2. Exploring Masculine and Feminine Energies, Dating and Societal Norms with Annalie Nienow

Speaker 1: 0:00

What does a woman that is seeking to be more wholly integrated with masculine and feminine, what is she looking for in a partner and why is that important?

Speaker 2: 0:10

Yeah, I've thought about this a lot.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Not me. I don't think about it.

Speaker 2: 0:16

And I think that honestly, if I'm going to boil it down like the simplest way is being grounded, like really feeling like they're present and just really attached to the ground. If you're talking about like chakras and being like sitting on the ground and being attached to the ground Like I want that feeling, I want him to move, I don't want him to just sit on the ground.

Speaker 2: 0:43

But but like, there's that feeling of like and that's in all ways Like. So that's being grounded in choices that he makes, that's being in grounded, grounded in his emotions, that's being grounded when he's listening. I think that I have often brought in people that were very much like in the up here kind of floaty energy yeah. And, yeah, very kite energy, and I don't, I want the opposite, I think it's. It's just like this calm assertion and guidance through all those different.

Speaker 1: 1:22

That's like so swoony to me. Hello, it's me, your host, jen, and fellow journeyer on this path of learning how to reintegrate the divine feminine energy into the boardroom. So we'll talk about things like conscious capitalism and leading with vulnerability and awareness and connection and play. We'll be diving into the bedroom. So basically we're going to talk about the horizontal mambo and all seriousness. We're going to look at how to create a deeper level of intimacy and connection in your romantic partnerships, but also in all of our relationships. I think we've become so disconnected, so how do we gain that in our relationships? And then we're going to look beyond that into any tool or practice that helps us become more magnetic and more full. So manifestation techniques, meditation and personal development approaches that will help us move through challenges to step into our brightest, fullest, most magnetic version of ourselves. It's all the things, it is the whole shebang. So buckle up buttercups, we're diving in. So we've got Annie with me today.

Speaker 1: 2:49

It was about nine months into our friendship before I got permission to call her Annie from Anneli. It does feel a little odd as a 41 year old woman to call you my best friend. I was thinking about what does that mean? And then I'm like, well, for those of you that don't know, anneli is the one that knows all my secrets. She's the one that calls out my potential, calls out my problems. She's the one that I'm going to call and be like hey, guess what? And that feels really good to have that person. So I'm excited for you guys to get to know Anneli a little bit more today and for us to dive in and chit chat like we do, because we can talk for hours. We are not going to talk for hours today. It'll be like 35 minutes. I bet Ready Annie Set the timer. We will go. Okay, introduce yourself, would you please.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Why would you like me to start?

Speaker 1: 3:43

I think childhood, how you grew up, I think for all of us it's really fascinating. In the first episode I shared a little bit about my backstory because it shapes who we are and how we show up to the world today, and the whole masculine feminine dynamic and like how we as individuals got into this masculine sort of I'm going to say rut, I don't know we can talk about what we want to call that Skiu, maybe, skiu yeah, and how we got there. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:09

So I had a what I would call conventional or traditional childhood in a lot of ways, and then in other ways very non-conventional, which, like you pointed out to me more than anyone else. You're like that's not normal, you know that right. So conventional or traditional aspects for my parents were married. They did separate when I was 19, when I was out of the home, but I grew up with kind of two-parent household, a little non-conventional. My parents neither of them worked when I was very young or neither of them worked in traditional roles, and then my mom actually went back to working out of the house and my dad was home. He had a business that he ran from home, but he was the one who was home with me. I'm the youngest of five children, so again, more traditional family.

Speaker 1: 5:01

When they weren't working.

Speaker 2: 5:02

What were they doing? Well, that goes into the non-conventional part. So my parents met in Minneapolis in the late 70s or mid-70s. They moved to Northern Minnesota in the late 70s and they decided to be kind of back to the landers, live a. They didn't live fully off grid, but try to live kind of off the land and off grid. So, no, I wasn't born until the 80s. So my siblings all got more of this than I did, but they were farmers and they were doing odd jobs to make money. They bought a house that didn't have plumbing or electricity or they had a failing foundation. It was an old farmhouse. So over the years my dad took all of that on and slowly made it into a house that was more and more livable. You were shocked. We didn't have central heating, which was just normal, but we did a potbelly stove in the dining room.

Speaker 1: 5:59

This is like Northern Minnesota, and so your dad would have to get up in the middle of the night and like, stoke the fire to keep you guys warm, and you were telling me you'd wake up with like ice on the window.

Speaker 2: 6:09

It was just like this was how we lived? Yeah, for sure so it was. And then I will say, the older I got, the more conventional our living was, the more conventional our housing was. Conventional our housing was. And then when I was in I don't even know how old I was, like I said then my mom went to work in a traditional role she was a parent and early childhood specialist and went back to work, had gone back to school and then back to work, and so that became more than it was, all kind of more normal or traditional, as far as what our lives look like you mentioned to.

Speaker 1: 6:46

I think it's worth noting like the creative aspect of the unconventional part. Speak to that for a minute.

