13: Mothering is masculine

There’s a popular narrative that motherhood naturally brings women deeper into their feminine: softness, intuition, flow, devotion.

And while motherhood can absolutely deepen those qualities, it also asks women to hold an extraordinary amount of masculine energy.

In this episode, I name what so many mothers feel but struggle to articulate: that mothering often requires structure, containment, leadership, anticipation, protection, decision-making, and emotional steadiness. In other words, it requires a tremendous amount of masculine capacity.

EXPLORE

• what masculine and feminine energy look like in real life
• why motherhood is not only nurturing, but leadership
• the invisible mental and emotional load mothers often carry
• how disconnection from the body often begins before motherhood
• how marriage can suffer when one person holds the tone and weight of the home alone
• why softness is not something a woman performs, but something that emerges when she feels safe enough to put some of the weight down

Motherhood is sacred work.  But sacred does not mean weightless.

RESOURCE

🖨️ Download + print your FREE sacred masculine & feminine guide here ☯️

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Mothering requires an immense amount of masculine energy. And before you get caught up in that language, I'm going to slow down to break it down. When I say masculine and feminine, I'm not talking about rigid gender roles. I'm not talking about putting men in one box and women in another. I'm talking about energies, qualities, ways of functioning that live inside each and every one of us. And the thing of it is, is that motherhood asks women to embody both a lot. But in our day-to-day reality of modern life, many mothers are being asked to hold far too much of the masculine side of living, often without enough support, without enough witnessing, and without enough places to put that energy down. And that is one of the reasons so many women feel tired, resentful, overstimulated, disconnected from themselves, and not quite like the woman they remember being before children. So today I'm going to talk about that. I want to talk about what feminine and masculine energy actually are, how motherhood pulls women into the masculine, why that matters in marriage and family life, why so many women are not actually losing themselves, and how for many women this disconnection started long before they ever became mothers. I've created a digital printout, the link in the show notes, for you to reference, take notes, and reflect on when you're living your life to notice where you're at and the qualities to invite in when you're ready for a shift. So what do feminine and masculine energy actually mean? These words get used a lot, sometimes beautifully, sometimes vaguely, sometimes in ways that are not especially helpful. Let me make it plain and fairly simple here. Masculine energy is structure, it is direction, it is protection, it is responsibility, it is containment, it is steadiness, it is decision making, it is follow through, it is the energy that holds the frame. Masculine energy says, This is the boundary, this is the plan, this is what happens next. I've got this. You can lean in. At its healthiest or most sacred expression, masculine energy does not dominate, it does not control, it does not puff itself up, it does not become harsh. Healthy masculine energy is dependable, it is grounded, it is steady enough to hold intensity without collapsing. Now feminine energy is different. Feminine energy is receptivity or creativity, intuition, emotion, sensuality, presence, connection, feeling, or being. The feminine does not move in a straight line. She responds, she senses, she creates, she softens, she opens, she feels what is true in the moment. Healthy feminine energy is not chaos, it is not fragility, it is not passivity, it is alive, it is responsive, it is relational, it is deeply intelligent, and both of these energies matter. Both are sacred, both are necessary, both belong in healthy adults, healthy homes, and healthy relationships. But here is the issue. Motherhood often demands so much structure, protection, anticipation, containment that women end up living in a near constant expression of masculine energy. This can turn toxic or maybe a better name is unhelpful. She is no longer able to stay in the sacred expression of masculine because it is on overdrive. There's not enough feminine energy to provide a break of the monotony of masculine expression necessary for the life that she's living. And when that goes unnamed, women often blame themselves for what is actually a systemic and relational reality. Mothering is loving, yes. It is also leadership. There's a popular narrative that motherhood ushers women into their feminine, into softness, into intuition, into devotion, into flow. And yes, motherhood can deepen all of that. Motherhood can absolutely deepen a woman's intuition. It can sharpen her ability to sense what is off. It can increase her emotional range. It can make her more tender, more present, more attuned. But that is not the whole story, because the actual work of mothering is not just softness, it is also leadership. Children require structure. Children