Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: RSS

Does the way society has dictated gender roles affect the dynamics in your relationship? Many of us are conditioned from a young age to adhere to certain gender roles, often seeking validation and traits from our partners that we feel we lack within ourselves. This deep-rooted socialization can result in an unhealthy dynamic, impacting the harmony and health of our relationships. How can we reclaim and integrate these vital energies within ourselves to create stronger, more authentic connections?

In this episode, we explore how traditional gender conditioning influences our expectations and behaviors in relationships. Through a deeply insightful discussion, this episode offers practical strategies for recognizing and integrating both masculine and feminine energies in everyday life. Reflecting on personal experiences, societal dynamics, and spiritual perspectives, this episode provides tools to foster emotional maturity, authenticity, and harmony in your relationships. Join us to understand the importance of inner balance and discover how to step into a more empowered version of yourself.

Dené Logan, AMFT, is a marriage and family therapist, spiritual teacher, and author of Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within. She is cohost of the weekly podcast Cheaper Than Therapy, which gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at coaching sessions with actual clients, interviews with thought leaders in the field of mental health and wellness, and a bird’s-eye view into two therapists hashing out their current life struggles and perspectives on various hot topics. She lives in Los Angeles.

In this episode

6:35 Deńe Logan’s journey: From being a spiritual seeker and yoga teacher to becoming a therapist who specializes in couples work.

13:05 Redefining relational success and embracing the spiritual journey in relationships.

23:26 Balancing masculine and feminine energies in modern society.

46:51 Healing relationships through inner child connection and energy awareness.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Take time to journal or meditate on how societal gender norms have shaped your behaviors and expectations in relationships.
• Identify activities or practices that reconnect you with both your feminine and masculine energies.
• Spend time in nature, establishing rituals like grounding exercises or mindful walks to rediscover innate wisdom and balance.
• Develop skills to hold space for your partner's emotions, acknowledging their fears and pain points without attempting to fix them immediately.
• Set up a daily or weekly routine that includes both productivity-oriented (masculine) and relaxation/nurturing (feminine) activities.
• Make conscious choices about your relational behaviors, aiming for authentic interactions rather than defaulting to gender-conditioned responses.

Mentioned

Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles” (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication

Connect with Dené Logan

Websites: denelogan.com

Instagram: instagram.com/dene.logan

Podcast: denelogan.com/podcast

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About Today's Show

Dené, thank you for being with us today. I'm excited about our conversation.

Gosh, thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I'm thrilled to get to sit down with you.

Yes. Just even our brief chatting before our start here, just really recognizing how you're being of service and really helping people understand concepts that help elevate and help their development in the human experience. We're going to be talking about the masculine and feminine and how that fits in relationship. 

For people who maybe aren't acquainted with you, where would you like to start, as far as people knowing where you're coming from and a little bit about you?

So I'm a marriage and family therapist, and I'm located in LA. I work primarily with couples. It's interesting. Before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about my experience of moving to LA and being a spiritual seeker. I think I've always been fascinated by, certainly, how our human minds work and what drives our behavioral patterns. But I've always, for whatever reason, been really drawn to the understanding of the larger existential questions of, like: what are we doing here, what happens when we leave these bodies? I think from an age where it was like all of my friends were in their early 20s, maybe partying, and I was doing that too. But I always was really drawn to Oprah's Soul series, and I feel like she would have all of these spiritual teachers on that would be talking about the experience of life in a way that just resonated so deeply and made me feel like something was being connected, like these puzzle pieces were being put together for me. I've always just had such a love for that spiritual-seeking. I was a yoga teacher for many years here in LA, and I feel like what's interesting about yoga, I don't know if you do.

I practice, and it's very much a part of me. When I don't, I'm like, I need to do my yoga. It's so part of just my self-care and even my mental health. I'm just in a different state when I can be breathing and integrating and then being in that embodied practice. So yes, I'm very much a fan and practicer.

Yeah, so you get it, and you'll understand. So often, I think the somatic experience brings a lot of things to the surface that have been dormant. So often, we'll have a lot of emotions that come to the surface after really juicy practice, and people would feel really emotional and want to talk to me about what was coming up a lot of times after yoga. I'd be like: Oh, I don't know, I'm not actually super equipped for the level of what you're talking about here. But I was very curious, and felt like I would like to be. I feel like there were a few yoga teachers that I practiced with that did work around spiritual psychology and understanding some of the Eastern practices through the lens of the psyche, and I was fascinated by that.