Speaker 2: 6:51

Yeah, I think lots of nature in my childhood, a lot of creativity. My dad was a woodworker and a woodworking artist that was the business that he started at some point and so just a ton of I was surrounded by a really nurturing, creative nature filled we lived in nature cycles a lot, right, it was that kind of living where you have a big garden and then you can for the winter and so you eat based on the way that nature is providing and you live by the way nature is providing.

Speaker 1: 7:23

So, yeah, yeah, like creative musicians and all that stuff too. Okay, so childhood happens, you go to school. Talk about that.

Speaker 2: 7:33

I went to college in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota. I went to the Carlson School of Management. So business school, not because I wanted to be in business, because I got an opportunity to go there and it was a hard school to get into. I got a scholarship so honestly, that's why I went. My parents were actually very big on all five children went to college but they my parents did not pay for any of us to go to college. They thought education was really important but they wanted us to figure it out if we wanted to do it. So scholarship very important. I got a two-year scholarship so that was great. Worked while I was in college as well, so it kind of quickly I was providing for myself. I was very quickly paying for my own rent. I was on my own when I went to college. I didn't have a ton of financial support, a lot of other support from my parents. So it worked as a hostess, worked as a waitress and then worked at the Target Center as well doing creative backstage design work.

Speaker 1: 8:32

So lots of jobs across the school business. I feel like I remember you telling me this story about how all the students would be wearing suits and you yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:40

Competitive business school and I don't know if that culture has shifted at all now, but when I was there it was very everybody wore a suit starting your sophomore year, my freshman year. You didn't really have classes at Carlson. I came in also with a bunch of credits that my high school gave me, so I was technically a sophomore my freshman year. So I had a lot of my classes at Carlson and it was a little bit of a culture shock of you know, into a small A little bit To like showing off and everyone's wearing suits.

Speaker 1: 9:09

I'll stop the prairie and then all of a sudden I show up, like you mean, you're not sewing your own dress again, okay? Well then, cool, we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this breaking news when you and your friend laugh so hard simultaneously and so loud you will clip out the microphones. So that is duly noted for this new podcast host, jen. Note to self don't laugh so hard or so loud. Also, I clearly thought the joke was funny enough to come back and edit this in so you could understand what I was saying. My reference was to Annalie as a little house on the prairie girl showing up to college in a bonnet, and that visual causes me to giggle even now. That's all. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Speaker 2: 10:06

A little exaggerated, Actually, by the time I was older. Listen.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Not only were you wearing a bonnet did you step into college with a bonnet on?

Speaker 2: 10:18

I think you have a very different viewpoint of my childhood than what it actually was. I think you morphed it into something bigger Again. It turned pretty conventional. When I was in probably middle school age it was pretty quote unquote normal. We were buying groceries at the grocery store. We were shopping yeah, because prior to that you didn't.

Speaker 1: 10:40

You really did live off the land. So business school, very competitive, fast-paced you probably at that point you're starting to lean into masculine, I think. So Getting like okay, it's no mode. Yeah, it's happening. What after that? Anything notable after that?

Speaker 2: 10:58

Yes, Got into the business world, yes, so I graduated college. I actually took a job in real estate before I graduated. When I was a junior I got an opportunity with the real estate team. I kind of took it like it was going to be an internship and then I was going to go conquer the corporate world. And then I just kept getting opportunities in real estate, so kept moving forward and doing different things in sales, administrative work, marketing and then leadership in real estate.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Did you like I don't know if I've asked you this before did you get the itch to conquer the corporate world? Were you like yes, I want to do that. Or were you, did you just kind of fall into that path?

Speaker 2: 11:44

Definitely just fell into it, I think. I mean, I would say maybe both I did as a child like play international businesswoman.

Speaker 1: 11:56

When. I wasn't making my own hats out of hot air tails.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Again, real skewed vision of what my child was like, no, but I remember sitting at a typewriter with headphones on and pretending I could speak different languages and pretending like I was this international businesswoman. But then I also wanted to be a veterinarian and want to be all these other things. So I think that the going to that school, my idea, was always that I could go there and then transfer out, because the U of M has different colleges for different things, all within their system, and I was like, oh, I can just transfer to whatever one fits, like what I, when I grow up and decide who I want to be, I'll just transfer. And then four years happens really fast and I was done. And I was like, oh, oh. And so I just was like this is what you do when you graduate from this school you go work in corporate America. And then I was like, if I'm going to go work in corporate America, I'm going to have big dreams, I'm not going to have mid level dreams.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Like I'm going to go yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So that was my thought, but that never happened. I've never worked in corporate America.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Is that crazy? Yeah, and you're very successful, so I don't know if you want to talk about the touring at all. Yeah, I mean, I'm bringing it up, so you might as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:09

I took a little hiatus in kind of the same time the real estate market was crashing and just randomly got a call on a Wednesday with an opportunity in the music industry and went on tour with fans for two years. So I did take a little huge side step which again I think kind of speaks to my childhood and what my parents did and just like follow your heart, don't say no to things, just go do it. So I literally got a call on a Wednesday. I was running a Keller Williams office at the time. I had to make a decision on Friday if I was taking the role or not and I decided to say yes and just go on an adventure and try something different. And I flew out Sunday and I didn't come home for nine months.

