Redefining Masculinity: Finding Balance and Inner Harmony

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.

Transcript

0:00

In this week's episode, we explore the sacred dance of masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, what it means to embrace both sides, and why it is essential for personal growth. We dive into the roles of fear and judgment, uncovering how they shape our inner world and showing how they can become powerful allies instead of obstacles. And finally, we share practical steps to create inner balance, helping you to align with your authentic self and find harmony in your life. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights.

James: 1:02

Believe that both masculine and feminine qualities exist within every person, regardless of the gender. Society has imposed rigid definitions of what it means to be a man or a woman, often conflating masculinity with maleness and femininity with femaleness. This creates confusion and limits our understanding of these energies. Sometimes terms like ying and yang or lunar and solar energies can better express these concepts, as the words masculine and feminine carry so much cultural baggage. However, it is essential for each of us to acknowledge and integrate both aspects within ourselves. When we reject either the masculine or the feminine within, we tend to reject these qualities outward, often in distorted or shadowed ways, until we learn to embrace them as part of our wholeness. This internal division stems from a cultural tendency to separate consciousness from matter, mind from emotion, and even the divine aspects of father and mother. Yet I feel that the universe is calling us back to unity. The sacred alchemy of divine union within. Hello Benjamin, can you explain more?

Benjamin: 2:22

Yeah so I feel like for me, My whole life has been like a learning to integrate the masculine and feminine and it's only been last say 20 years that I really realized that's been my journey. And it even started off with like my parents splitting when I was younger, when I was like four or five, and I'm growing up in a culture where there's been this patriarchal sort of. Oppression of the land of the feminine of our softer nature. And, um, and yeah, and growing up what is it to, what's it mean to be a man and how do I navigate this and trying all the different different ways and knowing that lots of those didn't actually work. Yeah, and more and more just realizing that I need to actually uncover what these mean inside me. What does the masculine mean inside me? What's the feminine mean? Rather than just, okay, somebody said, I have to be like this way and then trying to be like something that I don't even know how to be. It's so there's been a continual journey of learning, learning, what do these mean inside?

James: 3:33

Yeah, I can usually relate because I can, this last probably two, three, four years have been all about me. Embracing not only just the masculine, but also the feminine. So the masculine, I see as the kind of the warrior, the one who does things, who goes out to make things happen. And combine that with the lover, who then is all to do with emotion. It's all to do with connecting to the earth, the land, connecting to our own internal. Femininity. But also, recently, something's cropped up to do with balancing the masculine and feminine, so the masculine being action taking and doing, and then combining that with the feminine, which is to do with surrender. So about taking action, and then surrendering, allowing that action to integrate, and then taking action, and then surrendering.

Benjamin: 4:31

That's beautiful, yeah. There's something like that There's a lady called Maya Luna, who I really like. Lots of her work, she talks about the deep feminine current, and there's something she speaks about often we say okay the masculine holds space and the feminine surrenders. But actually like when these are two aspects inside us, it's actually the masculine, the assertiveness that surrenders to the feminine, that surrenders to the current, that surrenders to the isness of things, it's like we have our will that we're going to do this, but at some point. That on its own is really ungrounded and becomes frazzled, actually that, like that the king goes into the underground, has to die and be, to be reborn. I feel like the masculine actually has the courage to surrender into the mystery to go down into the unknown, to go surrender and then be reborn again.

James: 5:28

Yeah, I hear that. I do hear that as well, because I hear sometimes that the feminine represents the unknown. Yeah. Yeah. Almost stepping into this mystery, and As from the masculine point of view, stepping into the unknown it's scary. It's terrifying. And it's requires this requires courage to really step into that unknown because in the unknown, you don't know what's going to happen. You almost, in fact, you are surrendering to whatever comes up. Within that sense of surrender. There's this, I but I feel it's this idea that it's that being present in that moment and allowing ourselves to almost explore not just our surroundings, but what's happening to ourselves internally. Benjamin, can you tell me about yourself please?

Benjamin: 6:24

Okay. I can I grew up in Wales. And I came to university time and I came up to Manchester and studied physics and I think I was expecting it to be this kind of mystery school really where I could come and become like this crazy scientist or come up with these beautiful ideas and Yeah, and I quickly discovered that university wasn't like that, that it felt, to me, it felt like just imposing lots of ideas and then having to regurgitate them and they didn't feel like there was that space for the creativity for the genius to come through. I think I secretly had this idea of being like Einstein or something like that. And then it was like, okay, there's not really space for that, that, that wildness and that 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 the Min Ministry of Defense or whatever. Lots of my friends did. And I was like, I didn't know what my soul calling was. And so I spent a lot of time trying to work that out. And I went through a bit of a kind of psychosis, spiritual kind of dark night of soul trying to. Figure out how to be yeah. And then gradually started to find my way through that and was practice yoga a lot and things like that. And and then after about 13 years of that, then I went, I started to explored some plant medicines and enjoyed the teachings from that. And but I think a lot of the journey is learning to trust that wisdom inside. Rather than oh, somebody outside got the answer, or some guru, or some book, or it's oh, actually, my own heart is the best teacher for me.