So I went back to grad school and became a therapist. But what ended up being a little bit different about, I guess, the way that I practice therapy, is I was really drawn to couples’ work. I don't know if you've experienced this, Jessica, but both therapists, from my perspective, either really like working with couples, or they're like: No, I don't want to work with couples, keep the couples away from me. Or at least that was certainly my experience of my practicum, and a lot of my colleagues that I would talk to would share a similar sentiment. But I loved working with couples. Right from the start, I was like: Oh, this is fascinating. I felt like I could sort of translate for each person what I was seeing, that maybe their partner was struggling to resonate with, in a way that just felt like: Oh, we can bring a little bit of harmony, this is possible. But the clinical lens of psychology, from my perspective, wasn't really talking about this work of partnering with another person through the lens of our soul. 

I think that so much about the way that I understand psychology and the work that I do is through a little bit more of a spiritual lens, depth psychology. I'm saying depth, and people are always like, are you saying death psychology? But depth psychology, which is really rooted in a lot of Jungian principles, really talks about psychology through the lens of the soul, and these through lines throughout different points of history and culture and archetypes and myth, and all of these ways of understanding the larger context of what this human experience is. I kind of thought to myself, well, nobody is really talking about couples work through that lens, from my perspective. Like, what is it to walk beside another soul and share our lives in a conscious way. I know, in my relationship, that wasn't something that I was certainly conditioned to think about, in terms of like, what is holding this other soul as sacred, and what they came here in terms of their dharma and their life path? Thinking about love and relationships through that lens. 

So I found that working with couples in that way really gave me a particular way of experiencing what couples work was and could be, and it really started to shift things a little bit for the couples that I was working with, in a way that I felt really inspired by. So that's kind of the long story of how I got to do the work I'm doing, I guess.

It's so helpful, and I very much resonate with what you're describing. I am curious, I have a few different people that are in my mind as you're talking. It's very much a part of my work, although I'm not very explicit about it. But what I will say in the beginning of every podcast, in my intro and outro, I'm talking about the journey of intimacy, and how often what gets ignited or gets presented or emerges in the dynamic is an opportunity for growth, and that the vehicle of intimacy can be a real spiritual teacher. I say a teacher, but in the sense of what you're describing in this soulful way. I appreciate you're referencing the depth psychology. I have a friend who's actually in the program at Pacifica University, and I'm sure you could do a whole podcast and miniseries on depth psychology. 

And what I appreciate, and I think you also bring into your work, is this collective consciousness. So when you're talking about archetypes, I think a lot of people will be familiar with the hero's journey and the struggle and what we gain. I had a client yesterday, and she was just saying, I want to be open to the magic of the journey. She was talking about a couple of weeks of just intense difficulty, where the human circumstances of it were very challenging, and also, how she was being with herself in a way that allowed for more of that presencing to do the deeper work. Really, so often, she's like: I'm so that ambitious one, over-functioning, trying to get to whatever goal externally, and whatever other arrival point might be. She's like, I just don't want to lose the magic of the journey. So it was really beautiful hearing her say that. At any rate, my dissertation was unconscious intimate relationship. I remember when you were talking, and even as we're going to pivot towards masculine and feminine, I don't know if you're a fan of John Welwood's work. 

Oh my gosh, yes!

His work is so poetic, and he really talks about this dynamic of being witnessed in a way to your significant other in this soulful way. So anyway, I referenced a few other people in the writing. Because, just last thing I'll say here is, I had a real difficult relationship experience that brought me into a deep level of grief and my own transformation, that then prompted me to look at relating and intimacy differently. It was like: Okay, so I'm a master's, I'm an undergrad, I grew up as we were talking in very progressive New Thought principles, and I felt very ill-equipped to be really negotiating relationship in this very conscious and awake way. Not to say that that's a binary thing, all or nothing, but just even the frame of it. So I do think it's really important to have voice around, and I'm really grateful to be sharing this conversation with you and for the work you're doing, and being so clear about the focus in this spiritual lens in relationship. 