Speaker 2: 13:55

So it was just like a, and then it was a very creative role. I worked in wardrobe on tour with bands for a couple of years and then decided that that wasn't a life that was going to align with who I wanted to be or what I wanted. I had a dog and a house and wanted to see friends and you know, you kind of on tour you have like new families every year but you get really close with people and then they're off working with other people and so you have a ton of friends but it's not a consistent situation and it didn't feel grounded, it didn't feel settled. To me it felt very chaotic and kind of you're. Also there's no like place to apply for jobs in that industry. It's very network based and so when you're first starting out it's really hard because, you're not going to just instantly get offered a bunch of jobs.

Speaker 2: 14:46

I didn't like that. I was like I've got skills. How do I connect with people so they know I have skills? So there was just a lot of reasons that I quickly was like this isn't for me long term, but it was a super fun, good experience.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So back in the real estate, fast forward. Today you've got a team you're doing very well.

Speaker 2: 15:04

Yeah, came out from touring and then just kept kind of on a path of oddities in real estate as opportunities showed up in 2018. I officially started a team, so kind of that's when I stepped into really starting my own business within the real estate industry.

Speaker 1: 15:21

I say that's kind of when I stepped into it and, yeah, I've had a team since 2018 and there's so much we can talk about with all of this, like how you built the team and maybe someday we will, but I think thank you, because I think that context is really helpful for people who don't know you. Yeah, what's a little bit about you. So Annalie and I were not super close friends. We worked together.

Speaker 2: 15:45

I mean, we knew we knew each other, but we didn't know each other that well. When this topic came up, I feel like this was kind of the tipping point of starting to have deeper conversations.

Speaker 1: 15:57

I think yeah yeah, we worked together and during COVID I started a socially distanced women's group because I was lonely as we were.

Speaker 2: 16:08

It was a forced friendship.

Speaker 1: 16:09

It was a forced friendship I was. I literally got a group of women together and sat us in a room and was like we're gonna set goals, but the point isn't really to set personal goals. It's like that's the vehicle for us to get to know each other. And there's a sisterhood secrecy rule here, like whatever we say in this room doesn't go outside of this room and we're just gonna can we all disagree to get really real really fast. And we did like the first day, yeah, yeah, it was cool, it was super cool. Like, looking back, I'm like, yeah, I think I mean you hate to say the benefit of it, but I think, because of how isolated we were in COVID right that time, when we got together, we were just so hungry for real connection and just like, yeah, I'm diving in because why not? I?

Speaker 2: 16:54

think we set goals the first week and then it just then we just drink wine Straight, just updating each other on things that came out that first week.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Yeah, what we were doing and yeah, yeah, there's a few like split offs from that of people that are still friends and then you and I and another women have become really close friends from that. But I think then we kept kind of getting together once a week just to connect and like, oh, this is how you make friends, this is one of the ways you can make friends as an adult. And so I had stumbled into I think I was on and off dating at that time probably Definitely Annaly remembers better than me like the timeline of the relationship woes Anyways, and so it probably literally was just like IG algorithms that I stumbled into. Like this guy talking about relationship dynamics and he had was using this framework of masculine, feminine and describing that a lot of women are operating in their masculine and because of the way polarity or like magnets work, if you're operating in your masculine, you're going to attract men that are operating in their feminine, and or if you're in a relationship and you're leaning more towards one side or the other, polarization happens naturally and I can see that now in our friendship. Even on a day like you might show up, annie, and be like dude, I cannot make any more decisions, I am done. I don't care where we go, I don't care what, and you're just like floppy, and then I'm like I got it, I'll make the decision and I will naturally then polarize a little bit more into masculine energy and that's like an ebb and flow, even in friendships. You can see it in different dynamics.

Speaker 1: 18:35

But to give the listeners a little bit of an overview, the masculine energy or some of the attributes this isn't the core of it, but some of the attributes of how it shows up is linear, decision-making, very logical, strategic, what else? Quick, yep, driver. Grounded, driving, yep driving. Penetrative energy, sexually and otherwise. It's like electricity moving out.

Speaker 1: 19:05

And then feminine is basically the opposite of all of that. So it's receptive or magnetic energy moving in, creative, fluid, sensual, intuitive, focused more on connection rather on making things happen. It's it's kind of everything on the feminine side is the being side and masculine is doing kind of like. It's one way to look at it. And so I was like, oh boy, I have been operating so much of my life, so much in my masculine and and the the impetus originally was like I don't want to attract that kind of person anymore. So how do I change this in my relationship? And so I brought it to you because I was just like fascinated by it. This is now what, three years ago, yeah, and I thought it would be like most things, like a two-month fascination, and then I'd move on to the next thing, and it's been three years of talking about life through this framework, which is kind of crazy.