James: 8:13

Quickly, how did you balance between the mind and the brain, and trust in the heart? So obviously, a lot of people are very much in the head, and they talk about dropping themselves into the heart space, because in the heart space, I feel that, that is, I feel myself, that is very feminine energy in the heart, and the masculine feel, the mind feels very masculine. How did you drop into the heart, and what did you specifically do?

Benjamin: 8:46

Okay, so rather than answering that directly there's something I've noticed recently is like how I need to actually be kind to the heart, to, to the mind. Like when I make the mind an enemy and I'm trying to get, stop my thinking and get into my heart or, Oh, it's bad that I've got a mind that doesn't, it doesn't help me drop into my heart. And like I was dancing the other night, I was doing, I do five rhythm dancing and somebody was like, 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 me drop into the body. What helped me to drop into the body is to let my mind be there and soften underneath it. And part of me realizes that really the mind is just my breath. I've not got to like when I surrender my mind, what do I risk? I surrender it to the breath. And it's not like I surrender it by getting rid of it or cutting it off. It's almost just like I surrender it by recognizing it's none other than the intelligence of the breath. Or the imagination of the heart. And so then rather than this fracturing of gotta fight the mind and get rid of it, it's almost okay, I'm meant to have a mind. And if I'm having a go at it, there's gonna be some kind of war. Whereas if I can actually say wow, thank you, beautiful mind, thank you. And a lot of the mechanisms in the mind are trying to protect me. I actually, when I try and when I'm attacking it, one, it's the mind attacking itself, but. Also, it's going to get more protective. Whereas when I actually say thank you. And wow, beautiful mind is able to come into its right functioning. And there's a word I like sometimes 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 mind of light, but but there's times where I recognize really all the mind is doing is seeing the beauty. Of creation of what already is. So all of my ahas are just a sort of almost just a seeing of some kind of beauty. And it's ah, and often I'll try and grasp hold of that. And it's oh, I've got to remember it. But actually, really, it was just a blossoming of what was already here in the mystery, already here in the beauty of the feminine. And I suppose I like that I said about the protection, instead of protection, we could say guardian. It's like one of, for me, one of the main aspects of the masculine is guardianship, is protectiveness. And it's here to be in reverence of, to, to the mystery, to the feminine. Yeah, there was some other thread 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'm feeling 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 focus onto that point, sometimes it's there for ages, but that's all right. But sometimes I'm there for a few seconds, and I just automatically shift down into my health space, and it's the same with fear, so I've started to create a new relationship with fear. My feeling on fear is that fear was just, fear is just there to protect us when we're younger. As a child, we're very vulnerable, and it's just, if we see people who are quite mean to us, our fear will keep us safe by perhaps not going to the same place where they are. Or avoiding them. Our fear, I find that our fear is 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 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 many years, you start trying to push that fear away. It comes back harder, but if you accept it and allow it to come in as part of you, it tends to, it's almost, it softens and it starts to, okay, realize, okay, maybe he doesn't need our help just yet, but it's always there if you do need it.

