Bridger of Worlds

Healing Porn Addiction Through Shadow Work: Light and Dark Masculine & Feminine Energies

• Ioannis Kokkinos

Share episode

Send us a text

In this powerful episode of Bridger of Worlds, host Ioannis Kokkinos explores the archetypal energies of darkness and light, delving into their deep connection with porn addiction recovery, masculine and feminine polarity, and the path of spiritual transformation. Challenging the common association of darkness with evil, Ioannis reframes it as a sacred space for shadow work, unconscious healing, and the gestation of new consciousness.

Through the lens of conscious masculinity and sacred sexuality, listeners will gain insight into how masculine and feminine energies—in both their light and dark expressions—shape our experiences of emotional intimacy, sexual energy, and spiritual awakening. Ioannis contrasts the seductive illusions of pornography with the deeper fulfillment that arises from authentic energetic union and emotional vulnerability.

This episode invites you to reclaim your shadow, transmute shame, and participate in transformative conversations around porn healing, emotional depth, and inner wholeness. It’s a call to create safe, embodied spaces where the full spectrum of your being—light and dark—can be honored and integrated on the journey to spiritual and relational aliveness.


Support the show

Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Bridger of Worlds podcast. I'm your host Ioannis Kokkinos. Thank you so much for joining me. If you're on one of the podcast platforms, thank you for tuning in and if you're on YouTube watching, thank you for tuning in as a well. 

Elaborating on Porn Addiction Recovery

So today I want to elaborate on a few things that I have mentioned in my previous episodes.

I will continue riding the Porn Addiction Recovery Train because it's such a pivotal piece to my path and journey and what I feel is something I need to be talking about.

So I want to build on the previous episode as far as the archetypal meanings are concerned. I did talk a little bit about the dark masculine, the dark feminine, the light masculine, the light feminine.

I wanna elaborate on all of these expressions of these polarities, both these polarities. I want to talk about light and dark as well. So I have mentioned darkness in previous episodes as well as light. Basically that darkness is the unconscious. Light is consciousness.

So I wanna expand upon this. I feel like this space is getting quite cozy, uh, in the sense that, it just feels now like this is a container to bring the tough conversations to the table.

So just to recap a little bit, right? For those of you who did not watch or listen to the previous episode, I would actually touch base with the previous two episodes, just because two weeks ago I brought my experience with porn addiction to the table, my perception of what that can mean for someone. And just bits and pieces of information helpful, information resources, and also the archetypal experience, which for me has been the most important in my healing journey, right?

Like what these archetypes mean. What do these figures on the screen mean as far as my psyche is concerned.

Understanding Darkness and Light

So let's start with darkness, because darkness is basically where everything begins. Life begins in darkness, right? We gestate for approximately 10 months inside the dark womb of our mother. The cosmos, the universe, the multiverse. Our world was born from darkness, right? So I think darkness has been quite tainted as an expression because of, uh, cultures, movies,

because it is seen as the opponent of light. I do not share this belief at all. I did when I was younger. I did, you know, uh, think it was like light versus dark. That light is good. Darkness is evil, right? Good versus evil. This, uh, play on duality. But as I opened into my spiritual journey, as I started to heal and basically go through my process and really understand what it is I was moving through, I learned and realized the darkness is very much not evil. Darkness is our sleep. Uh, darkness is our dreaming. Darkness is our rest. Darkness is our surrender. Darkness is our unconscious. And the unconscious is not necessarily evil. It's just where consciousness is basically waiting to be awakened.

So in order to reach consciousness, and I've said this in quite a few episodes, so bear with me if I'm being repetitive, but it is important that this gets very well ingrained within our psyches. Because where darkness is, that's where light is, where the unconscious is, that's where consciousness is.

So darkness is a symbol, right? Like, and it's, it's hard to, like what's darkness? It's the invisible, it's like where light doesn't go, um, tangibly speaking light is there. We just can't see it. Um, again, this is all metaphorical, so if we do touch base with the experience of being inside a womb, right, of as we gestate and we basically become a baby from a fetus.

The darkness, the space of darkness is the space of transformation. And in order to transform, we need that quiet, we need that stillness, we need that r and r, right? Like that rest and recuperation. And again, metaphorically speaking, this could also symbolize going underground, going into like the lower world, which can be difficult because when we go dark, metaphorically speaking, it is to feel within ourselves, the unprocessed, unprocessed emotion, unprocessed feeling, and this is in the unconscious.

Now the unconscious is not the shadow, right? The shadow is in the unconscious. The shadow is our denied feelings and emotions and traumas. The shadow exists because a duality exists. So before the existence of duality. When everything was one right before the split happened between, let's say light and dark, scientifically speaking, there was only darkness.