Speaker 2: 20:02

Okay, so your take on it, okay so, uh, one of the nights we were paying out, um, you were like you got to see this thing I found on Instagram and it's talking about masculine framework and feminine you're, you're, you're giving me the overview. And then you said, oh, there's I can't remember all the things because you had just seen it, I think and so you're like I gotta, I gotta find this. It was literally an Instagram post that on one side said like feminine attributes. On the other side said masculine attributes, and I believe you read them to me and I was like, oh, why do? Why does feminine get all the bad ones? And then you looked at me with this blank kind of I think you maybe thought I was kidding, because you looked at me like what? And then you're like why do you think they're bad? And then my internal reaction was like, oh no, I'm broken, something is wrong fundamentally, let me just say that I don't think you're broken, and never.

Speaker 1: 21:09

But I love the way you tell that story like oh no, I'm broken it didn't feel great well, let's talk about it.

Speaker 1: 21:19

So why? Why did you perceive at the time because you're not alone in that I think a lot of women especially you know who I think we're going to be speaking to are strong, independent women. We both own businesses, we're entrepreneurial, we I've always been in leadership roles as long as I can remember, so a piece of this is how I'm wired in leadership innately is a masculine trait, but society there, you know, there's all of these things. So I think it's worth spelling out a little bit like why did it feel like a negative thing to be like? Oh, here's all these feminine attributes intuition, connection, fluidity, playfulness and they don't feel like a positive thing yeah, I don't know why.

Speaker 2: 22:08

I don't know if I can answer why they didn't feel it. I had obviously been programmed to think that right over time. I was thinking about this, though, and I didn't. I don't think I've ever told you this part. I do think the first thing I did was like the next day, or within days maybe, I went on like a Google or Instagram search and I was like I gotta look into this more because that felt bad. So let's and I know we talked about it a lot that night, but I don't really even remember. I think we both were so like babies in it that we were just like what does this even mean? And like oh, but we were like this definitely is landing that we are not operating in our feminine.

Speaker 2: 22:52

So I do know that, but I think the first thing I did, or one of the first things I did, was I you had. We talked about how everybody has a core that is either masculine or feminine, and not every female has a feminine core and not every male has a masculine core. Sometimes it's the opposite, and I was like well, first I should figure out if I am truly a feminine core, because maybe I'm just not naturally, and then I'm operating perfectly Turns out.

Speaker 1: 23:20

I'm not broken. Let me look for the evidence to support that truth.

Speaker 2: 23:25

I was looking for the loophole of not being broken, exactly. So then there was a quiz that was like figure out what your core is. And then I took that and it was so clear just by the questions and how I was answering that, no, I was 100% a feminine core and I was like dang it. Okay, I've got work to do. So that was the first step.

Speaker 1: 23:45

That was like Do you remember any of the questions or like what?

Speaker 2: 23:51

I don't. I mean, yeah, this was three years ago, but I know that there were things about like how you deal with things.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Would you rather be the one to like put a bath together for your partner and provide structure and framework for them, or would you rather be the one to be like take care of me please, you know? Like, yeah, and.

Speaker 2: 24:10

I think it was like when you're stressed, what sounds better? Or when you've had like a hard day, what sounds better? Or um, yeah, I mean, I don't remember specifically, but I you know when, you know when you're taking in.

Speaker 1: 24:24

Yeah, you're like. Oh, I'm gonna pause there too and just say that the like David Data is one of the big teachers. Nina Lombardo there's a few out there that I would definitely recommend if people want to dive into that and I can link them in the show notes. The core like.

Speaker 1: 24:44

If we're more talking about what is the core of a masculine like. If I, as a woman and it tends to be true that most women's cores are feminine I don't know why there are exceptions to that rule. For sure this is also not sexuality specific, so you can be gay and have different cores and all this stuff. So, but a feminine core is the desire to be full of love and light, it's radiance, it's it has a desire to be seen. It is energy, it is everything that is energy. It is everything that birth is anything, it is everything that moves in nature, it's it's movement, it's fullness.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Masculine at the core is consciousness and awareness of everything that moves and is.

Speaker 1: 25:31

So a man really grounded in his masculine tends to be very present and a witness of the radiance of the feminine, and we all have both of us in both of those poles or both of those energetics in us, and so, like I can dance between the two and go into a meditative state that is very masculine and witness the love that is in me and that is both of those being present at the same time. But when your core is, for me and for you, really feminine and then we're operating 90% of the time in our masculine because we're a leadership at work, we come home for me, single mom, like all the stuff that is draining, like operating outside of your core, is not like life giving and I think that's that's a big takeaway that I was like, oh, also why I'm burned out Because I'm having to work hard to develop and over develop this muscle to succeed in the workplace. But I'm sacrificing self, like intimacy and relationships and all the energy, energy, yeah, all the things.

Speaker 2: 26:41

Well, and I will say, when we started, we didn't know any of what you just said.

Speaker 1: 26:48

It was literally like quit thinking and start feeling.

Speaker 2: 26:51

Yeah it was literally like two lists of just words, and that was. That was what we started going off. And then it quickly I mean quickly, we were reading books and things that. But yeah, it didn't start that deep, it started just with like here's five things that are feminine and here's five things, and so it was confusing also because I was like well, what does that even mean? So I thought they were bad. Or I thought like, oh, we got the kind of I didn't know why. I felt that way necessarily, but I definitely did. And then, but that was all I, that was it.