require predictability. Children require schedules, boundaries, repetition, and safety. Children require an adult who can anticipate needs before they become crises. They require someone who can make decisions when emotions are high. They require someone who can hold the emotional tone of the home when they themselves are dysregulated. That is masculine work. Not because it is cold, not because it is loveless, but because it is about containment, organization, protection, and holding the container. And that is what so many mothers are doing all fucking day long. They are not just nurturing, they are tracking, remembering, preparing, watching, monitoring, planning, deciding, regulating, holding the big picture. And they are often the default person for everything. Where are the diapers? What should the children eat? Did anyone sign the school form? When is the dentist appointment? What time is practice? Do we need more noodles? Is she tired? Is he overstimulated? Did he nap? Did she poop? Is that upset stomach something to watch? What gift are we bringing? What time do we leave? What needs to happen before tomorrow so tomorrow goes as smoothly as possible? This is not small. This is not invisible because it is unimportant. This is invisible because it becomes expected. And for many women it is so expected that even they stop recognizing how much they are caring. This is where burnout begins. So when a mother says, I feel exhausted, I don't feel like myself, I feel touched out, I feel irritated, I feel numb, I don't want intimacy, I don't feel creative, I don't feel beautiful, I don't feel playful, I don't even know what I want. We need to stop rushing to pathologize her, because maybe she has not lost herself at all. Maybe she is overextended in a constant state of doing, tracking, anticipating, and caring. Maybe she's been in leadership mode for so long that her body no longer knows when it is safe to soften, because one cannot remain in constant vigilance and also feel deeply receptive. One cannot carry the structure for everyone and also feel spaciousness inside. One cannot be the default container all day and then immediately flip into ease, creativity, sensuality, and play because the sun went down and the children are asleep. That is not how the nervous system works. Softness is not a switch, it is a response to safety. And this is exactly why the cycle mapping conversations from episodes nine, ten, and twelve matter so much because women are cyclical. We are not meant to feel, perform, produce, and relate the same exact way every single day. We move in rhythms, inner spring, inner summer, inner autumn, inner winter. There are times in our cycles when we naturally have more outward energy, inner spring and summer, more desire to connect, more clarity, more capacity to create and engage. And there are phases inner fall and winter that ask for a different pace, more rest, more inwardness, more discernment, more quiet, more space to feel. But when a woman is mothering in a system that does not honor rhythm, she often cannot respond to those shifts. Her body may be calling for slowness, her hormones may be inviting more inwardness, her nervous system may need less stimulation, and yet the demands do not stop. The meals still need making, the children still need her body, her eyes, her regulation, her decisions, the home still needs managing, the schedule still needs holding. So instead of living with her rhythm, she overrides it, and over time that creates depletion. A woman's cycle is not just about her hormones, it is also about the environment she's living in, the support around her, the expectations on her, the room she has or does not have to live in relationship with her own body. And I want to add another layer here because for many women, motherhood is not the only place where they are holding masculine energy. Many women are also working outside the home. They are leading teams, holding deadlines, making decisions, managing clients, solving problems, producing, performing, moving quickly, being responsive all freaking day long. So now we are not just talking about a mother holding the structure of the home. We are talking about a woman who may have had already spent years, sometimes decades, developing the parts of herself that know how to push, organize, achieve, anticipate, deliver, and stay switched on. And I feel this so deeply. I don't work full time, I'm barely part-time, but I was raised in a way to prioritize independence, push to achieve, anticipate needs, be organized and ready for whatever comes next. And so then we, she comes home, and motherhood asks for more of those same capacities, more tracking, more responsibility, more containment, more decision making, more leadership. So for many of us, the exhaustion is not simply I became a mother and now I'm tired. It is I have been living in a culture that rewards my masculine capacities for a long time, and now motherhood has added another layer of demand onto a system that already had very little room to soften. And I think this matters so much to name, because so many women have become highly skilled at functioning, producing, staying composed, and holding it all together. But being skilled at that does not mean it