Benjamin: 12:59

Yeah, that's beautiful. I like that you've brought up fear because recently that feels like a really a beautiful exploration. I realized that lots of times. People are talk about the sacredness of anger or embracing our grief, but often fears not really spoken into is Oh yeah, it's fear mentality that made us do that. Oh, it's choose love, not fear. And I'm like, why don't we just choose to love the fear? And the times where I have chosen to love the fear, I realized that the frightened one is so divine is actually this beautiful being of love. And I sometimes I know that we can say Oh, we can call the fear excitement, but I'm realizing actually the fear is a very sensitive one. It's almost like this really sensed, like the really young newborn is in that sensitive space. I think before it's even been unmet because I think a lot of the time fear is that sensitive one that's not been met. And it's but like the newborn is in that sensitivity and it's not even been denied yet. And it's just that real like a loud noise and it reacts and it's just and it's and I realized for me, especially as a man, we've been told like, don't be frightened. Don't be sad. And though those, for me, those two soft energies, soft emotions which I see more as the feminine. Emotions and like anger and joy is 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 fear is always going to always been here. And when I'm told not to feel it, what I'm left with is numbness. And then I wonder why don't I feel my anger or why don't I feel my joy or sadness? It's because I've been told that basic sensitivity of who I am is wrong. And it's so realizing that as I can actually turn to that and, maybe the masculine of my mind turn towards that frightened one and say you're allowed to, you don't even have to come up with a story about why you're here. You don't have to worry about scenarios just to justify why you're here. Maybe there's that, maybe there'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 them and we won't have them justify or explain why they're feeling a certain way. We just told them. And it's wow, I haven't learned to do that for my own fear, my own sensitivity. And I think as I, I learned to do 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 dominant feeling, emotion, tends to be anxiousness. But what I, when I allow myself to, how am I feeling today, or how am I feeling in this moment, and I feel anxiousness. What I do then is allow myself to connect to that anxiousness and ask, what is the need? What is your need? And quite often the need for that part of me just wants a bit of love and support. So then I'll allow myself to feel loved and supported. And then I'm able to shift myself from anxiousness. To a sense of love, which is super powerful, and it's quite simple, it's, it might seem complicated 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 with anger, same with fear, and the same with all these different emotions, they're just there for a purpose. And once we understand their purpose while they're there, we can start to unravel not just our core underlying wounds, but also we can understand how we can move ourselves from one state to another state. In an instant.

Benjamin: 17:16

I realized that with it's the same with desire. Often it's not that, that new partner or that, job, say, pay salary increase or whatever it is that actually I'm desiring. Actually what's, what I'm desiring is the one that desires to be met. I'm desiring to be acknowledged by myself, by my own awareness rather than it's it's almost as if I'm saying this thing like, wow, Oh, Hey dad. Will you get me that new suite? And really didn't really want the new suite from dad. It's just wanted dad to say, Hey, I see your son. And it's almost like their own psyche. And sometimes those desires also that there is something behind them, but I think the, maybe they also need, there is something neat in them, the need for them. But I think primarily to meet that young one, first of all. I remember there was a book called fathered by God and it had the different stages of of initiation for men. And the first stage was beloved son. And then the next one was was adventure or something like that. And it was saying that. The first stage, we need to just know that we're just beloved of us, the apple of our father's eye, not for any reason, just, we're just there. And it's and if we don't get grounded in that. When we go through the other stages of initiation of our, in our life, we're constantly seeking that the previous one. So it's like when we're doing the adventurer one, why aren't us doing, just doing it for the pure joy of wow, I get to see the world and express myself. We're constantly looking back and, Hey, look, dad, do you see me? I just did this. And, unmet need beforehand. I like that one. Sometimes just that one of can I rest in, in being the beloved. Can I just rest, sometimes, Oh, I could just let myself be the beloved, and I love that way in which in our psyche, we can be both. I can let myself soften into the beloved of the young one or the feminine and also be the masculine awareness that's telling it how beautiful it is. And it's and sometimes it might be that I rise up into more of the masculine, almost looking down to my belly, selling like, Hey, I have a beautiful belly, you're beautiful or heart. I love how I suppose back to that alchemy, how we're always both and I realized that sometimes it's I don't realize I'm always both. And I'm I'm looking for, to the woman, a woman outside and going, Oh, you're the one you're the beloved, you're the feminine. And I'm trying to, one of my patterns has been to rescue, to want to tell the to the woman outside how beautiful she is, cause I can see how she's not realizing it. And I'm like, Hey, there's nobody telling you off, but yourself, like you're beautiful. It's okay for you to recognize your beauty. But I realized that. The reason I'm doing that is because 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 that actually wants that to be said to me. And it's almost like I'm sourcing it, saying it to other, to, to women. And then hoping that maybe at some stage their masculine will rise up and say to me like, Oh your emotional body is beautiful as well. But that never really happens because they've needed me to play that part and yeah, so it's just that, I suppose that seeing that codependence that, that, that comes when I don't recognize that I've always got both parts. I've got my mind and my emotional body, or I've got my masculine and my feminine and and I feel like. The universe is constantly mirroring back the parts that haven't integrated. Just say, Hey, look, you haven't got 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, in the world generally, we have these ideas of what masculinity and femininity is. How do you define both the masculinity and femininity?