Well, thank you for that, Jessica. It's interesting, I joke a lot of times that I was a yoga teacher for over 10 years that never said the word God in class. I was really conscious of attempting not to activate people, understanding that so many of us have pain points around organized religion and ways that it's felt like it's been weaponized along our journey and things like that. Also, that we can just have complex relationships with all of those things, and I think there's something in what you were saying about your client that I've come to understand about the way that our Western society has really removed the ethereal and the magic from our experience, and that that's a normalized thing. That even when we're in these dark periods, that we are being initiated into the next phase and iteration of self, and that it's like there's magic even in that, in the mud that creates the Lotus. 

But I think we don't really have a container for that, because nobody normalizes these initiatory periods. I certainly feel like the last, well, five years especially, have been quickening or expediting that process of me being just like: No, this is really what I feel like, I need to name that what I do is bringing the soul work into this experience of relationships. But I'm saying all that to say, I might not have held it that way five years ago when working with clients. 

Yes, and just the respect and the sensitivity that I'm hearing you reference around how someone might experience their relationship to higher power God, and the dynamic of that, that there's a real regard. And as you talk about soulfulness, that really allows for the person to feel inside themselves, their higher self, or however they might define it. But just even an ability to bring acknowledgement. Is that what I'm hearing?

I love that. I think so often, I will say, to me, the differentiation between religion and spirituality, because people ask sometimes. I think, to me, all of the religions, and I'm by no means a religious scholar, but they are all just these beautiful expressions of the human desire to understand what we're doing here. I think religion, to me, is like, this is the answer as it's laid out by some external authority. Whereas, to me, spirituality is like, you are meant to find your own answers, you're meant to formulate your truth for yourself. Maybe here's some tools to help you formulate that, but that your truth is your own. So I often say, I have no ability, nor, frankly, any interest in you what your truth should be. But here's some tools that have been supportive of me along my journey that might help you define that for yourself. 

Yeah, and be in contact with, and perhaps give space for the internal intelligence and connection with. And to have, again, the acknowledgement, so that there can be a development perhaps, if one is interested and willing. And to see their relationship as what is being evoked as spiritual curriculum.

Yes, absolutely.

I remember when you were talking, Marianne Williamson wrote a book, she wrote many books, but one was, I think, Return to Love. You've read it?

Yeah.

I read it when I was in this relationship I was describing that brought me to a very intense place, and she was describing something very similar about the soul work and how confronting and also what we might face. I think maybe she was even referencing going through the fire. Anyway, I'll reference, there was an excerpt in there that related to my experience. It was essentially like, I don't know if you remember this, I won't go into great detail because I want to talk about what we're going to talk about. But it was essentially like, she was using the analogy of the train, and we have a ticket. 

You might be able to describe it better. But my felt remembering of it is like, we're going to go on this journey together, and we're going to be in this very beautiful. I think she even referenced, we're these two angels or something, and we're taking this train to this beautiful place. And they're basically saying, I'm not going, whatever version that is. You might plead. Or maybe the angel was crying and weeping, like, why are they saying no? Just this whole thing, and yet, people have choice. Even though there's an opportunity and an invitation, that we can choose to not participate, and that can be incredibly confronting. That was confronting for me at the time. And also, to spiritually say: Okay, they have choice, and I respect and honor. And also, the devastation and the grief and the loss around the no, and the why around that. Anyway, I don't think I'm describing it well, I won't particularly go too deep into that. But there's a lot of people writing beautiful things.

No, I think you described it beautifully, and I think I remember what you're referencing. But I think there's an idea that we're raised with, and a lot of the way that I work with couples is sort of challenging this idea that we are conditioned to believe in, that relational success, or a relationship is successful I guess, when it is based on longevity. That when something ends prematurely, or that the season that I hoped this relationship would extend through, is not the case, and that that means I failed or it wasn't real. I don't believe that to be true. I have had very brief collisions with another person that I have been forever changed by. You can't tell me that that wasn't a part of my divine assignment and our divine assignment. 

But I think if we look at the Buddhist aspect or way of holding, bringing it into our relationship is, if we hold whatever the sacred thing or this dynamic between us like water in our hands. Instead of attempting to grasp and hold on to it, we just hold it as this sacred thing that I get to bear witness to and be with for as long as it's aligned. It just brings a different energetic, I find, to our relationships than when we're really trying to grasp and hold on and control, certainly from a space of our understandable human fears. But I think some of our work is to really challenge that and be in the inquiry within ourselves. Like, what else could be true, other than if this person isn't continuing on the train with me, that that means it was any less beautiful, this time that we spent together? 

