MASCULINE INTEGRATION OF THE FEMININE
13 OCTOBER 2023 (14 MIN READ)
This article will lay out the necessary steps for a man to take in order to integrate his feminine side. If you are a woman reading this piece, the information can still apply to you in two ways. One, you have men in your life that you love and want to understand their journey better. And two, you yourself have a hard time getting in touch with your feminine side, as in this fucked up culture, society mostly rewards masculine traits, leading to a repression of the feminine.
Why is it important to get in touch with your feminine side you may ask? The feminine side of your somatic being is the one that surrenders to feelings with love and care, instead of repressing or denying them. Your feminine side is that of tenderness—a sweet dose of love to nourish your wounding. Think of the times when you were a child and went through either physical or emotional pain. Why did you run to your mother (or the parent who was most in touch with their feminine side)? Because you were in need of feminine nourishment to add sweetness to the wounding.
The issue plaguing so many of us today is not learning how to internalize this feminine side and treat ourselves with tender love. The consequences of this phenomenon are numbing ourselves from processing negative emotions because we don’t know how to move the energy with love, losing empathy, robbing ourselves of artistic inspiration, being unable to healthily love a romantic partner, and of course, depression due to a developed habit of constantly repressing our feelings.
In Jungian psychology, the core belief is that our unconscious mind is constantly trying to communicate with us, either to reveal what’s holding us back from personal evolution or to warn us of potential danger to come. The Jungians argue that the unconscious offers this communication through our dreams; however, it can only articulate itself through symbols. Thus, by learning the symbols of the unconscious mind, you can start to understand what it’s trying to communicate to you. But why the fuck am I telling you about this? Dreams don’t only exist in sleep. Jungians believe that myths are society’s dreams, taken directly from the collective unconscious mind and presented on a big screen or an empty canvas. Instead of personal dreams, society’s dreams are communication for the collective populous to integrate and heal from. I believe that Garden State, the 2004 film directed by Zach Braff, is the collective myth for how to integrate the feminine. This article will use the symbology in Garden State as a direct template for how to do so.
Before we get started, consider this brief summary of the film if you have not seen it. Garden State follows struggling actor Andrew Largeman, who has to return home to Jersey because his mother has passed away. From when he hears the news to when he arrives home for the funeral, we see no emotional expression. We later find out that Andrew’s father, who is a psychiatrist, has been prescribing him a plethora of medications for a long time to “protect” him from processing a childhood trauma that had to do with his mother. (He accidentally pushed her as a kid, which caused her to become paralyzed). However, Andrew decides to stop taking his medication while in Jersey, which becomes aided by his meeting of a quirky, free-spirited woman, Sam, with whom he develops a romance. Throughout this relational development, we see him become more emotionally expressive, resulting in him giving up his medication forever and ripping his father a new one for numbing him out. The film ends with him debating whether to go back to his old life, but ends up deciding to hop off the plane and continue his romantic adventure with Sam instead.
THE DEATH OF THE MOTHER
The initiation for Largeman to take the journey to integrate the feminine and learn how to feel was the death of his mother. Why was that the case? Often, as men or children, we rely on our mothers to process our emotions for us. Whether it be consoling or guiding us when turbulent times hit, they serve as the primary spiritual guide to help us feel our emotions. Therefore, in order to be able to do this for ourselves, our mother has to stop taking on that role, hence why she has to “die” metaphorically. The symbol of the death of the mother is the process each of us has to take to internalize the maternal role of unconditional love. Without this “death” we would struggle to become conscious of how to mother ourselves.
I was able to catch this symbol in the myth of Garden State because I went through the literal process myself. My mother died of cancer about a year ago and in my healing process I realized that I had a minimal capacity to both love myself unconditionally and process heavy emotions. At first I thought this was due to the sudden trauma of losing my mother, but I later realized it was because my mom was the one doing those things for me. I didn’t have to love myself unconditionally because I knew my mom would. So, whenever I was doubting myself or being hard on myself, I gave her a call and everything would fade away. She was unconditionally loving me when I had no idea how to do that for myself. Additionally, when shit would hit the fan for me, such as going through a breakup or getting a bad grade, I would immediately text her like any normal son would. However, the act of me quickly texting her was an unconscious attempt to hand her my emotional turmoil and say, “process this for me please.” When I had no one to plop my bullshit on, I learned that I needed to figure out how to process and feel intense emotions on my own.
