11 ways to increase your feminine energy (and what’s blocking you from it)

— Hi loves. A note from Demetra today in July 2022. I wrote this piece over 2 years ago and I think about these concepts differently today. I leave it up because I leave up all of my old writing and I believe it finds people where they are at. But if you are interested, I recorded a whole podcast episode about feminine energetics where I go through my past writing and explain where I was off. The link is here on Spotify (click on those words) but you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts. xo

Do you feel like it’s hard for you to drop into your feminine, or like you don’t really know what that means?

If so, you aren’t alone. Most women that I talk to feel this way.

Our culture rewards masculine energy.

We’re encouraged to work hard, get the promotions, sacrifice our pleasure and our needs, sculpt our bodies, and be upfront and direct with what we want.

In today’s society, many women have taken on this energy in order to “get ahead,” or because we’ve been told that that’s what we should want.

Even though we can be really good at using our masculine energy, it also often leaves us feeling exhausted, burned out, and depleted.

It can leave us feeling like we’re not really comfortable with ourselves. Like we’re not sure who we actually are.

We also tend to use this energy not only for ourselves, but to fix and take care of everyone else’s lives around us.

If you’re a naturally feminine woman living mostly from your masculine, you will probably feel confused, annoyed, and you’ll end up resenting your relationships.

You’ll also push men away from you – which is not what most women want.

The key to feeling more aliveness, turn-on, and radiance in your everyday life comes from being able to surrender fully into your feminine.

If you can live from your feminine, life will feel easy. It will feel pleasurable. It will feel full of beauty.

Now, here’s the thing: After a lifetime of conditioning, this can feel easier said than done.

You might feel your blocks and fears around feminine energy immediately arise. You might even feel a bit of defensiveness – like “that’s not for me, I don’t get to have that.”

If you feel this, it’s super common.

That’s why, before we get into exactly how to connect with your feminine energy, it’s important to understand where the feelings come from in the first place.

A brief history of feminism and what it got wrong

Two hundred years ago, women were still considered property. Just over one hundred years ago, white women got the right to vote. Women of color had to wait until 1975. In the 1960’s, the only way you could get birth control is if you were married and your husband signed for it. Women could not own credit cards until 1974.

Our right to abortion – our right to choosing what we do with our own bodies – is still hotly debated on political stages.

Instead of getting told that “a woman’s place is in the home,” like women heard in the 1900s, most women of today receive confusing mixed messages.

These messages say, “You’re valued for sex, but don’t be too sexy.” They say, “Be agreeable, but also ask for what you want.”

They say, “You can be anything you want!” and “You’re too loud, bossy, and unlikeable” at the same time. Angry women are villified. Successful women are resented.

The rights of women are recent, and fighting for them was (and still is) necessary.

But what many feminists got wrong was that they removed femininity in the process. Many women decided the most beautiful traits of femininity were conditioned, unnatural, and harmful.

Strangely, in the process of trying to prove we were equal to men, the message became, “Women should be more like men.”

But most women don’t actually want to be more like men. We want to have equal rights to men, but we don’t want to be like men.

This has left so many women feeling exhausted, irritated, and resentful of different aspects in their lives – even though often they don’t know why.

They’ve done everything they were told to do to be successful in society. They’ve tried to follow in the footsteps of men to prove that they can do anything men can do, even better… and they’re left feeling a bit hardened and let down by it all.

If this is you, again, it’s not your fault. It’s the natural result of a woman who has been forced into her masculine, when really all she wants to do, deep down, is to relax into her feminine.

The difference between masculine and feminine energy

Something that tends to get in the way of this discussion is that there is an inherent problem with the terms “masculine” and “feminine.” Because in the English language, “masculine” means “like a man.” And while most men are more masculine, masculine energy still doesn’t mean “like a man.”

Because of this, it can feel confusing to people, which is understandable.

(I’ll also name here that I identify as and mainly serve cis-het women, so if the following doesn’t fit your experience, my hope is that you take only what resonates with and feels true to you).

The way I think of it is that masculine and feminine are the umbrella terms that come first, and they’re both on one end of the same spectrum. Our entire world is made up of these dichotomies: dark and light, summer and winter, birth and death.

Masculine energy is penetrative. It is dominant, logical, hard, direct, solid, and structured. It is “doing” energy. The masculine craves emptiness.

Feminine energy is receptive. It is submissive, intuitive, soft, indirect, ever-changing, and fluid. It is “being” energy. The feminine craves fullness.

Every single person on the planet has both of these energies. It just so happens (and often – though certainly not always – is mirrored by our bodies) that most men tend to have a stronger masculine, while most women tend to have a stronger feminine.

This difference is what causes polarity. It’s what creates “charge,” or sexual tension in a relationship.

No matter what gender either person in a romantic couple identifies as, one person will take the masculine pole while the other takes the feminine pole, if they are to have sexual intensity.