is not costing them. It often is, in their hormones, in their breath, in their sleep, in their sensuality, in their creativity, in their peace, in their joy, in their capacity to receive. This is before motherhood. And over my years of working with women, not only mothers, but women who do not even have children yet and are already pregnant with their first baby, I have seen this in the body. As a prenatal yoga teacher and as a trained dancer, I pay attention to bodies. I watch how a woman moves, where she is fluid, where she is guarded, where she is bracing, where there is freedom, and where there is very little access to organic rhythm. And so many women arrive already disconnected from natural feminine flow before they even have had a child. I have worked with women who are unable to really move their pelvis, unable to rock their hips from side to side, unable to soften into circular movement, unable to access the very parts of the body that are designed for receptivity, rhythm, sensuality, and birth. And this is not a criticism, it is information. It tells us something about how many women have been living, how much they have had to perform, how much they have had to hold, how much they have had to override, how much life has asked them to stay in structure, productivity, tension, and forward motion. The body keeps a score of life's experiences, and when a woman cannot access movement in her pelvis, cannot sway, cannot circle, cannot soften downward into her body, that tells me something. It tells me that she may have spent a long time living from the neck up, a long time bracing, a long time succeeding, a long time surviving, a long time disconnected from the places in her that know how to yield, feel open and flow. So by the time pregnancy comes, she is not simply preparing to welcome a baby. She is often being asked to remember parts of herself she has not inhabited in a very long time, and dare I say ever, and that is tender because pregnancy and birth ask a woman not only to be strong, they ask her to open, they ask her to trust sensation, to move with her body and baby's body, to surrender to process, to become intimate with rhythm, sound, breath, instinct, and descent. And if she has lived most of her life in upward, linear, productive, tightly held energy, that remembering can feel foreign at first. One of the visualizations I sometimes like to use when thinking about masculine and feminine energy is the actual body itself, not as rigid proof, not as a rule, not as a way to oversimplify us being human, but as a poetic and symbolic way of understanding these qualities. Because we all need access to both. Men and women both need healthy masculine and healthy feminine qualities. But the imagery of the body can help us feel the difference. The masculine, pictured by the penis, symbolically is outward of the body and moves outward. It is directional, linear, it points, it's focused, it penetrates, it goes somewhere, it has a clear vector. And the feminine, symbolically, has a different quality. The yoni, the vulva and vagina involves a more inward experience. It is not linear in the same way. It is layered, sensitive, receptive, textured, circular, almost like rose petals. There is not the same sense of force and direction. There is depth, there is unfolding, there is an inward journey, and that imagery can help us feel the distinction between the two. Masculine energy tends to organize, direct, protect, and move outward. Feminine energy tends to receive, respond, sense, soften, and draw inward. Again, not because one is better, not because one belongs only to men or only to women, but because both reveal something about the nature of life. And I think many women know in their bodies when they have been living too far from that inward, cyclical, sensing, flowing place far too long. You can feel it in the jaw, in the shoulders, in the pelvis, in the breath, in the inability to rest, in the inability to receive, in the discomfort with slowness, in the loss of sensuality, not just sexuality or sexualness, but in all of your senses in daily life. And that disconnection often begins long before motherhood. Motherhood simply exposes it more. Mothers are often holding the emotional container for their spouse too. And this is where the conversation gets tender again, because many mothers are not only holding the structure for their children, they are also holding the emotional container for their partner. They are reminding, initiating, tracking, motivating, reassuring, following up, explaining, managing tone, managing timing, managing the climate of the relationship itself. And when women have to do that for another grown ass adult, something inside her stays alert. Because now she is not only mothering children, she is also mothering the relationship. She is carrying not only the visible needs, but the invisible weight of making sure things function, conversations happen, emotions are soothed, and the whole relational ecosystem stays afloat. And that is where the drainage becomes so profound. That is where resentment builds. That is where a woman starts to feel that her care has become labor. Not because she does not love, not because she is not capable, we know she fully is capable, but