Benjamin: 21:31

Okay, good question. So it's been quite a journey and like a recognizing that,

21:35

oh,

Benjamin: 21:36

I'm allowed to almost break from the script of what other people say it is. And just what do these really mean inside me? For me, basically just the downward energy is the feminine, is that dropping from up and coming down and the upward energy is the masculine and or that's one of the ways I define it. But another way would be the assertiveness the fire, that's the yang energy. For the masculine and for the feminine, the receptivity and another one of maybe I'll just throw a couple of quite a few in there is the giving energy, the kind of the giving energy being the masculine and the receptivity being the feminine. And obviously, obviously, like both men and women will have the receptivity and the expressiveness. And cause I, cause often I'll hear women saying, but, ah, but women are very, uh, expressive or giving and it's see the they are, yeah, but that's their masculine aspect, that's their more outward going aspect and, and their inward coming is the feminine. And there's that, there's the one as well of the softness or the sensitivity being more of the feminine and the protective, the strong being the masculine. And it's like a rope, we need like the strong strand and the powerless strand, because the powerless strand, it's like, for the rope to work, for it to, we need those both aspects. And and I suppose it's almost like we could break any polarity into the yin and yang aspect of it, or the masculine and feminine. And so inside myself, I use the words masculine and feminine very much the way the Chinese would use yin and yang. And and I know that kind of probably clashes with lots of people's definition of the masculine and feminine, but. It's an interesting one sometimes within Tantra, I'll be hearing something and I'll really love what they say and they'll say, okay, we've all got the masculine and feminine inside us. And then the next bit, they'll be using the word masculine to mean man. and feminine to meet women. It's wow, they've just, they've fallen into that conditioning, even though they were talking a little bit before about the opposite of that. So one, one I have as well, it's so something like birth that a woman's doing, I feel that, the. Incubating of the egg is very receptive and receiving and holding, but the actual birth process is very masculine, it's very into the world. Yeah. And it's what I love as well is like the, all of these polarities couldn't exist without each other. They also they define each other, up and down fear and anger, sadness and joy. It's they actually, they've got this co creation together. And they don't even tall and small, that doesn't, they don't, doesn't exist without each other.

James: 24:46

Yeah, it's quite a hard one to to gravitate, really. It's because, obviously, we've been told, you're male, you're female. But, obviously, we each have both masculine and feminine. And You see these, I think a lot of people have their definitions of what masculinity is. So masculinity is strong. You can do stuff for kind of femin, fem femininities surrendered and held back at times. But at the same time, I feel as though it's more a dance. So with Insiders, we've got, I don't know whether it's, I don't know whether it's we're equal or we're not equal, it doesn't really matter, but I feel as a dance Insiders of where we have to where we dance with the feminine and the masculine. So what I mean is that we have this idea that When we are able to dance with both the masculine and 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 get into the flow. So I feel like, when we're in the flow, we're dancing both the masculine and the feminine. Whereas when we are stuck, when we are stagnant, when we are bored, when we are hungry or something like that, I feel as though we are almost gravitating One way and we might be stuck in that way and we don't know quite how to get the dance to flow again I was just thinking in the moment.

Benjamin: 26:40

Yeah. Yeah. Once you were speaking, I was I was on a walk with my friend and we were you've done a podcast with him Matthew. And and we would just talk cause he's doing the, this massage walk along the spine of Albion and that, and we're talking about massage as it's it's got both the masculine and feminine. There's the kind of there's the, the doing. But it's like when I'm massaging, I have to be listening to what muscles need. And so it's there's a doing of the masculine, but there's the listening of the feminine. So I'm realizing like another definition of the masculine and feminine is the speaking or the sounding and the listening. And so to me the deep feminine is the one that listens, the listening. And from that listening comes the awareness of what to speak. And yeah and maybe that is that one with there's a vulnerability in listening. There's, there's a vulnerability in receiving other people's words and sometimes it's safer to just be the one that knows and yes, no, I'm not in the mystery. Yes. I know what's going on in life and storm on through, but actually the real groundedness comes from recognizing we don't really know. And and from that space of not knowing there's this space for different knowings to come and go, 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 to stay in the knowing and the safety up in the tower of consciousness. Yes. I'm pure consciousness or, I'm strong. I'm not frightened. Really it's a denial of our wholeness because, it's not true. I don't have a clue, but when I'm willing to go, okay, I don't have a clue. Then I'm in a space where new things can arise and conversely, we can get stuck in that almost like refusing to take action. almost sunk in the feminine in the 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 need each other. Like the feminine to feel safe needs, needs the mind, the protection, the knowing to let it know that. It can flow without its groundedness in the feminine is going to become yeah is disconnected and not connected to that vitality of. of the ground, of the isness of life, 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 currently single, and it's the idea that there's part of me that resists. When I go out, it's part of me that resists almost going and speaking to women because part of me is afraid, but it's also, it's almost as though I feel as though the, it's the, there's a stagnant flow between the masculine and the feminine. I feel as though if I'm in the masculine and the feminine as a whole, there's almost this idea that whether I go up and chat to that woman and nothing happens. or whether something happens, if I was in that flow of masculine and feminine, it wouldn't really matter. But I feel as though sometimes when you're in that stagnant state or in that state of resisting that dance, flow of dance, you're almost, you're either too forward or you're not forward at all and you're held, holding back. And I feel as though this is almost once. You are doing something like this. I feel it almost ripples through quite a few areas in your life. But almost thinking about it now, in a sense that if I was to just change one, so if I was, say, for example, completely discover my purpose and start working my business, that's going to bring my, I feel it's going to bring me self into this flow of this dance of flow, which then I feel as though would ripple out into other areas, say relationships, say fun, laughter, and I feel as though it's almost this idea that Once you are able to create this area, this flow between masculine and feminine, one area, it ripples through the whole of your life. Yeah, totally, yeah. That's just an example that came to me. Yeah, I