Couples don’t *have* to have polarity. You can for sure have loving sex and a deep connection without it. It just might end up feeling more like a friendship than a romance.

What usually happens is that a couple starts out with polarity (because: sexual attraction), and then over time, one or both of them occupy a pole that isn’t natural for them, and they end up feeling more like buddies than lovers.

Eventually, one of them might feel attracted to someone else… usually a person who is actually embodying the opposite pole from them.

Polarity is highly magnetic.

Women who are embodying their feminine energy will be absolutely irresistible to masculine men, or to any person with a more masculine energy.

The benefits of increasing your femininity

Feminine energy is radiant. It’s like a flower. It’s beauty and grace personified. Feminine energy inspires creativity and art. The feminine attracts what she wants simply by existing in her natural state of flow. It’s endless chatter, music, song.

To the masculine, the feminine is like taking a big drink of water when you’re thirsty. It’s what makes life worth living.

When you’re in your feminine, life feels easy. Pleasure exists everywhere. Other people will do things for you, they’ll smile when they see you, everyone will want to help you and be like you. You’ll tap into your natural magnetism – which is what happens when you inhabit your natural side of the spectrum.

You’ll get really good at sensuality – at experiencing the pleasures of life constantly through your senses. You’ll get really good at receiving from others, whether that’s compliments, money, gifts, or more.

You’ll also form a deep connection to your intuition. Your life will include more synchronicities; you’ll be living in a way that feels true to you. The feminine allows you – requires you, really – to soften and feel.

If you’re a feminine woman who’s spent most of your life in your masculine (and if you’re still reading this, you probably are), returning to your feminine will feel deeply nourishing.

You’ll feel completely comfortable with yourself. Completely free to be yourself, in the way that you naturally are.

No more trying to fit yourself in to masculine boxes.

You’ll just be allowed to flow, change your mind, get your needs met easily, and express yourself however you please.

What blocks women from being more feminine

Most of us have had our femininity shamed and made wrong. We’ve also learned at a deep level that being feminine is weak. Passive. A doormat.

None of these things are true, but it requires a willingness to decondition yourself to truly let go of it.

Being feminine does not mean your masculine goes out the window.

You need your masculine energy – to accomplish certain work tasks, to take action in the world, and especially to set boundaries. Your masculine is creating the container for your feminine.

If you don’t have a container that feels safe, you probably will not be able to drop fully into your feminine.

That is a good thing. Because a woman who drops into her feminine without boundaries will be at a higher risk of being abused, walked all over, and taken advantage of.

You don’t want to drop into your feminine with every masculine person on the planet. Not everyone has a masculine you can trust. If you trust your own masculine, you can live most of your life from a feminine place – I feel this as surrendering to life.

But that does not mean that your discernment goes out the window. You can have a super polarized relationship with your partner, but if he crosses a boundary or is consistently not meeting your needs, you don’t want to stay submissive – you want to engage your masculine.

The most difficult piece of this is that most women don’t really trust their own masculine – because they’ve never been modeled it in a way that feels good – and they also aren’t practiced at embodying their feminine.

Of course this is frustrating. You’re never cleanly in one or another, and you don’t have the ability to move between them as you choose.

Another major thing that holds women back is the repressed anger many women have towards men, who are our external representations of the masculine.

So many women have been harmed by the men in our lives.

Something important to realize is that men have been harmed by our society, too. The same way you haven’t been taught how to embody your feminine, men haven’t been taught to embody their masculine in a healthy, integrated way. There are very few ideal masculine role models.

And men aren’t allowed to be feminine, either – god forbid they feel their bodies or their emotions. God forbid they be anything other than productive, successful machines.

The anger we have stored in our bodies against men is harming us.

It’s keeping us from being able to live from our feminine; to feel free to be our fully expressed selves. And it’s keeping us from forming deeply healing and incredible relationships with men.

The anger is valid. And you can also choose to process it through your body, and to see men in a different light.

(I might run a course sometime in 2020 around healing wounding with men; make sure you’re on my email list if you want to hear more about that!)

Becoming aware of these blocks and exploring them is important, because otherwise you’ll struggle to drop into your feminine even when trying out the practices below.

11 ways to increase your feminine energy and remove the blocks around it

1. Connect to your senses

Most of us live our lives up in our minds, instead of in the rest of our bodies. But the feminine isn’t mental – it’s sensing, feeling, intuitive.

You can connect to this deeply in just a few minutes by bringing your awareness into each sense.

Really look at the beauty around you. Notice the smells in the air. Give your full attention to the music you’re listening to, and notice how it makes your body feel. Touch the fabric of your clothing. Taste your food slowly.

2. Bring more pleasure into your life

In our society, pleasure tends to be seen as something that’s unnecessary, something that we have as a reward after doing the “real” work, and something that we allow ourselves while feeling guilty about it.