But darkness is conscious from the universal perspective, the universe out in the great void of existence where everything came into being, that is conscious. So we can say from the scientific perspective that yes, darkness and light exists. Darkness is the absence of visible light. And light is basically a combination of electrons, photons, and positrons.

Now that's as far as I'm gonna go, scientifically speaking, so don't worry. I have a science background, but I'm a no physicist and metaphorically speaking, when we have this split between light and dark, there's a part of us that says,

okay, in which direction should I go in? Which is the correct path for me, right? Like, aren't we always trying to make decisions like in our day to day, like left or right, up or down, straight backward, right? It's always this play on duality. And sometimes a decision may feel right or better than another, fine, but as far as healing is concerned, there's actually really no right or wrong because when we deny an emotion, when we deny a feeling because we've judged it a certain way, we actually negate our potential to transform that feeling within our bodies and psyches.

So we want light. We're always striving for light. I believe that our spiritual journey is about that striving for light and expanding into that light, and I feel like this is eternal. I feel like whether we are in body or not, we are always journeying towards the light.

Now, here in our physical incarnation, it's very evident, right? Being immersed within our unconscious and our shadow and our wounds and our traumas that have, been left unprocessed and unfelt, really. So yes, we are awake, right? We are, um, going about our day-to-day reality, but this does not mean we are spiritually awake and to be spiritually awake is to grow and expand into light, and to be spiritually awake means to awaken from the unconscious dark into consciousness light.

The Light Masculine in Relation to the Feminine 

So basically, this is also where we can bring the polarities of like the light masculine, the light feminine, the dark masculine, the dark feminine. So I'm gonna elaborate a bit more on these four expressions.

I did talk about them , last week, but I think there's some things I need to clarify as far as like how it is I explained it just because I didn't wanna make the episode too long. So the light masculine is what we all need to awaken to. It doesn't matter what gender we are. Because the light masculine is he who holds the space and witnesses without judgment.

This is actually how we are able to start cultivating our spiritual nature. If we want to start from anywhere, we just need to start learning, and this is daily practice. I'm still very much in this journey myself, despite me, you know, being on this mic and in front of this camera.

It's all about learning how to hold space for our processes without judgment. And I know this is very difficult because we've grown up with a lot of judgment. If we've lived out a lot of patterns that have become very comfortable and very ingrained within ourselves, and that we want to try and start changing these patterns because, hey, they're actually not good for us and they're not healthy for us, it can be very difficult to not judge that, right?

But it is possible, and it is also a means to start learning how to offer compassion toward ourselves because when we witness without judgment and we're just witnessing, love actually comes through very naturally, even whilst we are feeling, let's say, a certain pain. Because basically that pain is something that has been buried within our bodies and psyches, right?

So in our present state, let's say we are a certain age, but there's a certain pain that comes from a younger age, right? It's really about just, I know that word detachment is used a lot here. I don't know if I'm a fan of this word to detach, because then I feel like there's a bit of an, like an apathy or like a distance, but maybe this is just my, my perception.

I always like to use the word ' witness' because the witness is very much present. It is the space, it is the container, and we don't really learn growing up about like needing this container, needing this safety.

So providing safety, first and foremost is everything in regards to the masculine feminine relationship and dynamic. Aside from the light and dark expressions. Basically the masculine is he who needs to provide the safety for the feminine to feel.

And again, this is not about gender. This is polarities. This is the expressions of polarities within our energy body and within, within our psyche.

So the light masculine holds space for both the dark feminine and the light feminine because that is the light masculine. He holds the space. The dark masculine holds space as well because we still have masculine in that sentence. And when we hear masculine we need to think safe container.

We need to think witness. But because here we're talking about light, we're talking about consciousness, we're talking about something that has risen up from the dark, from the unconscious. That's what light basically means. Again, we're talking about metaphors. Just think of turning on a light when a room was dark, right?

So something that was dark became light. Light masculine can hold space for the dark feminine, which is low emotion, which is dense emotion, doesn't mean bad. It doesn't mean negative. It doesn't mean evil. It just means low, it means dense.

Exploring Light and Dark Feminine 

So low and dense means the gestation phase, right? So the feminine, as I mentioned in previous episodes, is all about transforming. So when we start to, uh, basically attune to our dark feminine energy, again, no matter what gender we are, we are tuning to the low and dense heavy emotions and vibrations within us.

So I like to equate the word dark with earth, right? The soil is dark looking. I mean, it's, it's brown, but you know, on the surface it's brown. If we go deeper, it gets darker and darker. But basically when we hear dark feminine and dark masculine, we need to replace that word with earth.