Benjamin: 31:01

like it, yeah. One thing I'm aware of is how lots of these dynamics are actually started before we even had words. We're like when we were born or even in, in the womb sort of thing. And there, there was certain energetic lessons that we learned like, Ooh, let's be, I'm wary of that. That masculine energy that comes in like for me, that dragged me out with forceps, it was just like Whoa, I thought it was safe. And yeah. So it's interesting, like these patterns, like we might not necessarily know why they are a certain way. With our minds. And some maybe it is just the learning to energetically work through them and allow ourselves to meet the, those different feelings that haven't had the space to be welcomed through in the process of act, acting. Creating a new neural pathway and following it.

James: 32:04

So you mentioned earlier when you were talking about telling the woman, she's beautiful and almost rejecting a part of yourself. How can people realize when they actually rejecting this part of themselves and how can people start to accept or start to work through this rejection of this part?

Benjamin: 32:27

Okay good question. Recently I've split up with my partner, been going out for two years and that that was only last week. So I'm still processing that. But I realized, even though I thought okay, I'm holding this together. I'm trying to find a balance. I realized that I'd I prioritized her emotional body over my own, like her dysregulation. I'd be like, wait a minute, I'll get I'll get her regulated first. And then, I'll put my life on hold until, and yeah. And in some ways I was trying to be strong in that. And it's okay, no, I can hold that. It doesn't matter, but really, I wasn't fully turning towards my own heart, my own beauty. And there's something that I realized as a man, it's often can see beauty outside and wow, like outside almost being the connection to beauty. But it's can I actually see that beauty as myself? Can I, how do I talk to my own beauty? Do I hold boundaries for my own beauty? And yeah. So like another thing I noticed is. You spoke about like the wound or the cold wound and off the wound for me is, it's very close to the word womb. It is in the feminine, the wound in the tenderness and often we don't want to go where the wound is, and so we create all these structures or all these masculine protections, even the inner critic. Is, underneath the inner critic it's got the wound, the inner critic is not feeling nice and aligned. It's feeling oh, fuck. And yeah how to, I'm wondering what the thread was saying there. Yeah how often I'm either in the protection. Trying to like, make sure wounds outside are out sorted out or I'm avoiding my own or all that one of being in the wound and Oh Oh, why is everybody so aggressive outside? And realizing that actually I need to myself turn towards that wound. And for me my, I think different people 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. In the end, it's still that, that same one of, this is unacceptable who I am, there's something wrong or unacceptable with it. And realizing that when I'm in that codependence thing, I'm either making outside wrong. Or I'm making myself wrong. And it's like, what, what if I can make mistakes? What if I don't need to make anything wrong? And I've been exploring recently what if there's nobody left to blame? What if there's nobody left to blame, including myself or particularly myself? It's I can still, I can so much easier learn from my lessons if I don't blame anything, Parents, past, I can acknowledge the pain that happened or whatever. But I think what if I don't need to blame, there's such a Oh, the system just goes. So I came up with this phrase the other day, the war's over. It's time to celebrate and realize that, okay, there's so many different wars that I have inside my psyche, and externalize with other people. And it's like, all of them are basically just this subtle energy of blame. Or call it blame, comparison, judgment, and it's like, all of those are some kind of protective mechanism that's trying to protect me from turning towards the one that feels wrong and letting it know it's okay that you feel that way. You're allowed, you're beautiful. Or to the frightened one and saying 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 of fear mentality. I think all the wars are because we haven't turned towards the frightened one and say, Hey, I love you. You're allowed here. Oh, okay. Don't need to blame some outside stuff. And yeah. I don't know whether that, in a roundabout way, answered the question, but I thought I'd wrap on 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 my body just dropped relax, relax. So how do, so if we do have these say, for example, fractured parts, or should I say shadows, or whatever we will call them, parts of ourselves that we reject, what do people have to look out for in order to identify these?