Speaker 1: 27:24

You know, does that?

Speaker 2: 27:25

make sense, like that's all we had. So I think that, like, what you're talking about now is like level 72 compared to where we started. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Well, let's maybe go back to a little bit then of where we started. So if I'm a woman and and I'm recognizing, oh, oopsies, oopsie, I'm a little broken inside.

Speaker 2: 27:48

Now just operating, not in my core or in alignment with my core. I actually do like.

Speaker 1: 27:53

I like the joke, but I really do believe that we're not broken. I believe we are whole.

Speaker 2: 28:00

I was just a little skewed.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Yeah to a way, from my, my natural core. I was just trying to think back like what did I do? Yeah, what did I do when I was like, oh man, how do I start to incorporate more of these attributes? How do I become more whole? And again at the time I was like it's partially just like I want to have a better romantic partner in the future. So, and I maybe now is the time to say what I've learned is so much more than that in terms of how it's impacting me in the workplace, how I think we need conscious capitalism in society. Like it's gone. When we'll get into all that stuff another time. It isn't just for the dating. The dating is fun and it is great to think about attracting a Jamie from Outlander. He's so masculine.

Speaker 2: 28:50

Really, it's so funny.

Speaker 1: 28:57

Okay, so go back to go back to how did you start?

Speaker 2: 28:59

What did you start?

Speaker 1: 29:00

integrating, Like what did you do on a very practical level.

Speaker 2: 29:03

Okay. So I think that and again this all just kind of came to me when we were talking about this question. Once I was like Okay, you, if you are feminine at your core, that means you were born that way, right? So I was like, okay, so at some point in your life you were probably living in really strong alignment to your feminine core. So I just went back to like when I could remember being alive, like my earliest memories, and I was like, well, what was I like when I was four or three or five or whatever those memories were? I was like, oh yeah, I was extremely creative. I was obviously super playful and silly and like wild and I was super nurturing. We had animals with kind of a hobby farm situation and I was always like wanting to take care of the sick animals and I was I was probably like the most aligned before I had things come into my life. So I was like, okay, okay, let's. So that was like kept kind of trotting forward in life and and just looking at those things, that started to shift things.

Speaker 2: 30:09

Now I will also say and I don't think I don't know if we've ever talked about this either I was an extremely emotional child, and when I say extremely emotional, I mean I cried all the time Like if someone laughed too hard at my joke. I thought they were making fun of me. If they didn't laugh at my joke, they thought I was stupid and not funny and I would cry either way, like it was. Everything made me cry.

Speaker 2: 30:32

I was so sensitive and so emotional and I think part of that was probably youngest of five children, probably attention seeking in some ways, although I feel like my parents always gave me a ton of attention. I think I may have just been born a really sensitive, emotional soul and I've worked through this with my parents. I can speak about it here, but like my parents kind of shamed it out of me because my both of my parents were just like, oh my gosh, we have too many other things going on, we cannot with this. Like you can't cry every time we look at you sideways. It was exhausting for them and so it became a thing of like emotions equal bad.

Speaker 2: 31:13

That was the messaging I got and I think that happened really early also. So I think I was like being supported in all of these ways of creativity and nature and nurturing and all of these beautiful things. And then I did have that messaging come in really early, which I think is probably part of it. Right, it was emotions are bad. And then I started kind of thinking, well, girls are really emotional, so girl is bad. Or I think there was some messaging there that I've had to kind of undo surrounding emotions. That's huge.

Speaker 1: 31:45

Hey, I wanna go back to little Annie and be like your emotions are the best. Do you feel that now Like looking back at little you? Are you like, can you?

Speaker 2: 31:56

embrace that. Yeah, I mean, that's shadow work, right.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:59

So you go back and you talk to yourself. But I also think I don't think she needs to hear that, like my emotions were the best, I think that she needed to hear maybe there's other ways of coping or there's other ways of communicating how you're feeling than going straight to tears or straight to feeling the worst about everything. So I think I just I don't and I am still super critical of myself. I think I was just like hyper critical. So if I wanted to be perfect yeah, there were a lot of dynamics there.

Speaker 1: 32:27

Yeah, so it's you know, it's just like I look at emotions now and I'm looking at, you know, all my daughters are very different and some of them tend to feel things. What you're describing to me feels a little bit like empath stuff, you know, like and maybe not, though maybe it was like a little bit unhealthy and we don't need to psychoanalyze all of that. But I think that for me right now, I think one of the things I'm reintegrating is the comfortability with emotions and not getting tied up in them, like if the masculine can view my, if my own masculine can view my own emotions, rather than shaming them or being like, oh, there's a problem here, or magnifying them or glorifying them, just like witnessing them and letting them pass, rather than trying to manipulate them one way or another. I think is, I think, healthy.

