On Masculine & Feminine with Dr. Erika Czerwinski Part 1 – Ep. 201

In this episode of Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade welcomes Dr. Erika Czerwinski, who is a psychologist based in Asheville, NC, to discuss the differences and similarities between masculine and feminine. We as whole human beings have both sides within us, even if we explore and share one side more prominently. While the masculine aspect of someone includes being more straightforward and direct, the feminine aspect is demonstrated through intuition and creativity.

The nuances of both aspects can be seen in everyone, in everyday actions, and most of the differences we see currently when it comes to men’s/women’s rights come from decades and decades of patriarchy, which is also a topic discussed here. In addition, as society evolves and reproduces, topics like gender, sexuality, and the infinite possibilities of how someone feels in terms of identity are also being discussed. Tune in to learn more.

Related Links

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Next Level Human

Episode 201- On Masculine & Feminine

Host: Dr. Jade Teta

Guest: Dr. Erika Czerwinski

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Jade 1:18 

All right, everybody, welcome to today's show. And I have a special guest with me today a very good friend, actually, someone who has become probably one of my closest friends in Asheville. She is a clinical psychologist, who has become a teacher of mine in many respects. And we have many conversations like the one that you're going to jump into with us today, Erika Czerwinski is my guest today. And I'm super excited she is here because she brings, she's one of the most humble, you really are one of the most humble teachers I've ever met. And I don't know that you necessarily always see yourself as a teacher, because sometimes when we're clinicians, you know, we don't always see ourselves as teachers, but I actually think you're one of these clinicians, that is also an excellent teacher, you know, you have these people who are just healers in a sense, and they're great at that. But maybe they're not the best teachers, and then you have teachers who also are not able to really cross over into the healing space. And I think you're just absolutely amazing in both realms, and so humble in what you know, and your areas of expertise, I think are really important for what we're going through. In today's day, you know, you're just, I think, a teacher for the time. And one of the things that I want to open this up with is a something that's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, and you're more I think the expert in this place, and this is this idea of polarity among male female, this sort of male masculine female, feminine dynamic, and what is oftentimes talked about in terms of polarities. And one of the major pieces of work that I am referring to here is a book called Way of the Superior Man by David. Many of you may have heard this book, Erika and I have certainly talked about it before, but never as in depth as this discussion is going to go. And I want to just frame this up for you, Erika, and everyone, you'll have to sort of forgive me, but I'm just gonna frame it in terms of what bothers me about this. And there's a lot I really love about this stuff as well. But I'm just gonna for the purposes of discussion, I want to tell you what bothers me that I want to see what your what you think so here, here's ultimately what bothers me when I have this thing that I think it's, there's obviously biological differences between men and women. And I have spent most of my career understanding a lot of these biological differences. However, I also understand that this is a continuum. It's, it's nuances, it's there's gradations, right? You don't just have men, and then there's just a hard stop. And then there's women, there's plenty of men who can be more effeminate in their approach to life, there's plenty of women who have more sort of masculine sort of traits and tendencies. But this gets very vague, and it gets sort of confusing. And from my perspective, I don't like when things are like this, because it doesn't seem very evidence based at all, and it seems over applied and a little bit confusing. And so from your perspective, your clinical experience, your knowledge as a clinical psychologist, is there anything to this at all? And where does it go wrong? And maybe just, you know, start wherever you want to start in terms of giving us you know, maybe even a basic understanding of where this polarity stuff sort of comes from and how you want to stand it?

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  4:50 

Sure. Yeah. Well, I think first when you look at if you're looking at the polarity and as defined as masculine or feminine, what we're really talking about is the archetype. Of all aspects. So we're not talking about gender, although you can frame it in gender, or you can frame it in sex and or what we're looking at, though, and I think if you were to take the definition of polarity, if you look at what that says, one of the examples because it's poles, it's extreme polls, right? So we're looking at what's the exact opposite of one thing. And if you look at the definition, they'll use an example masculine feminine, just because it actually if you look at the positive and negative charge of in physics, or masculine, feminine in the human form, are just posed as opposite energetic forces. And so if you look at archetypes and this is something that Carl Jung is very well known for, that the archetypes represent a form of energy or qualities. And so we can look at what are what are masculine qualities, not just in a man because, as you said, a human being can have a mix of any energies, masculine and feminine energies and using the paradigm of masculine feminine to define that we can look at what those traits are. So in masculine energies, we think of very directed structured logic, linear, penetrative. So these are things that we can use to describe men or the classic masculine form. Feminine is a more intuitive, more flowing, creative, less linear, nurturing. Masculine might be yes, structure form groundedness. So any human can have a combination of these traits. Now, when you look at typical of you, a data style David data style way of thinking about relationships, he's looking at your Superior Man, man, typical masculine male energy, how does that create some kind of structure and semblance or inviting in a feminine energy?