Benjamin: 37:12

One thing I've recently realized is like how often we're quick to find something wrong. Whether it be the mind, the ego or 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 and fix it? And it's so I would say just how kind are we being? How kind are we being? Are we are we treating something? Like we're fighting it, some aspect inside ourselves or outside

37:42

and

Benjamin: 37:44

it's maybe I didn't come here to fight. Maybe I came here to welcome home aspects in creation that have these beautiful divine parts of creation, which everything is that just haven't been told that they're divine. And it's there's I like there's a guy called Matt Kahn, who I follow and I like lots of stuff he said. And one he says is if you wouldn't talk to a three year old like that, don't talk to any other part in creation like that. And it's it's a three year old and maybe we sometimes need to say Hey, no, don't do that, but we wouldn't wrong it. We would just recognize how beautiful it is. And it's I recognize how often I'm not talking to myself with the reverence of this divine youngster that I am.

James: 38:30

That's quite, that's beautiful. It's it's quite often you can see it in the spirit, spiritual realm, how we're always looking for the shadow parts. But what if we, as you said, what if we don't, we don't have to say their shadows and see them as just parts of themselves and you know what, you are loved, come on in, regardless of the part.

Benjamin: 38:53

Cause it's you can see We can see the inner critic. Often we can get into a fight with the inner critic. And it's oh, if it wasn't for the 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's happened, and it's feeling that pain. And then it's repeating that same pattern of hurt, just to make sure it doesn't get, to protect the system. And it's I could villainize the inner critic and make it a demon or ah, which just create this big fight in my system or I can actually learn to bless the wound that's hiding in that. And it's maybe in inside every shadow there, there's a wound that's not been met. And I love the word this was from Maya Luna, the love secret hiding place. And it's ah, it's whether we call that the wound or fear or our deepest yearning, all of those, it's like calling it love secret hiding places. It's not even that I've got to give it love and transform it. It's almost just a recognizing, wow, this is already love. Just didn't realize it.

40:03

And

Benjamin: 40:03

it's wow, like the idea of, telling the end of critic wow. Wow, you're really here trying to help me, aren't you? And if that inner critic is also part of me, then I can also become it and allow it to do its job a bit better. Which really all it's trying to do is bless me, to look after me. But when I'm fighting it, it's totally not going to happen.

James: 40:28

That's like when we were talking about fear earlier on, how changing our relationship with fear from running away from it to almost accepting it and loving that part of ourselves and discovering the need that this fear needs. Yeah, that's comes back to the full thing. So what practical steps can people start to take to start to balance their masculine and feminine?

Benjamin: 40:55

One, one, one thing that I've realized is like how important it is to to meet our sexuality, our innocence. And so one I'd recommend is like a self pleasuring practice where we're really not trying to get anywhere, but just like that same love that we'd give a partner. Where we just touch ourselves. We're not in a rush. We're not even gonna get anywhere, but we're just like, almost if I was touching a partner, right? With my hand, I'd be like, Oh, I'd almost like with my mind, I'd be saying, Oh, you're beautiful. I love you. Wow, you're a mystery. I don't know who you are, and it's but I haven't learned to have that reverence for myself. And so what I've been loving, not just with self pleasuring, but it's almost like seeing, what if I see the mind and the light and the awareness of my masculinity? And it's learning to romance the beauty, and beauty is always a mystery. We can think of it as outside form, but it's not outside form. It's always a mystery. Like, why is a flower so beautiful? Why is it smell? It's just ah, and the word beauty is very close to the word love. It's just ah. And so in a way, my mind already. Already, my mind of light already loves the beauty of which I am. It's just almost been looking the other way. It's almost not realized it's allowed to turn towards itself, and it's actually, as I start to see my own beauty, the start to 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 one of balancing the two is. It is yeah, the beauty, seeing the two, the feminine as the beauty and the masculine as the one that wants to see that, and all of my mind wants to see the beauty. It's almost looking for the beauty. And when I'm looking for outside, there's this subtle codependence. Whereas when I actually can, ah, oh, wow, it's here, there's the sort of like a resting back inside myself.