Even as we're talking, I think I'll just say for myself, even a sense of what might look, on the outside, with my significant other, like resistance, or not wanting to participate in something that I'm super excited about or passionate about. It could be something very small, just like an idea about where we might go for a trip or something. And to be in a place of unacceptance or attachment, like you're describing, and this balance, which might pivot us into the masculine and feminine. I do appreciate the energies of leadership and drive and creating and having goals that is maybe associated with more of the masculine, and then more of the allowing and the surrendering and the presencing and the receiving of what we might associate with the feminine traits and energies. 

The same client I was talking to, I don't know if you've ever come across Ken Wilber's work, he does Integral theory. It's this developmental framework for consciousness. His late wife was talking about this terminology of passionate equanimity, which she's like, I love a lot of the Buddhist principles of non-attachment, and just so much of suffering is related to attachment. But she's like, I also want to be passionate and engaged, and I feel like I want to honor that. So she was talking about, can we do passionate equanimity? I feel this is what you're describing, like holding with presence. It's not: Oh, I'm going to do me, and I don't really care. I'm unattached, or I really could care one way or another. Not that that's a Buddhist framework. But I think in more modern, as you're talking about Western framework, having an ability to have both. Tell me where you're at and where you come from here. Because I don't spend a ton of time talking about masculine and feminine, yet it is so within each person and in the relationship. So please, I would love to hear.

Well, I love what you're saying. Let me just start, I think, for those who aren't familiar with masculine and feminine energetics, by naming that while I will talk about masculine and feminine in ways that we often refer to in the context of gender, these energetics aren't gendered. They are alive within all of us, certainly beyond Jungian psychology, and the history of all of our wisdom traditions have spoken about these energetics in their own way, whether they're speaking about the energetics of sun/moon, Yin and Yang, dominance/submissive, we could go on and on. There's so many different ways to name these polarities that exist within all of us. Carl Jung spoke of them as the Anima and the Animus, and the Anima was sort of the feminine aspects of a man, and the Animus was the masculine aspects of a woman. We have since come to understand that they're just a lot more nuanced than that, and that's just a really simplistic way of describing these energetics. But the truth remains that these energetics are alive within all of us. 

From my perspective, we have been living in what I would think of as a really wounded or distorted version of a masculine-focused society for oh so long, since the dawn of patriarchy, and really not held with reverence or really had a clear idea of what healthy feminine energetics are within ourselves. So what it does is it certainly leads to a society that is out of balance. We've put the focus on these wounded masculine characteristics, like hyper-productivity and competition and control. And really, when we think of the feminine, we think of distorted or wounded feminine energetics, like clinging and fear and anxiety, and needing to hold on to things and grasp. All of those are sort of the wounded variations of the feminine. Whereas, I don't feel like we have actually a lot of models of what healthy masculine or feminine energetics look like. 

And what you were just describing about this thing of wanting to feel the passion, which is the feminine, the aliveness, the sensuality, the life force, the Rajas as we like to call it sometimes. I would say, the desire to feel like, but I also want to be in action, I also want to do something. I don't want to just be in this passive space. That's really us not holding on to the idea of control. Because I think, a lot of times where we feel like if I am in my feminine space, or if I'm in the trusting and the allowing life to unfold, then that means that I'm not really living, I'm just sort of passive. I would say the opposite. It's like, allowing yourself to fully live without an attachment to the outcome, believing and really trusting that no matter what, you're going to be held. So I feel like the more that I work to integrate these energetics within myself, the more that I am living. But I'm sort of in that space of yes to all of the healthy masculine action within me, and I have confidence in who I am, and that's the healthy masculine within me, that I can do this because I'm going to go for it. But that has to be rooted in this healthy feminine sense of: because I am source, embodied in a human being, and I'm always connected to a life force of wisdom that will hold me through whatever the outcome is. 

I think if we circle back to what we were saying about heartbreak, I think when we feel these moments that really hurt, the natural human response and the ego response, understandably, is to not want to feel that again. That felt awful, right? So we then defend against pain at all costs. But I think our work is really to see it in the larger hero's journey, as you were speaking about. Like, that dark period was the dragon I had to slay to understand the thing I was meant to understand during that period of time. So none of it was wasted, none of it was anything other than what I was meant to go through during that time, and I was alchemized by that. I was really forever changed through that experience. So ultimately, hopefully, at some point we become grateful for those experiences. But to me, that is the understanding of how we're in this interplay of these energetics between the doing and the being, and the trusting and really moving into that space of mission and inspired action, and back and forth forever.