Jade  7:03 

Oh, that's, that's so that's really interesting. Let me just make sure I've got this correct. So if I, if we frame this just in terms of male female gender sex, we began to miss something based on what you're saying, because this is more of an energetic, perhaps archetypical sort of way of looking at things in the same way that we might look at night versus day hot versus cold, masculine versus feminine traits, may or may not relate to a particular man or a particular woman. But there's definitely an energy there and an archetypal type of pattern. And so that's the first thing that we have to understand what we're talking about here, which already, in my mind, and this discussion has corrected some ways of thinking for me, because I tend to go, Okay, well, then if we're talking masculine, we're always talking about this stereotypical, you know, alpha type, male type of persona. And if we're talking about, you know, female, we're always feminine, we're always talking about sort of this artsy, flowy type of woman. And what it sounds like you're saying is that, you know, this is perhaps true in our cultural way of looking at things, but that each male and female may show up different on this. So what do we do then? If we have and how do we how would we use this because here's part of my problem. Without this being evidence based, I don't know that if you gave me 10 or 15 traits, or 20 different traits, I don't know that I could necessarily say which one is a masculine trait or a feminine trait. And so I certainly can relate to the the four or five or six or seven that you just related. But what happens when we get into other traits and let's say, you know, I don't know something like an architect, right, who's you know, has a little there's a, there's art to, you know, that pursue that may seem a little bit feminine. It's also very masculine, structured in its sort of way of being as well. And so this is where I began to get confused, because then I just go, okay, given that we're so nuanced as humans, and we have all of these things going on, at the same time, how can we possibly say, Jade is in his masculine and or feminine with any degree of certainty? And I think this is partly where, and maybe there is no certainty and this is partly where these this polarity stuff starts to bother me a little bit.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  9:38 

Well, I think you have to look at what's the usefulness, right, like we can, what is the usefulness of thinking in this way? What are you trying to help or serve in that moment? Now, if I think your architect example is a fun one, because you're right there creating structures, and so one, and yet there's it's a frame and then there's this creativity that's happening. So I would say there's the creative force and the energy is the Create is the feminine. And then what they happen to be creating is around structure and form. But when you think about what's inside of us individually, so I guess I might ask you like, when you were saying, I'm not really sure if I can identify these traits, when we want? What is the usefulness of identifying traits? If, when are we when do we need to use this? And usually, that's because there's something undefined? are we addressing a problem? Or what are we trying to? What's the reason? And so if I were to think about each individual person having masculine and feminine energies, where as, for example, I might, I can tend to have a lot of creative free flow, right brain type aspects of me, I need to really rely more on some of my masculine traits of boundaries, structure, framework discipline, in order to use that because I can have a lot of creative ideas and they go, nowhere, if I don't have the structure, or the discipline within me, and so I might need to say to myself, I need to wake up. And when I wake up, the first thing I need to do is my morning pictures, or I need to get on I need to exercise after that. And so I if I don't, I'm lying 1in bed, and I'm petting my dog. I'm thinking these wonderful things, but no, there's no place for the creativity to go. So the creativity needs a frame. So that frame or that structure, I would say is the masculine part of me. And then my creative feminine part can have a place to play.

Jade  11:41 

Yeah. Okay, this is this is interesting. So let me ask you. So based on this, then, is it. So let me just repeat back a few things you said? Because I think you're interesting. So the utility of this, from your perspective simply has to do with, okay, what is the problem we're trying to solve? So perhaps we're trying to solve, you know, romantic diabetes, or perhaps we're trying to solve in the example you give sort of the ability to be, you know, productive in life, while also having fun and leaving enough flow to enjoy life and not just be so boundary driven, and so structured that we can't have fun. So would you say that I oftentimes, I don't know, if you remember, Carolyn mace, you and I are the exact same age basically. So Erika has birthday November 15 1973, on November 19 1973. And I always oftentimes think of Carolyn mace, which I took a course of her she was a course with her medical school, she was a medical intuitive, and I remember one of the things she said Is marriage is really about marrying the masculine and feminine within one's self. And so from my perspective, I go. When I hear you talking, I'm like, well, that's really interesting. If we go back to that, and kind of say, I can see how that would have utility going in my too much in my feminine versus in my masculine, I don't necessarily know. And there's another part that sort of bothers me, I don't necessarily know that we need to use this terminology, because I think there's many different ways to frame this up. But it can be useful in this way, you know, is Jade more productive? Or is Erika more productive? Or are you the listener more productive when you're balancing out these two polarities? And would you say that that's always the case, perhaps, or at least over time? Or is it? Am I missing something?