To summarize, in order to internalize the maternal qualities of unconditional love and the capacity to emotionally process, we must remove our mother’s hold over doing those important things for us. Although she doesn’t have to literally die for this to occur, she must symbolically die as the sole provider for these essential internal qualities. We cannot integrate the feminine if we constantly outsource its healing properties.
THE PROTECTOR
In order for Largeman to integrate the feminine and allow himself to voyage into the journey of feeling, he had to temporarily cut ties from his father and stop taking the psychiatric medications he was prescribing him. On a literal level, it’s hard to feel when you’re taking pills that numb you, but on a symbolic level, Largeman’s father represents the masculine protector in all of us, who attempts to guard us from feeling emotional pain. As kids, many of us had a parent who shut down our emotions and our sensitivity, either through withdrawing love when we displayed those sides of ourselves or through encouraging us to stop being emotional. The result of this dynamic is that we learned to numb ourselves through creating a persona that protected us from feeling heavy emotions. Whether it be developing a macho personality as a man or labeling yourself a “boss bitch” as a female, this sort of persona was initially created to receive more love from our caretakers, but later became a way for us to love ourselves. And that’s due to the fact that if our parents had a hard time displaying love when we were emotional, then we learned to have a difficult time loving ourselves if we were emotional. Therefore, to feel safe and confident in our bodies, many of us give dominion to the protector part of ourselves that refuses to allow us to be vulnerable with our feelings. As Largeman discovers, this protector part within us blocks us from accessing the internal feminine.
In the movie, Largeman had to get momentarily disgusted by his father and put his middle finger up. Similarly, I believe that in our initial stages of integrating the feminine, we should block off our protector part for short periods of time and let ourselves feel whatever arises. Think about the times where you were at a social gathering and you had to fart unbearably bad, where multiple rounds of farts were just painfully stuck in your gut. And when you finally got to the bathroom you just let it rip all the way. Remember how relieving that felt. I hate to use this juvenile analogy, but the same is true for your stored emotions. For years you have been swallowing your anger and sadness, and now it’s time to release them. The protector in you is holding back those farts for you. Don’t let him get away with it!
After creating the space to let his emotions loose, Largeman returns to talk to his father and gains compassion as to why he has been protecting him for so long. He learns to love his father, while also not letting him dictate his life. In other words, he creates healthy boundaries with him. What does this mean in terms of the symbolism? Once you have made room to let yourself feel without protection, you can begin to develop a healthier relationship with the protector. And that’s because the deeper you go into your unprotected feelings, the more likely you are to discover what the main cause is of all your wounding, revealing the truth about why your protector exists. For Largeman, it was accidentally causing his mom to be paralyzed by pushing her as a kid. Without the protector, this child would have become unable to have a childhood, due to him being perpetually emotionally paralyzed. Thus, the protector served its role for Largeman to maintain his sanity throughout his childhood. However, in our adult years, the protector costs us the human experience of feeling, so we need to gain the strength to fight back.
When we learn that the protector was created to save us from experiencing paralyzing trauma as a kid, we can start having compassion for it. This can look like feeling a trigger and noticing the protector trying to block us from feeling, but instead of immediately allowing it to run the show, tell it “I love you protector and I see how you’re trying to take care of me. But I need to feel this emotion. Our inner child is safe with me now. I have his back.” At the end of the day, the protector is like a pit bull trying to protect a kid. Once you let the pit bull know that the kid is safe with you, it will back off and offer its love to you.
Your ability to tame the protector will dictate the level at which you can integrate the feminine. And that’s because the more capacity you have to be present with your feelings without a need to escape, the more you allow the feminine to hold power within you.
ADVENTURING WITH THE ANIMA
After Largeman has decided to take space from the oppressive reign of his father, he meets Sam, a pretty, free-spirited woman who he develops a romantic connection with. The more time he spends with Sam, the more we witness Largeman become more emotional as he adventures Jersey with her. On a literal level, through being with Sam, Largeman learns to feel again. However, on a symbolic level, there is a deep story being told about what it takes to integrate the feminine. One of Carl Jung’s most popularly known and widely referred to symbols of the unconscious is called the “anima.” Across various ancient myths and dreams, Jung believed that the anima is a commonly used symbol by the collective unconscious to illustrate the feminine component of the masculine psyche. Their role is to serve as a feminine guide for men, and sometimes women, to access parts of their unconscious that they need to integrate into their conscious mind. But why does it help to have the inner feminine symbolically by our sides when we are investigating the dark crevices of our subconscious? Because she is there to help us feel what is real with tenderness and an open heart.