Thank you. I'm just recognizing, my brain is just calculating as I'm listening, and what I'm hearing as you're talking about the imbalance of more of the Western modern way, that there could be a way to give more attention to the feminine without so much maybe fear of the masculine being non-existent. I'll just personalize this. So if I know how to get things done by being proactive, having lists, being goal-oriented, I can even feel this as I'm speaking. Even as you were talking, I can feel the disembodiment of being very much in my head and grinding, and what that requires of me, perhaps to override, as far as: Oh, I haven't been outside today, or I haven't really slowed down to really check in around how is my breath and how is my body? 

I mean, I'm very committed to my self-care, but there's nuance to this, as you're describing. Versus—and this might not be what you're saying, but I would love your feedback—that when I can have my focus and my intentions that might be goal-oriented, but the way in which I'm existing, that it's not a tightness and a constriction around: Oh, if I don't grind, it's not going to happen. It's more of just: Oh, I'm going to be in relationship. Actually, speaking with spirituality, when I'm in this place, I feel like I'm making more room for divine sparks or new ideas to come that are better than ever I could have come up with, that I'm feeling more co-creative with life happening around me. So that's my sense of how you're describing it. 

But I guess my bigger question was, for people that haven't spent a lot of time contemplating these things, have been breathing and living in more of this imbalance, where's the place that maybe you would help people start to recognize and maybe make room for more balanced masculine and feminine. Then I did a personal share with that.

I love that. It's interesting, because I was really feeling as you were saying that, Jessica. I think that so much of that is that, I would say all of us, but certainly as women, as a survival strategy and an attempt to really keep ourselves safe, we are in this space of constant productivity. What I realized about myself a few years ago, is that a lot of times, as a distraction, as a way of defending against the things that I was just afraid of confronting, or really ways that I was afraid of stepping into the next version of myself or more powerful version of myself, out of fear that I would be exiled or turned away from. Or that people wouldn't love me, or the rejection wounds that surround that. And what I realized was, I'm a Capricorn, I can keep myself busy constantly, and I will. And a lot of times, there are things that weren't from the space of the inspired action of what my soul was really, really hungry for, but that I was afraid to do or step into. That's just a very different energetic. I feel like I don't even have to go into the specifics of that, because I feel like every client I've ever worked with, they know what that thing is. You know what you're hungry for, that a little bit scares you. Like, when you think about stepping into that Capital-S Self, as I like to call it, in that way, it's a little bit scary for you. 

It's a little bit that thing of feeling like, we all have these two needs. That thing for, like: we need to belong, we need to feel like we are part of the community and we are accepted and loved and have these attachments. But then we also need authenticity, and we also need the feminine aliveness and Eros and life force that comes when we're in that space that's outside of our comfort zone, and we're challenged with doing something that scares us a little bit. So the attempt to balance those is that, a lot of times, I'm challenging myself to look at where the productivity is coming from. This is circling back to what you were saying about Marianne Williamson's book, Return to Love. Am I being driven by that space of fear that I'm not enough, fear that I will be judged? Or is it really coming from the space of love? Is it coming from what gives me that authentic sense of aliveness and excitement, and I'm doing this, and even if I fail, I tried? That energetic, it's a very different feeling, and most of us don't live the majority of our lives in that space of the feminine, because we've really been conditioned to defend against that.

Oh my gosh, I'm thinking I'm going to have to contact you and get a session with you. I just recognize what lives in me, even as you're talking, I think it has a lot to do with being in a place of service and really honoring. So much of that programming, I think, in more of the traditional sense, like: I'm not an academic. I have a PhD, but I don't identify with a lot of those characteristics. Yet, what it took for me to actually go through and get that goal, it's a lot. It is fear in the sense of, I want to do right by or want to deliver in the best way possible. But this is so much of my programming. It almost feels, even as I say it, like: Ooh, I've been not honoring the feminine, like I can't trust it as much. I even feel emotional talking about it, just how sad is that that I feel that there's more value in the masculine than I do in the feminine, at least professionally? So I can appreciate just the impact of programming and just how I am internalizing that. This has been on my radar for many, many years. So I just recognize how powerful it is.