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  13:38  

I would say that. So to take it one step further, what are if we think about what are shadow qualities, and so shadow qualities are things that may be cloaked, and unconscious, that are, that has material underneath there that has yet to be integrated or digested in a way that allows the integration of oneself to be in its fullest place. So let's just say shadow, feminine shadow masculine and expanded or embodied and balanced aspects of feminine and balance aspects of masculine and so really, what we could look at is what happens when a part of our self or a relationship, you would you're looking at a unit so what contains that unit, that unit could be me alone, or that unit could be a relationship, right? So if I have an aspect of myself that's feminine, that's out of balance. Now, this is an interesting experiment I discovered in my own work, and my own personal work. Years ago, I had been I have studied a lot of the feminine Mystery Schools and one aspect of really getting to know feminine qualities like qualities or shadow qualities, and also coming from a psychological background that we What happens in myself when I feel out of balance or maybe I'm having something really struggle that I'm struggling with in a relationship and I'm having a lot of emotions that make me feel sad and alone and very emotional. What am I needing within myself to help balance and really what I discovered was like if I call on if my shot if I have an aspect of shadow feminine coming up, if I call on an embodied or grounded masculine energy to meet that, so if I'm feeling let's just say, self-deprecating or if I'm feeling down if I get if I bring in a masculine energy to balance that that says that's grounded and provides me saying this and I'm feeling frenetic so and that's too chaotic, creative energy, or emotional energy of grounded, structured part of myself to meet that, that might create more balance for me,

Jade  22:20 

1That's interesting because it's and I know that oftentimes in psychology and clinical psychology, there's an aspect of some people do work with what they would call parts, you know, and they try to integrate these parts. And it sounds like you're speaking to that on some level here where you're essentially saying, If I can become aware of these polarities, and if I can become aware of the fact that I might have a shadow masculine or shadow feminine, rather than going to battle with that, in a sense, without having a tool kit, I can understand the opposite polarity of that, and come and meet it with this awareness. And so I might be able to pull up in my case, I might be able to pull up, let's say, my masculine when I'm feeling and if I'm getting this right when I'm feeling like I'm just not able to focus on procrastinating and or I am just wanting to be creative and in flow yet I have, you know, a deadline to take care of I have something you know that I need to I can then call forth this aspect of myself to balance me out.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  23:26 

Yeah, another good example say, given you haven't be a particularly masculine man, that when we drive ourselves really hard, or have a lot of self-criticism or self-doubt, we might need to bring some nurturance. And we might need to bring our own softness and acceptance in. And so the frame we're looking at, we're looking at these ways of working with our own integration through masculine feminine polarity. And we can also look at relationships through that. And so I think that there are ways of any frame, I mean, one thing that I'm also thinking about is what creates balance and what creates safety. And so are you needing more nurturance? Are you needing more creative play? Are you needing more boundaries? Right? And so if we if you're clear, I think you're clear on being able to identify and have the capacity to self-reflect enough, you can use that. But I think the first part is usually how do we help people connect to that self-reflective piece that says, Ah, I am being hard on myself, this is, you know, my father's voice, or this is my mother's voice and maybe I had a really mad masculine mother, doesn't matter, the gender of the parent, that matters, the quality of energy, and what have what have I taken in and internalized and how do I want to address that?