because she is not meant to be the only one carrying the structure. This is where marriage can begin to suffer. And I'd like to weave in Esther Perrill here for a moment as a small voice in this larger conversation because her work speaks to marriage so well. Motherhood intensifies the domestic, and Esther Perrill's work helps explain why that matters. The more life becomes logistics, repetition, and responsibility, the more intentional couples must be about protecting aliveness, pleasure, and play. Desire does not usually return because a woman is told to relax. It returns when there is enough support, spaciousness, and shared responsibility for her body to feel that life is more than management. It returns when she is no longer carrying the entire tone and weight of the home alone. And that lands so deeply for me, because so many women are told directly or indirectly that if they would just relax, just let go, just be softer, just be more open, just be more feminine, then intimacy would return. But that skips over the actual question what is her body responding to? If her body feels like she is carrying the home, the children, the rhythm, the emotional climate, and often the partner's unmet. Maturity too, why would she feel open? Why would she feel playful? Why would she feel available for pleasure? Pleasure does not bloom when there is chronic overfunctioning. It does not bloom where she has to remain the manager. And this is not punishment, it is physiology. A woman cannot soften where she does not feel held. A woman can absolutely be strong. She can lead, she can initiate, she can hold structure, she can protect, she can carry. Women do this every day. We do this every day. But there is a difference between being capable and being meant to carry it all alone. A woman cannot sustainably hold the masculine for her children, her household, and her partner, and then still be expected to feel soft, radiant, receptive, erotic, and fully alive. Not because something is wrong with her, but because there is nowhere for her to put the masculine down. And if there is no place for her to put it down, eventually something in her begins to shut down. It may be desire. Sometimes it's creativity. Maybe it's joy. Perhaps it's her warmth. And often enough it is her body itself. Not as punishment, as protection. Her system says I cannot open any more. I am already carrying way too much. And I know there are men listening to this episode too. I love you guys. Thank you so much for sticking around. So let me say this clearly and respectfully. This is not about shaming men. It is not about power over. It is not about saying women never hold masculine energy or men never need support. This is about awareness. If you are in partnership with a woman, especially one who is a mother, ask yourself Do I wait to be told what needs to get done? Do I help or do I actually take ownership? Do I follow through without being reminded? Do I notice what needs attention before it becomes her job to assign it? Do I regulate my own emotions? Do I lead myself? Do I create steadiness in the relationship? Do I make her life lighter or do I add to the management load she is already carrying? Because if she has to manage you too, then she cannot rest into the relationship. She may still love you, she may still show up, she may still be loyal and devoted and caring, but her body will know that she is still on duty. And desire does not thrive when a woman feels she is still on duty. This is not about rigid roles, it is about energetic sustainability. I really want to clearly say this. This conversation is not about putting women in one box and men in another. It is not about saying men provide and women nurture. It's not about flattening the complexity of real relationships. It is not about pretending every family looks the same. It's not about blame at all. It is about sustainability. It is about the rhythm of your everyday lives because the complexity of relationships is that there are times when she will need to be in the masculine for you to move through something, and vice versa. And also with the feminine, where you will need to step forward in your feminine to be there for her so that she can move through something. We're thinking about sustainability, the expansiveness of your relationship, the long-term life of your relationship. It is about naming that motherhood already asks women to carry extraordinary levels of masculine responsibility. And if there is no balancing force, if there is no support, if there is no shared steadiness, if there is no emotional maturity around her, then something in her will pay for it. Usually with her body, her peace, her intimacy, her spaciousness, her health. She didn't lose herself. The system never let her exhale. And I think this is the piece I want women to hear most. You have not let yourself go. You have not become boring, you have not become cold, you have not stopped being fun, you have not become too much. It may simply be that your life, your work, your home, your motherhood, and your marriage have required so much vigilance, so much responsibility, and so much caring that the parts of you that once felt playful and free have not had enough oxygen. That is different. That means