Oh, just feeling a wave of that throughout my entire being. I think it's because what you're talking about is so much bigger than the two of us. It's like, what I have found, this generational pain point that has been passed down through all of us. I was about to say through women, but then I corrected myself. Because I think we're living through a moment in time where we're really in this space of reckoning with where we have outsourced our safety and our security. That as long as I follow a structure that an external authority has laid out or said it's the letters behind your name that will keep you safe, or even in relationships, the way that you do this that will keep you safe and you won't be left. One, the way that that keeps us from fully living, and I would say, being of service in the way that we are uniquely qualified with our particular brand of practicing.

So we can try to relegate our shadow to the basement, but it'll be like: You will integrate me, you will see me! So I think we're being confronted with that collectively, I guess is what I'm saying.

I appreciate you holding space for what's the emotion and just giving a little bit of room for that, just even the gender piece. I have a lot of men that I work with that really struggle with these aspects of their own presencing and developing more emotional maturity and emotional intelligence, and how that lives in concert or in connection with the traditional masculine achievement, and how to operate at a high level. A lot of attorneys, CEOs, I have people doing really important work in the world, and the confines of what that looks like, and how that actually lives with more of the feminine. I can feel the difficulty and the pain of many people challenged with how this fits, how it is more imbalanced.

I have something that is being birthed right now around, as a woman, how to hold space for what I am witnessing coming to the surface for our brothers and for the masculine collective. I think, as we are transitioning collectively to what I believe is a new era, that some of these patriarchal structures and ways of being are really dying. And we're seeing what happens when an elephant that has been the way of being, is crashing to the ground. So there's a lot of friction right now, there's a lot of unrest, and it can feel really destabilizing to all of us. All of the things that we are witnessing in the world, that I would say have always been there, but are really being brought to the surface in a way that our consciousness can no longer ignore them. We have to see these things so we can't unsee them, and we can really decide, as a human race, who we want to be. 

But with that, I feel like there's a lot of pain for our brothers, that I believe it is really important for us to hold space for. All of us have been raised with these patriarchal narratives and socialized to be interacting with one another in a very specific way. I was having a conversation with a girlfriend yesterday, and I was saying, it's so fascinating. This is something I'm still really working to wrap my head around, so I'm talking to you about it in real-time as it's alive. But so many of our brothers, regardless of how much I see them doing so much work and really attempting to do what you're saying, like tap into their tender bits and understanding themselves more, still, I watch them be activated to the point of almost like reactionary activation around the idea that women don't need men anymore. 

Now, anyone who's listening here, stay with me here. Because the large truth is, for so much of history, women's survival has been dependent on being in relationship with a man in a nuclear family structure. That has been what was constructed by patriarchy to keep women in a very specific framework. It was done, a lot of times, through harm or fear, things like burning women alive so that they would be terrified of not being chosen. Those are a part of our lineage that we've never really had a reckoning with. And when you think about it, women couldn't even have their own bank accounts until 1974. This is the truth of what it has been for men and women interacting and trying to be in relationship with one another. 

So all of those things, if we don't really have a reckoning around them, there's this unspoken war of the sexes that I see has been playing out forever. Now this is the first moment in history, I believe, when women are making just as much money, and do have the ability, in many ways, to take care of themselves. 

It becomes, for our brothers, if the template isn't like: I protect, provide, and procreate, because that's all I am meant to do, and that is all that I am meant to be. Then what does it look like to really embrace these feminine aspects of myself, and really be in my own aliveness and my own play and life force and ability to receive? It's just, to me, so exciting. Because it's like, if we don't need one another, but we get to choose to be with one another because we really want to, and that's like a conscious decision that we're making in relationship every single day, how beautiful! 

It's absolutely new territory that can get created, and how both the relationship perhaps can be supportive for the individual development, and also the relational development and the terrain of that, that we're not perpetuating these very restrictive ways. Just to also acknowledge, I know we're very focused here on gender and the patriarchal one-up, one-down, and there's so many ways of othering that we're not talking about. But I just want to appreciate that we're staying focused here. That there is a lot to, as you're describing, to really name, just our lineage and the intergenerational, even the epigenetics. That this is impacting our DNA in a way that our ancestors, and just the dynamics around relationship have and roles, as we're talking about even potentially gender roles, or even just how to honor the masculine and feminine. It's quite profound in the fabric of our being. So to not acknowledge and not name, we perhaps want to look at this elevated, more developed way. And also, there's something, as you're saying, in acknowledging the shadow and the impact, which can be part of the healing. 

