fixation. It's an incredible loss to themselves for rejecting that part of themselves. And then they're causing damage. And then finally there are people passing legislation on trans people, and they're they're looking at people who express their anima and animus in their own way, because there is no wrong way to do this. And the people who are trying to create legislation against trans people are rejecting themselves. They're rejecting others, and they're coming from a place of fear. They're acting out and they're full of hate. There is real danger of physical and social abuse when people in power are so uncomfortable with balancing their own anima and animus that they have to take their anger and their fear out on others who express their anima and animus in whatever way they want, in a balanced way. And it's a real danger to trans people and everybody else. So the underdeveloped psyche of people who are trying to legislate other people's bodies is causing real danger. And I started thinking about where does this come from? It's a really developmentally stuck place, a rigidity. It is extremely dangerous. Obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are the repetitive thoughts that someone has constantly thinking about anima and animus in other people, and then the compulsion to act on it and inflict danger upon them. These legislations are coming from a very dangerous place, and they are showing this extremely underdeveloped psyche and causing real damage. The goal, of course, in thinking about anima and animus is to balance all the aspects within ourselves to be free and not withholding or judging our own internal anima animus feminine masculine qualities. The goal is to consciously cultivate balance. And you can do that through art, through reading, through looking at art. At the museum, you can learn about your own anima and animus in your dreams. Journaling. It takes some effort to explore these parts of yourself if you have cut them off. I want to tell you the benefits of exploring your own anima and animus is when you stop fearing other people who do it differently than you. You can just live your life and they can live their life, and you can be respectful and inclusive. And I think anybody who's here listening is respectful of others. That's why you're here and you're wanting to make life more creative for yourself. So creative self-expression is encouraged. We want that. It makes life so much richer. Another bonus of coming to terms and balancing out your anima and animus is that research shows over and over again that the most pleasant, most attractive personalities guess what are people who show androgyny, and they're balanced in their anima and animus, and they show qualities on both sides of that spectrum. If you want to be more attractive, start balancing your anima and animus. Another bonus of thinking about and reflecting on those masculine and feminine qualities within you. Is your own healing, your own personal growth, and this increased capacity to love others and to receive love. And there are people who are very busy spending a lot of psychic energy, hating their own qualities, squashing them down, projecting the fears onto others, and legislating with hate. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room to love others and receive love from others. The final, really great bonus of working on balancing your anima and animus by not judging others, not judging yourself, is that you no longer feel stuck. You let go of that sense of feeling completely unbalanced in what's happening in your life, and you begin to use more of your capacities to solve problems, to embrace others and embrace yourself. You're just left with so much more psychic energy, and it feels so much better to embrace and love others and not follow along when people are using hate to express their squashed down anima and animus. I want to give you some examples of some archetypes in the Anima. And if you think about archetypes, you know there's a whole range of how women can express themselves. And what's being revealed is often easy to find, like in film or in parasocial relationships with leaders or important people that have made contributions. So if you think about Brooke Shields in her younger days, she was kind of the virginal rolls. She was pre sexual. That's like an archetype around kind of this beginning level of understanding the anima, the female aspect. If you think about Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson, just these fully developed sexual divas. Right. So they've moved into this other realm and they're expressing that aspect of femininity. Then we have kind of a more mature, supportive person. Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt. Also here we have Oprah. We have the other women who are strong feminine leaders, still feminine and also pushing in leadership. Evita Peron. You can think next. About what? About people who are embodying a more spiritual aspect. Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, women who devoted their entire lives to being of service there, really embodying the spiritual, transcendent aspect of a feminine archetype. And they're still connected to the world. They're doing service in the world. But there's this higher calling that they're leaning towards, and they're leading others towards. And finally, in the transcendent aspect of a female archetype is a goddess, a virgin Mary, other female deities that are spiritual, they're not connected to the world anymore. They're representative and they're aspirational, and they give us hope and direction. All of these aspects of expressing femininity is relevant. It's important, and it matters that we have a look at all of these in our own experience. There may be some of these women that I mentioned that you feel perhaps uncomfortable with how they express themselves. Have a look at that. That's a way to balance your own anima and animus is by looking at other women who have qualities that you think you might want to judge. That's a great opening into your own personal growth. You can also think about the masculine examples of the animus. The most obvious would be kind of a primitive like Tarzan. Moving up the ladder would be someone like James Dean, sort of this undirected masculine energy. We still remember the Rebel Without a cause. We can think about James