you are not broken. It means you need support. It means something needs to be reframed. It means your body is telling the truth, and that truth deserves to be heard. If you are pregnant postpartum or deep in the years of mothering, I want to say this to you. Your role matters immensely. I do not mean that in a self-sacrificing, disappearing sort of way. I mean that the care of your children, the care of your nervous system, the care of your home life, the care of your own body as a mother, this is profound sacred work. This is not lesser work because it is domestic, it is not small because it is unseen. This is not unimportant because it does not always receive applause. The way children are loved, protected, guided, and regulated matters to the future of our world. This is your sacred calling. You have been called to do the work of mothering. And I think sometimes mothers need permission to remember that tending to the inner circle is not failing the world, it is serving it. You do not need to be everything to everyone all at once. There are seasons, there are layers, there are circles of devotion, and for many mothers, the most important work in a given season is to tend what is closest your children, your body, your relationship, your home, your peace. That matters deeply. So yes, motherhood can deepen a woman's feminine, but mothering also requires immense masculine capacity. It requires leadership, containment, protection, decision making, steadiness, responsibility, follow through, holding the container for lives that are still growing. And for many women, this did not begin when they had children. Many were already living in a world that trained them to overdevelop structure, productivity, vigilance, and performance long before motherhood ever arrived. Motherhood simply intensified what was already there. Let this be a naming. Let this be language for what you have felt. Let this be permission to stop blaming yourself for being tired. Let this be an invitation to look honestly at the structure of your home, the shape of your marriage, the rhythm of your cycle, the truth of your nervous system, the demands of your work, and the support that is either present or missing. Because softness is not a performance. It is what becomes possible when a woman feels safe enough to put some of the weight down. And every mother deserves places where she gets to put the weight down. I speak to this today as a woman in an unstable marriage raising two teenagers. And even with all that life has held, I have always known this. There is no more important work than being a mother. And second to that is being a father. I built my life around being the most available parent for my children. That choice took me away from a lot of external opportunities, like earning a regular, dependable paycheck, building my career in the direction I thought I would go, and even cultivating more companionship outside of the home. And still, I would do it all again, because what I have witnessed in my children is the reward. I have raised two kids who are incredibly healthy, physically and mentally. They know themselves, they are creative, they use their voice, they understand the meaning of family, and we have real open conversations about so many things. That is the reward. And now, over the last five years, as they've become more independent, able to be home alone, and now we have a driver in the house, I get to feel some more space opening in my life too. I get to devote more time to what I desire, serving on boards and making a difference in the world, talking with you here through this podcast, resting more, because God knows I need it, and spending time with my girlfriends. Even something as simple as getting coffee once a week with a friend has felt so nourishing. And I think that deserves to be said out loud. Mothering can be a kind of pause, or maybe more accurately, a reorientation in all the other things you could be doing. Yes, there are sacrifices. Yes, there are seasons where your life is shaped around the needs of your children and family. Yes, you may step away from things, slow down things, or choose differently than the culture tells you to. But you get to decide what presence looks like for you. You get to decide how you want to mother, how you want to structure your life, how you want to define success in this season. Like I said earlier, you and I, we are fully capable of handling so much. But the real question is at what cost? Every family is different. So identify your priorities personally, professionally, and then as a family. Notice what overlaps with your spouse or partner if you have one. Notice where there is alignment. Notice where temporary accommodations can be made. Notice what season you are actually in instead of forcing yourself into one you are not in. Life is not a straight line, and motherhood is not a detour. It is part of the path. A profound, demanding, sacred part of the path. And as your seasons change, you get to change too. You get to reimagine what is possible. You get to return to parts of yourself that were waiting patiently. You get to create a life that reflects your values now, not who you thought you had to be years ago. The map is not already written. It is yours to make.