James: 43:02

Yeah, it's almost as though a sense of. Deeper awareness, so almost like a leaf, looking at a leaf from a sense of beauty, looking at a leaf from a sense of exploring different parts, and at the same time I feel as though What you're saying there is about exploring, obviously not just self pleasure in ourselves, but say you're cooking tea, exploring how you move the cocktail, exploring how you are able to type on a computer, exploring the way that you are able to speak expressively to another person. And it's almost a sense of, exploring, almost a sense of exploring our own way that we live on a deeper, more open viewpoint, but from a, almost from a higher perspective, rather than this low perspective of, okay, that's just that, let's just carry on. And it's more of a, okay, I'm on this laptop, how do my fingers feel when I touch the keys? How do I feel when I'm sitting down on a chair or standing up? How do my feet feel against my the 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 perspective and things like that. And it just reminded me of how often we almost make high good and low bad. High vibes good, low bad. And that wasn't, I was just like, it just reminded me. And it's so we're like, oh yeah, higher self. But we rarely talk about deeper self, yeah. And for me, the soul. isn't up there far away, the spirit's up, but soul is actually underneath it. And so it feels like that fracturing that we've had between the masculine and feminine is in that yeah, we have to be high vibe. We have to be up. What's the highest version of ourselves? Which, all of that is really beautiful, but how about what's the deepest version of myself? What's, and how. And I feel like really the love is between our higher self, that which we can actualize, and our deeper 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 the spirit itself. And the actualization is the father is consciousness. And it's us to learn that there's a unification inside these two, I was dancing that then I was realizing, oh, Often I've been turning into okay, feeling God within and down and not trying to do the up above and leave my body. But I was realizing just the simplicity of Oh, I'm in God, all around me is God. And inside me. Is Mother God, it's like Father God's all around me and Mother God's inside me, and as I touch Mother God inside me, I realize it's all around, but it's just that almost like that. I don't know about that. All around holding me. And then that sacred innocence inside that's actually birthed 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 love it. It's one of my favorite things to do. And just thinking about it now, when I, obviously when I first did it, there was a sense of anxiousness and are people judging me kind of thing. But now I just allow myself just to flow and let a body to move to how I want to move. sense of surrender. But at the same time, it's interesting now how I might go to the next time and just see how, just to be witness to the, both the masculine and the feminine energy, and it dance and moves, and just see if it's a 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 of feminine kind of, and then staccato is more of the structure. And so when I'm in that flow bit, I just okay, almost just okay, I let myself be in my feminine. And it's just almost let myself sometimes also I'll, okay, I'll let myself be in the frightened one, not in this petrified, but just in this kind of, Oh, and to even go around the room, welcoming, giving permission to all the fear to be here rather than, Oh no, we're not frightened, but Oh, okay. Ah. And suddenly it's In a funny way, I'm fearless then. And it's funny, it's once I've actually said yes to fear, you're allowed to be here. Suddenly it's not what I thought it was. And it could almost say I'm fearless in those, but then yeah, that's maybe not the right words, but here's another thing that she with judgment, I realized that young part of me with whether we caught, cause they say like from zero to seven, we're in the feminine. And then from seven to 14, we're in the. the father and then the next 47 years we're in the wider community or whatever. But

48:05

what was it?

Benjamin: 48:06

Yeah. So when I'm in my feminine, in my tenderness, in the young one, it's very easy for me to look around and Oh, who's judging me? Oh, and it's I'm projecting out the mind. Or the judge on to other people to judge me, maybe

James: 48:20

yes.

