Supplement

Masculine and Feminine Qualities

This is an exercise on masculinity, looking at your core masculinity. Watch the video to help explain the exercise. You complete the exercise at the beginning and end of the course.

Masculinity and Femininity

Masculinity and femininity exist as polar opposites in sexual polarity, it is necessary that they do, but that is between two people. Within a person the situation is far more complex. The concept of six essentially masculine qualities and six essential feminine qualities helps to clarify this. Everyone has access to these qualities and can develop them. People live with they're own combination of the qualities so that an individual's masculinity or femininity is a matrix of the extent to which they embody the qualities.

There are six essentially masculine qualities and six essential feminine qualities. Everyone has access to these qualities. You live with your own combination of them, your masculinity is a matrix of the extent to which you embody the qualities.

Exercise

Do the exercise in relation to where you are now in your masculinity. You will rate yourself against all 12 qualities where you were before embarking on the course. The rating is 1 to 5.

• 1 = "I feel like I don't have this quality."
• 2 = "I feel I have elements of this quality, but it's hidden."
• 3 = "I feel I have this quality to some extent, but I would like to change it."
• 4 = "I feel I have this quality and feel happy with it,"
• 5 = "I feel I fully embody this quality."

The Masculine Qualities

• Grounded: It is be in touch with reality and able to resist pressure and events around you. So there is a solidity to you, you can't be thrown off. You are what you are. You're not immovable, but you are not buffeted by the winds of femininity blowing around you.
• Leadership: A leader is able to provide all his own needs and able to provide the needs of others allowing them to feel safe. This goes beyond physical needs, but it's about emotional and psychological needs. You know what your needs in life are and fill them. You know your responsibility to others whether they're you partner, children, employees or colleagues. You're able to provide for their needs and do what's necessary to create an appropriate relationship with them.
• Potent: This is being strong, powerful and fully in charge of your sexuality. The key part is being fully in charge of your sexuality, not letting it take charge of you, as many men do. One of the problems that many men face is the fact that they are not in charge. They let their sexuality take over, that's where abusive and rape and dominance comes from. This physically harms women, but it also harms the reputation of men.
• Dynamic: It's the ability to keep going, to be able to enjoy life, to be full of energy, to have stamina. Alexander the Great crossed the known world in twelve years with forty thousand men. They walked ten thousand miles, they had the stamina to keep going and keep going.
• Present: It's being in the moment and completely attentive to the person you're with or the event you're at. Its a quality that is loved and sought by women in their men. The ability to be present, to be there, to be focused, to be totally with another person.
• Focus: To get completely absorbed by the task in hand and not be distracted by what else is happening. It's the ability to just close in and write, or make, or design, or create, or build, or whatever it is you do. Whatever it is you're focused, you should be totally absorbed by it.

The Feminine Qualities

• Free: That means being open and unrestricted, able to be involved in anything and seeking everything. That is so characteristic of woman. They think about everything, all at the same time. Multitasking comes easy to them. They seek to know and be involved in everything. It's quite frightening for a man to watch.
• Spontaneous: Spontaneous is the ability to react from the emotion of the situation and make quick assessments. This is where logic seems to disappear. It's just a reaction, an emotion, an assessment, it just happens.
• Intuitive: Being intuitive is when you act on an innate sense of what's happening and are able to know beyond the senses. It's when you just know what's happening. Feminine intuition is famous and is so often right. It so often gets the situation perfectly. It's when a woman seems able to know without knowledge.
• Sceptical: Being sceptical is when you question others, particularly, those closest to you, looking for certainty. This is the source of feminine testing, where a woman tests you, all the time. A woman tests by questioning because she needs to trust. She needs to trust the person she's with. She needs to know that it's going to be safe, that everything's going to be okay. She needs to know that she can relax and love.
• Accepting: It's the ability to accept circumstances once trust is established. A woman is more able to accept a situation, able to conciliate, able to accept different points of view. They don't feel the requirement to force their point of view on others.
• Nurturing: That's caring for others as well as yourself, finding compassion in any situation. This is closely aligned to a woman being a mother, with the need to keep her children, her family, safe and well. There's a deep need to care and nurture. Many women focus their lives in this area.

All of these characteristics are available to you. They act as a model to help you understand yourself. They don't specify how to be masculine. They indicate, for you as a man, where masculinity lies.

Keep these ratings, you will need them at the end of the course.