When my mother died, I had my girlfriend at the time by my side throughout the whole process. Similar to Sam, she was young, quirky, and gorgeous. When she was alongside me when my grief arose, something about her beauty and sweetness made the horrible situation break my heart open. I was able to feel the pain with tenderness and love, which was quite unusual for any young man in a similar situation. Without her by my side, I could have quickly allowed the circumstances to turn me into a victim or rob me of any capability to love, turning into a menacing ball of darkness in the process. Symbolically, what’s going on here is that with the companionship of femininity, we can turn any hardship into a triumph of beauty and love. With the death of my mother, I had to learn to hand myself this maternal love that I was depending on my mother for, which I could only have done with the companionship of my girlfriend at the time, who I was projecting my anima onto. The wound was so damn heavy, that without her tender presence and ability to encourage me to feel, I would have not been able to do the inner work required to integrate the feminine. Tying it all together and validating the myth being told in Garden State, as well as my personal experience, having the anima beside us while we investigate deep internal wounds allows us to conquer that wounding with love, tenderness, and presence, rather than using our typical masculine coping strategies of avoidance, numbing, and denial. But how can we use this strategy in our own daily lives?
Let’s say you recently had a breakup or had to part ways with a close friend. When you are taking the space to process what happened, consult the anima within. Imagine a beautiful, comforting woman who lives within you, and allow her love to fill your body. The feeling you are attempting to cultivate should reflect the feeling a mother feels when she sees her child suffering. Imagine what your mom felt when you were in emotional pain and how she wanted to tend to your wounding with love. Now replicate that feeling inside yourself. Although many men project this phenomena outwards to female partners, you can learn to do it for yourself. And when you learn to do it for yourself, it becomes more powerful because you will not depend on anyone else to help process your pain for you. Illustrating how accessing the anima can be done correctly, consider this powerful scene from Garden State: after a long adventure in the rain, Largeman finally gets the balls to not only display his emotions, but release them too, as he stares at a deep, dark cave and yells at the top of his lungs, which is followed by Sam kissing him for the first time.
Let’s pick apart this scene symbolically. The symbol of the abyss represents the chaotic uncertainty of the unknown. At any point in time, life can throw us horrendous situations, such as the death of a loved one, personal injury, or witnessing our hopes and dreams burn into oblivion. We have absolutely no control over these external events and they can occur at any given moment. This is the horrifying reality of life, but it’s what makes life life. Largeman’s primal scream while facing the abyss reflects his acceptance of it. Throughout Largeman’s whole life, he has been ignorant to this horrifying reality of existence, which has led him to live in a constant sensory numbness. Through yelling at the abyss he discovers that his only shot at living an emotionally rich life is to accept the depravity of the abyss and make the most out of his life anyway. Yes, life has the power to hand you genuine horror, but the only way to live a life worth living is to accept that terrifying reality and find a way to create beauty in spite of it. But how can we create that beauty? This is where the anima comes in.
Any moment of deep pain can be alchemized into beauty with the kiss of the feminine within. As I mentioned earlier, pain has the power to either break your heart open or close you off from wanting to feel anything at all. Feeling the energy of the feminine within while navigating the abyss is a surefire way to keep your heart open even in the most painful of circumstances. I know that I will face devastation again in my life, but I also know I have my anima to ground me into my heart and grow more into love through the process. Because of this knowledge, I no longer fear the abyss. Rather, I welcome it with open arms. Once you learn to face the abyss with open arms, life no longer feels like a battle, and that’s because you go from fighting life to surrendering to it.
Face the abyss, turn your back, and free fall into the darkness. As long as you carry the love of the anima within you, you will only keep getting stronger.
At the end of the movie, Largeman decides to venture away from Sam and go back home alone, but in a climactic ending, he gets off the plane and runs back into Sam’s arms, saying he wants to keep adventuring with her. This ending showcases the truth about the anima. If Largeman wants to keep experiencing the sensory delights he has finally downloaded into his reality, then he cannot let go of the anima. Being in union with the anima is the only way he can keep in touch with his feminine side and be unfazed by the abyss. If life hands him shitty situations or he discovers a hidden trauma within, he now has the anima to add love to the equation and keep him connected to his heart.
Never lose connection to the anima no matter how dark things get.