Benjamin: 48:21

And realizing that there, that's perfectly natural thing that I do, but actually when that frightened one is allowed to have its own wait a minute. Now that I'm older, nobody else's judgments need to touch me. They have to come through the filter of my own judgments, cause realizing really if somebody said, Hey, you're doing this, Ben, and you're blah, blah, blah. If it was something that I was quite certain, like I was okay about. It wouldn't touch me, whereas if it was something I was judging myself about anyway, I'd be like, I'd be crushed by it. It's almost like what I recognize that other people's masculine mind judgments have to come through the filter of my own. So in a way, when I am in my, in more in my feminine flow energy and I'm seeing other people, what I think other people are judging me about, because sometimes it's not even that they're not even doing it, but what I imagine they're judging that it's almost showing me the judgments. And my masculine that I need to bring back for me because those judgments I'm imagining they're making it's wait a minute. If it's only me that's making them, I get to choose whether to make them. It's okay, I'm not going to bother 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're doing that. How dare they? It shouldn't do that. And those judgments that I'm making when I'm in the masculine of other people are just the ways that I've learned to protect myself. And it's Oh, wait a minute, it's showing me again, like one, can I, do I have to carry on that way? Or could I speak to myself more kindly? Because they're just showing me how I'm talking to myself. So it's been quite a journey for me recently to like, how do I integrate the teachings within the, within judgements? Because it's easy to fight judgements and make it wrong, but actually, okay, wow what is there in judgements? Judgments, I think other people are making me or judgments I'm making of other people. And how do I bring them back into a heart space? And I realized that judgments are when I'm making something wrong, whereas when it comes through 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 about that I have about recognizing that. Like the judgements, they're actually, they're not for anybody else. They're for me. So when they're actually allowed to be for me, they can become discernment and recognizing that each of my emotions is actually for me. Like my anger isn't caused or because of something outside. It's actually for me. And when I'm allowed to have it for me, then it's allowed to be more obviously a flavor of love. 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's there to keep us within the boundaries of society. And so it's like this idea that say, for example, Where you're in the middle of the dance floor, or I'm in the middle of the dance floor, and I'm dancing around, and I've got all these people who are just watching. There's almost part of me like, James, don't do that. Because, I might be shot or something, because I'm suddenly, my head is above the parapet, so I'm being watched. So suddenly somebody can pick something small out about me. So there's a sense that judgment's just there, really, as a safety mechanism, which I feel as though judgment's almost connected to beer. And it's this thing just to keep us, just to keep us underneath the surface so we know we can't be seen.

52:22

Yeah.

James: 52:23

And is it, I think that's the reason why when people step out, say for example, you step out onto social media with what is your purpose and you start talking about what you're what you'd love to do. Why a lot of people start to get a 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 being projected back onto themselves. But you see it as, oh, a strike at you. But it's a good indication that sometimes you are on the right path.

Benjamin: 53:04

And it's interesting the one you said about how their judgements are actually almost like the judgements that they have of themselves that are trying to protect themselves. No, don't show up, don't stand out too much, don't put your head about, and then so then when somebody does it, they're like, no, don't do that. And, yeah. So I see that often judgments are almost the memory of how we've been hurt, the way to when we were younger, the way we were criticized by, teachers, family. And we're repeating that as a dialogue inside ourselves so that it doesn't happen so that we've, we stop ourselves before it happens. And so there's something about like, how do we, How do I suppose, how do we befriend that aspect of our psyche, rather than fight it, but how do we light the fear? How do we turn towards it and realize that there's something juicy and beautiful within this, so there's some pains there that haven't been met. If those pains that were underneath those judgments that we received had been met and alchemized, and we'd given that one a cuddle. there wouldn't be the need for that continuation judgment because we'd know that we've got this. So it's almost like maybe underneath each judgment, I'm just coming to me now is a memory 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 it here, and it's the need, it just needs to be loved. Because I felt almost as though the parts of me that have been wronged in the past haven't been loved. 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 much like blame really. It's like actually the judgments of the times that we've been blamed.

54:58

Yeah.

Benjamin: 54:59

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 coming from a really regulated nervous system and a space of loving themselves. They were actually just really showing me how they'd been hurt. And then I went, Oh, it's about me. How dare you hurt me that way, which, they did make it about me. When I was younger, I didn't have the resources to realize, Oh, actually, that's actually their shit. That's, they're just showing me how they've been hurt when I can 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, they are also that beautiful being. So I think it's like one of how to alchemize my judgments and blames into meeting the. The one that's hurting underneath it, to turn in towards that wound, that the blame 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 and go for walks with friends and have chats and things like that And I've written a book which got here. It's called What's it called? Whispers to the subtle love that lives in all that's on Amazon and that, and I'm in Manchester and help hold some men's circles around a fire each week. It's really beautiful. So if anybody's around that area, around Manchester and would like to join, welcome to get in touch. I suppose I haven't got a website. So main way to contact me would be via Facebook Messenger. yeah, one thing that I haven't said that I realized that something that's been in me for a long time that I haven't, it's taken me a while to realize is how much I love the mother, the mother, God, mother of creation, that, that which we come from. And I realized that almost like for me, all of creation is in devotion to that great mystery of the mother. And and when I remember that, there, there's yeah, there's just a softening and a warmth in my heart that is, oh, yeah. And to remember that, that every being, maybe they could give it different names, is, is made and filled with that same love.

James: 57:32

Yeah, it feels like Mother Earth. Almost we can sit in her bosom on the ground and feel her underneath ourselves. Yeah. Thank you very much, Ben. It's been absolutely great conversation. 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.