So. I know this might get a little bit messy, but stay with me here. Dark is a metaphor for the unconscious. So if we are talking about, let's say gardening, right? Everything has bloomed, everything is on the surface. Beautiful colors, beautiful scents, beautiful views, beautiful landscapes.

That is all light feminine because it is the energy, the emotion, the feeling that has risen up from the dark. The low heavy emotion has transformed into light, high emotion. So think of the flowers as feelings and emotions, but all of that exists, everything that exists above the surface is because of what is going on underneath the ground.

Underneath the earth, the dark. Okay, so yes, I'm saying dark, and in your mind you might think absence of light, but it is a symbol. It is a metaphor, and it basically represents everything that's going on within the unconscious.

The Dark Masculine in Relation to the Feminine 

So the dark masculine. Holds space for all of that underground work.

Now, I know I said the light masculine basically witnesses the light feminine and the dark feminine. But the dark masculine also witnesses the dark feminine because he is with her when she's underground. So if you touch base with the Spring Equinox episode of Pluto and Persephone. That myth is basically dark masculine, dark feminine, light feminine, Persephone.

Pluto is the dark masculine. He's the lord of the underworld. He is the one that holds space for all of the muck, compost, transformation, all of like the shit, right? All of the transformative processes that happen underneath the ground. Basically all of the non-fun stuff of the underground.

That's what Pluto holds space for. And then because the space is provided, the feminine, the dark feminine can do her thing and then she rises up from underneath the ground into the light space and she's the light feminine. And then of course the light masculine is witnessing.

But here's the thing with the dark masculine and I talked about this last week in the archetypal meanings of pornography, so yes, the masculine holds space, but that space also needs to be filled, right?

So the light masculine basically fills the space with witnessing with consciousness. The dark masculine also fills the space with witnessing and consciousness. But because physical life needs to actually take root from the dark, take take root from the unconscious, the dark masculine also needs to penetrate physically. The light masculine doesn't necessarily penetrate physically because he's basically penetrating with witnessing. He's penetrating with consciousness. The dark masculine needs to penetrate physically, so we can basically equate him with a phallus, right? That is the power, the gift and the blessing of Cock, basically to fill, open and create space. Why? Because we need to lay a seed. We need to lay a seed in the dark in order for that seed to transform into new life.

So when I said last week that the dark masculine is all about the unseen, this basically means that he needs to go into the dark feminine. Open her, expand her in order to lay a seed. Symbolically speaking, this represents the light of consciousness so that light of consciousness can take root, become a seedling, transform through the feminine and become new life.

Can become a fetus, can become a plant, can become a flower, can become a tree, so on and so forth. These are all material manifestations. These are all physical things, but all of this happens also on the energetic level. Energy. Energy before matter. Energetics, before physical anything, right?

And we can basically harmonize these expressions. Dark masculine, dark feminine, light masculine, light feminine within ourselves, men, women, non-binary. If we start to attune to these different expressions of the masculine and the feminine, it can become quite interesting. It can become quite liberating and it can become quite enlightening as far as these dynamics are concerned because then we can also see how we will relate to others.

We can see how we will relate to men and women because the men and women of our lives usually will hold mirrors up for dynamics within ourselves. And these dynamics will speak to our masculine and feminine energies.

The Role of Pornography in Understanding Archetypes

 And this is where I want to bring porn into the conversation.

Right? So I talked about the male figures, the female figures on screen, and how these archetypes can basically mirror certain aspects of ourselves that have been denied, have been suppressed, that have been hiding, we are afraid to feel, we're afraid to express.

So pornography as a symbol, it's very much shadow based because the truth and reality of pornography is that these people don't know each other. They probably don't give a shit about each other. We don't know if there's any consent. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes, right? We don't know if what we're watching has a safe container, most likely not, right? So , all of these beautiful expressions that I've just talked about with the masculine and the feminine most likely are not present in pornography, but the illusion, the sparkles, the glam and the glitter of pornography and the wild that it emphasizes and portrays is very much a depiction of what the dark masculine, the dark feminine can depict.

So erotic union is a very emotional experience, right? But basically during eros and during erotic intimacy, it's actually the feminine,   no matter what pornography depicts 'cause pornography depicts man being very overly dominating and overly controlling and treating the feminine like a piece of meat.

But basically during eros and during sexual union, it's actually the feminine that is the portal to sex, to intimacy, to union, to connection. Because the feminine as a symbol is that. The feminine is connection. The feminine is bringing two entities to become one.