Absolutely, you just reminded me of something that I think it's so important to say. Because so often, we've been conditioned to think of patriarchy as the masculine collective or as men, and it's not. I'm talking about systems of dominance. Because ultimately, men are some of the most profoundly impacted, in negative ways, by patriarchy, from my perspective. The requirement of stoicism, and what feminist scholar Bell Hooks calls the natural traumatization of little boys, by teaching them so young to shut down their humanity. When I talk about patriarchy, I am, in no way, attempting to ostracize or other my brothers. I am saying, I believe that a more integrated way of being is not a matriarchal culture. This is the integration of these beautiful aspects of self for all of us, so that all of us get to be the fullest embodiment of who we are. 

Yes, thank you for just speaking into that dominance model, that that's what we're talking about here. So for people listening and just recognizing there is a way in which to support more balance in their being for the masculine and feminine energies, there's a whole learning terrain here that's individualized and also has a collective arc to the journey. What would you recommend as just beginning steps, or some steps, for people to work with, that could give them something to either contemplate or consider, or even just feel inside their day, of how to make this actionable I guess?

I love that. I think that there's a point that comes when I think that all of us start by just the recognition that we've been so disconnected from the feminine elements of who we are. I think you were speaking to that so beautifully a little while ago. That there's a tremendous amount of grief that comes to the surface when we realize I've been conditioned to reject an aspect of myself for a lifetime. So I often say, we have to go back for that little kiddo, and we have to just hold them by the hand with so much deep reverence. Like, of course you did, and you were not wrong for doing that. How could you possibly have done anything different? This is everything you were taught to do and be in what was true about life. So of course you did. And you don't have to anymore. I think for me, what that looked like was going back for the little girl inside of me and just rediscovering, like, what did you love before you were taught what you were supposed to be loving, or what you're supposed to be doing? 

For me, Jessica, it was literally me as a 40-plus-year-old woman, dancing around in my bedroom to Les Miserable at the top of my lungs, like I was at a musical theater stage. Just pretending and recapturing that childcare sense of wonder a little bit, and not feeling like: Oh, Oh, there's a list of 40 things that I should be doing, and I'm wasting time. Just allowing myself to be like aa kid again, and tapping into what it was to love some of the things that I used to love. Then, just all of these different rituals that I think we can start to incorporate into our life. It's like, choose your own adventure, what feels true for you. For me, with clients, a lot of times, I'm like, that can be making it a practice, as you were saying, to carve out some time in your day to take your shoes off and go walk around in the grass barefoot, and just be with Mother Earth, and allow yourself to remember. There's so much healing that just comes from reconnecting and plugging into that innate wisdom within us, that comes back as we get back into nature. It's fascinating to me always. Like, whatever's happening, it's like, walk around outside and then come text me. I promise you'll feel different. You just will. 

But all kinds of different ways of tapping into what a spiritual practice or connecting to the source of ourselves can be. And from that space, once we've sort of defined what is the things that are the breadcrumbs of my bliss, what do I want to do with that? How do I want to create a ripple in the world of just permission-giving? I think that the more that we allow ourselves to shine in our essence, the more that we give permission to everyone around us to do the same. Then in terms of our relationships, and certainly our romantic relationships, but I think in all of our relationships, this is true, the more that we take responsibility for our own energy and really being in the inquiry around what's coming up for me, the more that we're able to be the witness of the other, without all of these expectations that just really start to erode our connections over time. 

Just really, in the same way that we're holding space compassionately for that little kiddo inside of ourselves, I love to make it a practice of like, how do I do that for my partner? I'm sure you've experienced this a little bit, but I can look at you and I can see: Oh, that's what Jessica looked like as little girl. I feel like it's kind of my superpower. But I can just see, like, I can see the face of what you used to look like. But we can sharpen that within ourselves, and we can do it for our partner. Sometimes thinking like, this person also has fear, this person also has a lifetime of pain points that they're negotiating. A lot of times we've made our partner like, they should be this omnipresent, all-knowing, kind of parental figure in our lives, who knows how to meet us in all the ways we want to be met. Of course they don't, of course they can't, because same human. They're doing the best they can as well. But I think the more that we really hold space for ourselves and our inner kiddo, the more that we have the capacity to do that for the other people in our lives.