Speaker 2: 33:20

Like I think emotions are healthy. I think and as I got, as I've like, looked at different ways of looking at who you are right, like human design is something we don't need to talk about, but doing shadow work, astrology, like all these different things that help you get little clues about little pieces of yourself, Every single one of mine is that I'm a highly emotional being, and so for years I was like no, I'm not and I was like oh, that's cause you shut that off.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Like you, you just learned not to be, but they're, it's super healthy and it's super important, like we've talked a little bit about. Like if I'm not showing emotion but I'm expecting other people to share their emotions or their experiences with me, then I'm not having a good, fulfilling relationship with people. So it's part of like having good, strong, human, reciprocal relationships.

Speaker 2: 34:14

Yeah, and I was willing to receive, but I wasn't willing to share because that meant bad. Somewhere way deep in my I didn't think that, but in my deep subconscious I'm sure it did, I did. And now I see it as like being really strong when people can say, yeah, I struggled with this, or I'm really sad today, or I just feel off today and I'm going to share that with my client because they need to know that, like, like I've literally shown up at meetings where it's going to be a two hour, we get a lot of things to go through and like, just so you know it's, I've had kind of a rough day. So if my words aren't perfect or if I kind of correct myself, that's why I'm here and I'm focused, but it's been a long one, or it's been a hard one, and they're like oh my gosh, yeah, can we do you want some tea? And they're like how do we support so that?

Speaker 1: 35:01

it's easy, right, so it's like Isn't that amazing? Oh, I love that. I love that example even of like you in those moments moved into a feminine, energetic right, like a vulnerability and support showed up for you.

Speaker 2: 35:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:15

You know, and they're like oh, we have you, We've got you. Do you like some tea? Can?

Speaker 2: 35:19

we Well, and everybody has those days. But if nobody talks about it, then nobody can support each other. And if we care about each other and we're, you know, clients even like we've chosen to be around each other, so yeah, they're going to want to help and it's not like I'm coming in and telling them.

Speaker 1: 35:34

You didn't start weeping.

Speaker 2: 35:37

No, don't think I've ever cried before. You go back to my childhood.

Speaker 1: 35:41

Little Annie needs to cry right now.

Speaker 2: 35:43

No, but then and then to move on, like we also. So I just kept going deeper and deeper and later into, like I went back through that what I just told you about my childhood, my formative, like teens and twenties, and I just kept picking up like, oh, okay, so there was that little bit of messaging, okay, so I started with some stuff around that I went. When I went to business school it became really competitive. It was fast, it wasn't, it wasn't creative. It was like make decisions, be quick on your feet, be a driver, move things forward, have the right answers, be ready to be rapid-fired with questions and be smart and be with it and be on it all the time. And so I think that just was like supporting the masculine side right, those are masculine energy attributes and I just kept. I started getting a lot of support of those and very little a lack of support of the feminine side.

Speaker 1: 36:39

Nurturing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:41

It was like, definitely, pushing of this is good, you're good when you behave like this and we're gonna reward you with grades or job opportunities or money, whatever it is, and that just kept building and building and building through forever, right? So and we've talked a little bit about like that's societal, that's all these different things and not everybody chooses to take that right Like there are feminine core energy, humans that don't just like fully go down that skewed path. I feel like it's uncommon though. I just I think.

Speaker 2: 37:18

I think I'm like doing it wrong.

Speaker 1: 37:20

So we'll work on that one next time. I don't know. I just I think that there are, societally speaking, and we.

Speaker 1: 37:30

I think it would be cool to do a whole episode just talking on the different generations because, just looking back, my grandmother just turned 95 years old yesterday, sharp as a tack, and you know she had two options when she went to school, which was home economics or nurse. And she got home economics and she stayed at home and she, until my grandfather died around 65, she had imbalanced a checkbook. She didn't, it just wasn't, it just was the way it was. Then our mother's generation, hippie generation, were maybe the first generation to start getting divorced and then had to, and, or the women that wanted to go out and be like I want an equal opportunity to work outside the home and be all of the things to all of the people, and they had to press through and break through a crazy amount of norms. And then we're following in that and feeling like, but we can't do it all, or if we do, we're burning out and we're not happy, and some of that is just the rate of technology changing.

Speaker 2: 38:34

I mean, there's just so many facets that kind of have piled onto the burnout but there's also just like this awakening of it's okay to go to therapy, it's okay to talk about these things, it's okay to talk about these things, right, I think, with kind of the opening up of the world through social media and through just ease of access to information and the speed of information, it's okay to like even explore this. Nobody, even was no one was talking about this five years ago 10 years ago, certainly.

Speaker 2: 39:02

So, yeah, I think it was just like easy to keep being supported and sliding deeper one direction, whichever that was for anybody. You could say the same thing for the masculine side. We've talked about like the rise of toxic masculinity. Men got pushed into being like don't be too much, don't do this, don't do this, in the same way that we were pushed the other direction. So I think it's been like a confusing. I mean, forever's been confusing. I just think we're talking about it now.

Speaker 2: 39:31

There were reasons that people were confused always. Now we're just having, we're like unpacking.