Bond, very suave and worldly. We can think about Richard Branson or Kendrick Lamar. This really integrated, masculine, strong and creative. Barack Obama is considered this integrated and evolved masculine energy. He's very much anchored in the world and solving problems. But then we move to leaders like Gandhi or Mandela. They're masculine, but with this spiritual component, they're they're doing work in the world, but they're also transcending. And then, of course, there's masculine, you know, spiritual expressions, Buddha, Muhammad, Christ. And these are, you know, transcending the world, aspirational. The anima and the animus requires effort to balance it requires exploring. I tried to give you some examples from different aspects of life business, music, sports, philanthropy, leadership and these are all people that are embodying and expressing. And I gave you aspirational people. I did not mention on aspirational people or the people that are causing damage. So remember, the integrated, balanced archetype of the mandala that's inside a circle is considered the ultimate archetype. And so we work within that mandala to understand the anima and the animus. If you are interested in this kind of work, I really want to encourage you to go look at the artwork of mandalas. You can get a mandala, um, book that you make yourself. You don't have to buy a mandala coloring book. It's better if you do it yourself and you are using lines and shapes and colors and symbols to really express this balance. And remember, it's not exactly linear and clear and logical all the time. Our expression of these can sometimes be surprising, it can be uncertain, but the more we put it into our art and our writing, I think the better off we are, the more balanced we become. There's no wrong way to do this work, except if you're trying to squash it down. It's the pushing away from your own masculine qualities as a woman, or pushing away your own feminine qualities as a man that caused the problem. It's integrating them that is the solution, and it offers us so much more capacity to love and be loved. It stops us from fearing and judging people who express themselves differently from you, and it allows us to understand a trans nature, human as a human who's expressing themselves in their unique way. And you don't have to be afraid of that because you're comfortable with who you are. I hope this episode was helpful in understanding some of the hate that you're observing in the news, and in legislation, that it's fear based and that people are showing up with very dangerous, immature psyches. That is then leading to. Unnecessary fear and hatred of people who are doing it in a much better, more balanced way. I was delighted to come across a report from a judge who described these proposed restrictions against transgender military people as unadulterated animus. And the federal judge was planning to block a ban on transgender service members. And I love that they recognised the unchecked effort to squash the balance. And this judge, anyways, is hearing arguments, but very clear that all of this is about an unchecked, over activated animus. Regulating people's self-expression is dangerous to our creativity as a human society. It matters tremendously that we're able to be who we are and who we want to be, and express ourselves in in desirable ways that feel comfortable to us. And my freedom of expression is only as good as the person with the least amount of creative expression available to them. That's why it matters that we support one another, especially these days. I want to encourage you to be active in speaking out, and when you are safe and are able to speak up, I really want to encourage you to do that in whatever way that you can. There's a Buddhist teaching that's really been on my mind a lot lately, and it says everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to help their mother with the dishes. The people who have changed the world in really powerful ways are doing it one small act at a time. Mother Teresa didn't suddenly change the world. She helped one person and another person and another person, and she invited some people to join her in her vision. And they each were helping one person at a time and look at the legacy that she has left of caring for the poor and the sick and the elderly. It's an incredible message that we can all really get behind. There are few opportunities for us to make these big, huge, grand gestures, remember? It's these small ones that are possible and they keep us inspired. Just these small little gestures. Anytime your mind says you, oh, don't don't do that. Don't worry about that. That's not going to do anything. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to speak up about that. When you hear that voice, I want you to challenge it. I was very unsure how I was going to speak up about trans rights, and I kept hemming and hawing about it, and eventually I thought, oh, that's the sign to speak up. Just take a small action. I'm excited to be supporting and be a part of a really great study that's all about trans research using avatars. And the primary researcher on this study is an incredible person who has such a generous, thoughtful way of thinking about how to use creativity in the most broad way so that people feel the most free to express themselves. It's really exciting stuff, and I hope to share more with you about that soon. This work in whatever capacity that you're doing, whatever you do, you can make a change to make the world a little bit better. I promise you, you can contribute. I don't want you to ever feel like you're not contributing. And I've said this before, if you're in school, you're contributing. If you're getting an education, you're contributing. When you're being kind to your neighbor, you're contributing. When you work on yourself, you're contributing huge, huge amounts to all the people around you. When you take care of your psyche and your anima and your animus, you benefit, and so does everyone around you. Take really good care of yourself. You can send me a message in the show notes. I would love to hear from you on this topic. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me even if you just have some questions. Go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month. All those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.