To top it off, most people tend to choose versions of pleasure that disconnect them from their bodies – doing drugs or watching tv, for example.

But pleasure, done slowly and consciously, is a gift. It truly is a representation of the feminine: it’s feeling good simply for the sake of feeling good.

Pleasure relaxes your nervous system and calms your body. Pleasure connects you to your body, to your senses.

Pleasure can include: taking a bath, eating chocolate, taking time to smell a flower, noticing how beautiful something is, drinking a warm cup of tea, listening to records, stroking your own skin, taking a nap, having an orgasm, cuddling with your partner, wearing a silky dress, reading a novel, painting… the list goes on.

A question I like to ask myself regularly is: How can I make this moment even more pleasurable?

Adding pleasure throughout the day, every day, will help you live from your feminine with ease.

3. Feel your emotions

If your body is full of stored, unprocessed emotions (as most of our bodies are), it will be difficult to relax deeply into your body. You’ll stiffen up, especially around men; you’ll be guarded.

The feminine is flowing energy. Emotions must flow, they must move through you.

Regularly feeling your emotions and processing them through your body will allow you to live from a place deep inside your body.

(Read: The Ultimate Guide to Processing Emotions Through Your Body)

4. Increase your internal sense of safety

As I mentioned above, if you don’t feel safe, it will be very difficult to live from your feminine.

Safety partially comes from processing old emotion through your body (see above), and it also comes from trusting your own masculine.

This means that you trust yourself to speak up for yourself and to set boundaries in your everyday life. It means that if your body is even partially a “no” to something, then you say no every time. Safety is rooted in ourselves.

5. Stop scheduling everything

Create as much free time in your schedule as possible. For things that need to get done, give yourself as much freedom and creativity around them as possible. Some amount of structure will be needed, of course, but there is probably more room for freedom in your schedule than you imagine.

What things can you *not* do at the same time every day? What things can you say “no” to? What can you do in a different, more relaxed way?

Often, busyness is avoidance.

6. Wear unrestrictive clothing

Feminine energy is constantly in a state of movement. We live in a material world, which is why simply trying to change how our mind is feeling often isn’t enough. Your external reality will mirror your internal reality, and vice versa.

Wearing a long skirt or dress, not wearing a bra or underwear, letting your hair down… all of these things can immediately help you shift into a more open, feminine state.

7. Add beauty for the sake of beauty

Beauty is a human need. Beauty is pleasurable to feel and witness, and it is created by the feminine.

The same as having pleasure for the sake of pleasure, beauty for the sake of beauty matters. Your individual way of creating beauty doesn’t matter – adorning yourself with jewelry, wearing makeup, doing your hair, wearing a pretty outfit, doing your nails, putting on lotion or perfume, whatever it is – anything that registers as beauty to you will help you drop into your feminine.

8. Move your body in non-linear ways

Unless you have a really fluid and freeing yoga practice (meaning, a practice that frees you of the traditional linear-based poses), or a really intuitive dance practice, it’s probably likely that you’re not incorporating much non-linear movement in your everyday life.

Moving in more fluid ways will help you connect to your feminine energy. Even going for a walk where you wander and don’t plan it out is great – that’s the feminine, permission to just aimlessly walk around and be.

9. Connect to nature

Nature is life itself; it’s us, where we naturally belong. Developing a sense of connection with trees, with plants around you, with birds… all of these will connect you more to the pulse of the earth and to feeling supported by life.

A really beautiful way to begin doing this is to just spend time with a plant, the same way you would hang out with a friend. Just sit with it and really look at it, even if for only a few minutes. See if you can feel it, if you can communicate with it.

10. Communicate with the masculine in a feminine way

I wrote an entire piece about this; the link is here! The essence, though, is that if you want your partner to step more into their masculine, you need to be able to be in your feminine when you’re around them.

A good way to do this is by asking them things in a more feminine way. Remember, while the masculine is super direct, the feminine is indirect. Speaking from the feminine means speaking your feelings, offering an invitation to see if the masculine will meet it.

11. Listen to your intuition

Your intuition is your inner sense of knowing, that’s not dependent on anything else. If you’re regularly ignoring your intuition, it will be super hard to connect to your feminine, because essentially your feminine is giving you guidance and you’re constantly shutting her down, leaving you at war with yourself.

Trust yourself. Trust your intuition. And then utilize your masculine to help you act on it!

Ultimately, learning to live from your feminine is a process of questioning everything you’ve been taught about who you are.

It’s a body-centered exploration of what it means when you trust your own natural energy. When you trust your own desires. When you trust life.

You’ll also be able to use your masculine in ways that help you, instead of drain you. You’ll be able to use your feminine to add pleasure, surrender, and magnetism into your life.

Try these things out and see how they go – you might even surprise yourself!