Speaker 1: 39:36

Yeah, and I think it's such a unique time in history, with the pandemic and everything and people evaluating priorities in a different way, and this is a layer of it. To me it's like man, I value achieving things, but I don't wanna come home and be on my computer until nine at night. Where, pre-pandemic, I would do that and I felt okay about it. I didn't feel internal conflict at that point. I was experiencing burnout, lack of intimacy. I was not as connected to my kids. I didn't see that as a problem because it was the norm.

Speaker 1: 40:14

And then when the pandemic happened, I mean I remember going to you and being like I need to take up some hobbies, can you teach me how to knit? I was like I'm for sure gonna knit hats, now Bonnets, I'm gonna make you a bonnet. And I started playing piano and this was a part of the masculine, feminine thing too. But it was a beautiful time in that I had the time to deal with grief for me. So it was the emotional aspect of things that I hadn't been dealing with, and then it was actually just time and space to do the.

Speaker 1: 40:49

I kind of don't love the term self-care, self-love or whatever, but it was that. It was like what are the feminine things I can do that are gonna feel nourishing and we talk about that. Now it's like, okay, is self-care really doomed? Scrolling and drinking wine and binging Netflix Maybe occasionally, but I don't ever end that time feeling full. I end the time feeling blah, you know.

Speaker 1: 41:16

And so even just looking at that sort of masculine, feminine list of things, I'm like, oh yeah, you feel differently when you pick up a guitar you haven't picked up in a few months and you noodle on that and an hour and a half goes by and you're like, oh yeah, I'm back in flow. Okay, I think it'd be really fun to talk about the dating thing and specifically and I'll share my list too it's not really a list, but I think for the women and I think some men are gonna tune into this I think there are men that are curious, because I would tune into dudes talking about this for sure what do you want? Ie, what does a woman that is seeking to be more wholly integrated with masculine and feminine? What is she looking for in a partner and why is that important?

Speaker 2: 42:11

Yeah, I've thought about this a lot.

Speaker 1: 42:14

Not me. I don't think about it.

Speaker 2: 42:16

And I think that honestly if I'm gonna boil it down like the simplest way is being grounded, like really feeling like they're present and just really attached to the ground. If you're talking about like chakras and being like sitting on the ground and being attached to the ground, like, I want that feeling, I want him to move, I don't want him to just sit on the ground, but like, there's that feeling of like and that's in all ways Like. So that's being grounded in choices that he makes, that's being grounded in his emotions, that's being grounded when he's listening, that's being just like showing up with that really grounded energy. I think that I have often brought in people that were very much like in the up here kind of floaty energy.

Speaker 1: 43:12

They were quite yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:13

And, yeah, very kite energy, and I don't, I want the opposite, and so like grounded is the word that comes to mind. So what does that even mean? I mean, like I just was saying, I think it's just like this calm assertion and guidance through all those different areas.

Speaker 1: 43:33

That's like so swoony to me. So one of the main books, I'm gonna go back and reread it. It's called the Masculine in Relationship by Youngblood, and I'll again put that in the show notes. It feels a little trite to talk about things this way or like to surficy, except the reality is that it makes I'll speak for myself. If a man shows up as an example, he comes home, or it's a weekend or we haven't met yet, we're dating or about to date, and he's like hey, I would love to plan a date for you. Would that be okay if I just planned it and I could, either if it's first date, like I could pick you up, or I'm happy to meet you there. Whatever you're most comfortable with, what would you like? You know, is there any kind of food you don't like to eat? I don't like. I don't know what bad seafood I like. Everything about bad seafood.

Speaker 2: 44:25

I like most things. Please just bring me to a bad seafood show.

Speaker 1: 44:29

I'd go anywhere except subway. But if you were to show up that way and just say, okay, great, I've got it all planned, I've got it taken care of and very grounded and decisive I can't when I was on dating apps I can't tell you how many times they were like, oh, I don't care, whatever you want. The I don't care whatever you want response makes me want to pull my eyeballs out of my head which is like exactly that's, that's kitey energy, right?

Speaker 2: 44:57

So?

Speaker 1: 44:58

but it's like, I don't need you to dominate. I think I want to make it clear it's not about, it's for sure not about domination. That is not healthy. It's not about making all the decisions all the time either, because there is a dance and a play on this.

Speaker 1: 45:12

But again, if you're a man, if there's man listening, or if a woman is sharing this right now with her partner, if you're a man, just to empathize for a moment, and your core is masculine and you like peace and quiet and spaciousness and freedom, and your job required you to operate all day in your feelings, and then you came home and your spouse was like, hey, we don't need to talk about feelings at all today, I just want to give you space and peace and quiet. And a man would be like, oh my God, you are my queen, you know right, and I think it's the same. It's not that we need somebody all the time making all the decisions, but I do think for, especially for a strong, independent woman that is operating in her masculine at work all the time, it is the relief of all reliefs to have a man step in with clarity and grounding and presence, and it's not about taking out the garbage. It's not about the tasks and the roles. It is about the presence and clarity and witnessing, holding space.