So in order for erotic union to fully like take flight and fully come into fruition. The masculine needs to create that safety needs to create the space for her. And this is the light masculine. We can say that this is the light masculine that is establishing safety, that is establishing the container. And then once that feminine feels safe, she can go dark.

The masculine can go dark in order to enter her, to penetrate her for expansion, for opening, for liberating, for transmuting emotions, right? Sex is a very emotional experience, and surrender is what allows all of it to happen. So when the masculine goes dark is because he's to hold space for the dark feminine as well as penetrate the dark feminine. And of course this is literal penetration, but it's also energetic penetration. Because whatever's dark, whatever's inside the dark needs, wants to become light.

And basically the feminine is the channel for this. This will happen for her and this will also happen for the masculine because what did I talk about in some episodes ago?

The Energetics of Sexual Union

 In Tantra, when two lovers come together, they basically move the sexual energy between themselves, and this is called the circle of light.

So here light is a symbol for consciousness, but light is also information, right? Like science tells us that light is information and frequency and consciousness. So this actually happens between specific body parts when man and woman come together, when the masculine initiates penetration through his lingam. So the lingam is the Sanskrit word for the male organ, also perceived as a channel for divinity, is basically entering the yoni, which is the Sanskrit word for the female organ and then up the yoni, basically that sexual energy, that creative energy travels up to the heart space of the feminine. And then the feminine actually penetrates the masculine's heart, the man's heart with her heart, and then from his heart, that circuit that goes back down to his lingam.

And that basically is the cycle. So lingam is the initiator . The phallus is the initiator because the phallus enters the yoni. And symbolically speaking , this very much makes sense because the masculine is the active force and the feminine is the receptive force. So lingam goes into yoni, and then that energy goes up into the heart because the nature of sexual intimacy is to make love, is to make eros. So we very much need to incorporate the heart, right? So up the heart, penetrate the heart from the heart and then back down, and that's the circuit.

So obviously there's no heart in pornography, right? So that circuit would be non-existent if we were to say, well, where's that circuit of light? Uh, while I'm watching porn, but it's basically very much a genital experience. What I don't want to take away from the illusion of porn is the wild nature of our humanity. We need to go wild. We need to be able to express whatever's within us. But this all needs to happen with safety, with trust, with communication, with, uh, intimacy, and so on and so forth. I think a lot of people are very much prone to pornography or even addicted to porn because they think that what they want to experience or what they like, maybe a kink that they have is something that is being judged or something that they're ashamed of.

So they just turn to the screen in order to get that, you know, get that experience. But that's, that's not right. People need to have the spaces. People need to have partners. People need to have experiences where they can authentically and genuinely and lovingly express their wild. That wild is a part of us.

Like that is what makes us human, and that wild is a means to reach divinity, right? So I know it's not something we learned. Um, it's not something that is talked about, but hey, this is the podcast. This is my podcast. And this is what I'm here for.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 So, um, I think that feels complete. I think that's enough, uh, food for thought for today. So I'll leave it here. I of course will be back next week. As always, new episode every single Thursday, dropped on YouTube and all the podcast platforms for those, um, watching, listening. I so appreciate your presence.

If you're on YouTube, please hit that like subscribe button. I so greatly appreciate that. Share the content if you feel like somebody needs to hear this or if you want to have conversations about it with somebody, trusted friends and family. Um, if you're on one of the podcast platforms, uh, please share the episode with someone who you feel needs to listen to this.

I am on social media. Uh, if you're on YouTube, all my links are below. I'm on threads. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram and TikTok. Please hit me up here, there, wherever I'd love to connect. Talk more about this stuff and have conversations. This is the point of my podcast and why I'm talking about these things so that we can have conversations around these very difficult topics.

Uh, we need to diffuse the shame as much as we can. We need to diffuse the fear as much as we can. This is truly the only means that we can ever liberate ourselves. We need to energetically penetrate the spaces, right? And our feminine needs to feel safe to basically surrender to that. So there's a little homework for you. Uh, there. So how do you show up in trying to fill space with new knowledge, new information and presence, right? That's masculine. And how does another part of you receive that surrender to that trust that, are you open to new knowledge, new information, and a new version of presence? And sometimes it's the feminine. Sometimes the feminine needs to surrender first so the masculine can enter. Sometimes the feminine needs to feel safe before the masculine can show up. We need both. We need both. And they need each other and we are their temple.

We are their space. We are their container, we are here for them, within ourselves, and then we can learn how to connect with others, um, who are doing this work, who are curious about this work and so on and so forth. So, um, I'll leave it here , and I will be back next week. So as always, please take care of yourselves , please remember that you are the medicine and I'm just the messenger. Thank you very much.