Thank you. Just to echo what you said earlier, that when we can turn towards our inner being and the essence, we know. There's an inner knowing. So just to be making some space or giving attention to that, to follow those breadcrumbs of bliss. I love that. Also, just to add my experience and what I see to be very true in relationship, is that when one has the capacity to be in this more connected place, that we're like tuning forks, that the co-regulation that can happen. Not to say that one is going to be relying on the other to do that. But it is really quite interesting, when one is able to be connected and grounded and regulated and softened and open, what can come from there. Versus other energies of control, or needs to look a certain way, or the agenda, or whatever the things we might be doing—with good intention, but maybe from a place of protection or fear, as you were describing.

I love that, I'm going to steal that from you. Because I think, as you speak about it as us like tuning forks, that's like taking responsibility for the energy that I'm bringing into this interaction. But to your point, we are energetic beings, and so we are impacted by one another's energy. And when I shift my energy, inevitably, that shifts the energy that you feel around me. It's not within the space of attempting to control the other person. 

But in the book, I get a lot into how we sort of identify where we are energetically, and how we can take responsibility for shifting that, and then what plays out in our relationships from there.

Tell us about your book.

Well, thank you. I feel like I started working with couples based on what I was. It's so funny, Jessica, when I was in grad school, I really was not super into this. I don't know, we talked about masculine and feminine energetics, but it was over my head, or I wasn't paying attention. I don't remember. But then, as I started working with couples, I was like: Oh my gosh, all of this is about the ways that we're socialized to behave, as far as gender, and the way that we're attempting to. It's like, what we're doing is like a little bit competing for energy, like what you were just saying about the tuning forks, and that we are energetic beings. 

But it's very much what has been the baseline understanding of our relational interactions. So if we believe, and this is a larger conversation around the way that we're socialized around gender, but basically, if we're speaking heteronormatively, there's just a real way that men are really conditioned to not be allowed to be in the experience of their feminine. So they're outsourcing that from the women in their lives, and they're looking for this woman to be the source of nurturance and the source of life force for them and all of these things. And we as women are looking to get confidence from a man, like seeing me and validating me and all of these things that are outsourcing our masculine. 

So it's like, if I do these things for myself, then I just get to be really present with you. But we have to do the work of really understanding where we are energetically, and what the story is I'm telling myself and where that came from? So that's a lot of what I get into. As I started working with couples this way, back to what you asked, they were like, is there a book, where can we read more about this? I was like, there's not, because I'm kind of making it up as I go. But I will write one. So I ended up writing a book based on what I felt like I was seeing.

Wonderful! I know that there are books about more the sexual space and the erotic polarity of masculine feminine. Michaela Boehm was on the show a while ago, and I really love her work. Yet, you're talking about something more, perhaps holistic. What's the name of your book?

It's called Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within.

Wonderful, excellent! I'll make sure to have the link to your book on today's show notes. Is there anything else you want to direct people towards, or how people can get in touch with what you're teaching or offering? 

Well, my website is DeneLogan.com. I'm pretty active on Instagram. Not so much on TikTok, I feel like that's not for me, but I'm on there. It's @Dene.Logan on all the socials. But thank you so much. This was so much fun, and I really enjoyed getting to meet you.

You're welcome. I'll make sure to have your Instagram and your website on today's show notes. It's been a real gift. Thank you for what you're doing, and thank you for holding space for me. I recognize there's no excuse here, but there's been two years of dislocation, and we're two weeks out from landing the plane. I mean, we had a toxic mold, and we've been searching, potentially to relocate. So there's an enormous amount of stress, so I recognize that is in me. But everything I said and shared emotionally is very true. I'm just imagining it might be a little more alive given my tenderness at this very moment. But I appreciate you just being with me and really just acknowledging the aspects of what we're describing and how important they are. Thank you again.

Thank you. I mean, I really appreciate you, Jessica. I think it's so beautiful, and I think there's so much about the way you were speaking to what was evoked in our conversation, that I know I am feeling as you speak to it and I know I'm not alone in that feeling. I think the more that we just offer ourselves grace to be in the biggest, messiest middle, like I get to be human again, that's what we're modeling for everyone. So thank you for that.

Sign off

If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.