Speaker 1: 46:22

If I've had a long day and I'm feeling a little emotional, that he's comfortable enough with his feminine and with emotion that he can comfortably hold space without being like, oh God, here we go again. You know it's like no, when you're grounded, that stuff doesn't shake you. It doesn't. It's such a. It's like a. It allows you to soften as a woman and my understanding is from the men that I've talked to and the books that I'm reading mostly is that, like, men would love to have a woman that is soft and playful and can move into sensuality too. By the way, if your sex life is dead, a part of it is because there might not be that space for her to soften and relax and so she's just rigid, you know.

Speaker 2: 47:10

Okay, for anyone who didn't see your body language, I think it was incredible. My rigid body, it was like it poked out. It was like great. This is not a visual situation for most people. It's a she got real rigid. She really knows what that feels like sometimes.

Speaker 1: 47:30

That's probably not a turn on for most men oh, it's good, that's great, yeah, so I don't know. There's a few things I mean you could hear in there, just some of the things that I'm looking for when I'm getting look for a future partner. Again, it's groundedness for sure.

Speaker 2: 47:46

Purpose is another piece of that, and yeah, I think also that, like I don't think trying to tell anyone how to be their best masculine self is the goal. I think that, like, because there's, it's all a spectrum and it's all like an integration and it's all.

Speaker 2: 48:07

Both. It's yes and not this or and. So, like some men might be really really healthily living, their masculine core and like seven of them in a row could look completely different, I think. So I just want to throw that out there. They're like on that topic of like, what is that? What does a healthy masculine man look like? I think it can look like 80 billion different versions of a human, just like a healthy feminine can, and some of that is, yeah, how do you, how do you also have to navigate the other side? Or how often do you have to live in like for us? How often are we, how many hours a day are we spending more in the masculine?

Speaker 1: 48:48

It's just gonna look different. It's gonna look different for everybody and everybody. Well and I think this is a good time to insert said disclaimer that I am not an expert on this topic and I Well, we all know, I certainly it's okay, we're far, baby, on the same level-ish.

Speaker 1: 49:08

I'm fascinated by it and I'm doing a ton of personal like growth and journey Exploration and my hope is that this podcast is just a vehicle to have the conversation and explore it more broadly beyond you and I around the bonfire, which is phenomenal, because when I started to like chat about this with other women at work or in just different facets, the response I overwhelmingly got was like, oh my, like, it was like a, and then oh my gosh, that's me too. And oh my, I've never. And I'm like wow, like there's a lot of room to have this conversation. And it was the same for you and I, I think, when we stumbled into it like whoa.

Speaker 2: 49:53

Well, and we've talked about how, like I was saying at the beginning, that we started with like literally seven words on each side and we were like uh-oh, okay, what is? And then it's grown to like you understand so much more of the nuances and now you're interviewing people and you're talking about, and you've sought out listening to all these different people explain and explore what it means to them in their jobs or in their roles or in whatever it is in their relationship, and I do think that it's also like an evolving study or exploration. It should be like a fluid exploration of-.

Speaker 1: 50:29

It's evolving, for sure, in evolving yeah, because it's about energy, so it has to be fluid and evolving, right yeah 1000% and I think that's a great lead-in just for me to explain, like, what people can expect more of on the podcast. So a lot of this is gonna be me revisiting or diving deeper in with people that are considered experts in different facets. Like breath work was one of the modalities that I used that allowed me to soften a bit more and get energy moving again, and I am a big fan of you know to be magnetic talks about like I'm gonna remove the woo-woo from this A lot of. I've hesitated for literally years to talk about this in this capacity because I didn't want it to be too woo-woo and I've really sought out the scientific side of it. So when we say energy, I don't just mean like the hippie good vibe form. I mean we are made up of atoms and atoms are made up of energy and how does energy move and how does breathing a certain way slow down your heart rate and open up your arteries and what does that do physiologically to your body? That allows you to think I mean. So my hope is to bring in really practical tools on top of.

Speaker 1: 51:47

For me this has become a bit spiritual, but also there are very practical tools that we'll explore and just pieces of the conversation. You mentioned shadow work and a lot of that different stuff. So we'll have those conversations as we go, but that's kind of what this is. It's all related ultimately it's about, which is why I kind of put this caveat in there. For me, ultimately, it's about figuring out how to peel back the layers to uncover what's already there. And I loved how you said, like if I go back to my childhood, oh that's it, that's my purest form. We were born pure and whole and full of love and consciousness, and life happens and then it gets all this muck on us and I think this process for me is about like peeling that back and uncovering what's already there. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Cool.

Speaker 1: 52:40

Cool. Thank you all. So much for tuning in, annie. Thank you for being here, as always, you guys. What you don't know is that this was our third attempt at recording. So seriously, thank you.

Speaker 2: 52:54

You're welcome.

Speaker 1: 52:55

Thanks for having me. Yes, so go ahead and hit the follow button on Apple or Spotify, wherever you're listening to your podcast. You can also help the podcast tremendously by leaving a five-star review and then share this. If you think there's somebody that would enjoy being a part of this conversation, share it with them. I'm going to leave my contact information, annie. Can I leave yours in the show notes, okay, and if you guys have input or questions, we would love to hear more about what you want to hear more about In the meantime. Thank you again for joining. Have a banging day. We'll catch you next time.