Jade  24:54 

Just so I can be clear on this because these are the kinds of things that you know, it's my own ignorance of not You know, understanding this and wanting clear definitions, and maybe this is my masculine aspect. So when you say when I think of myself, this might be funny to some people, I don't necessarily think of myself as a masculine man, I seem, I definitely can see, culturally speaking, I can see that I look, the part of man, you know, like, you know, in some respects, I guess you could describe me historically is, you know, the big, burly linebacker looking guy, a muscular, you know, sort of very male looking figure. But in my internal state, you know, I don't necessarily feel that I am of that as manifest, I've oftentimes felt misunderstood in that regard, because there's a part of me, that's very creative. There's a part of me that's very nurturing, there's a part of me, that's that, you know, at least, you know, motherly in a sense, taking very good care of my friends looking after, you know, people in a sense, and so I'm curious, how do I how would someone even know like, how would someone like me, even though I mean, I know that people might look at me and see me as masculine. And I don't necessarily see myself as being as masculine, maybe internally as people think I am. But maybe I'm wrong. And this is where I go, how can we determine this because I assume what is sort of being said underneath it all is that it would be a really good thing, if we could balance these polarities within ourselves and be able to pull and call on them whenever we need them. But first, we have to become aware, like, from my perspective, you know, like, you're someone that I see can be very, you know, sort of masculine in how you show up at times. And then I also can see you being very feminine at times what I mean by that, just so it's more specific to the listener, is that so when you talk to Erika, and you're having an intellectual discussion, let's say, she can go from a very playful hanging out with a dog talking in like a kid's voice and like, you know, jumping around, she's very playful. And then she can go very sort of structured and be very sort of ABC XYZ, this is like how it works. And I've always sort of marveled. And since I've known you really like that aspect of you that one minute you're playing and completely like an artist, and even the way that you may dress and things like that, it's like very artistic, and you're also very athletic, you're also neat, and yeah, you can get goofy, quirky, you have this athletic, you know, sort of badass athlete side to you. And you have this very, very sort of like, structured, holding space, sort of clinician sides. And so to me, I would see that as someone who very much is, is able to move back and forth from their masculine and feminine, if I'm getting that right, but I don't necessarily know that I would describe myself as masculine, or that you know, and how would I know if I'm stuck there?

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  28:03 

I love this question. Because partly, what we miss often is the pieces we don't see. And that's pretty obvious. We miss it, we can't see what we can't see is our unconscious. And so how do we get access to our unconscious, which is what we're talking about, because you can say, I feel very feminine I you know, as a big, burly man, I may look on the outside, like, I've got all these masculine traits. But I really am connected to my softness, or my, I experienced you as an incredibly generous, nurturing man. And I also know, you struggle with receptivity. And that's a feminine quality, right? So we're gonna have these pieces, but maybe you're not really as conscious that you struggle with the receptivity until you're encountering something that shows you and reveals that and so usually this is the power relationships is that relationships allow us to have a reflection that they can be a mirror for us and show us I think that we might get glimpses through art through our own creations of art through that's what I mean by like, when we're creating or engaging in ways we might get a surprise reflection. But I think what we're conscious of are is not where the juicy work is.

Jade  29:25 

Other people help us become conscious that I love that aspect. And let's let's get into that a little bit. Because this is ultimately where we want to go where I want to go and learn from this discussion, is this idea that I do believe and have learned, and it's tough that I have a love hate relationship with romance, partly, partly because romance to me oftentimes can be this thing that people outsource all the things that in my mind, they should be doing themselves. At the same time, there are things that I think that we need Eat, do learn, grow and evolve, that we simply can't do alone in the same way that you wouldn't be able to see what you look like. You wouldn't be able to see what you look like if you if we never had mirrors, in a sense, so to me, people are a mirror to us in a sense in relationship and can show us things that we could not see otherwise. And I just want to, you know, sort of get your take on that and then see where Okay, so how then, you know, would polarities, you know, and the idea of masculine feminine even come in this Do we need? Do we even need this language? How useful? Is it inside of relationships? Or is it just two humans interacting? And someone's pointing out? Hey, you know, this seems like you're a little bit dysfunctional here, or you're not showing up this way? Or I can see you're ineffective this way in the world? Do we even need this language?

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  30:59 

Okay, well, I think it's important to look at the micro and the macro. And I think the micro meaning relationships and individuals is the micro expression of the larger macro concepts like society and what's happening. And if we look at masculine, feminine, and mainly, where are these balanced energies that we'd have to go back 10,000 years ago to when patriarchy started? And without going into that as a, you know, diatribe around? What happened in patriarchy? And why did it start? And what happened to the Empowered experience and expression of these feminine energies through feminine leadership through the expression of power, the power of the feminine? And what was the Nessus? Why did patriarchy come in as a form of protection power? And how did that need squelch the feminine power? So we could look at that as a as at the macro in a point in time when that happened? And how that then went into government and religions in government? And very structured

Jade  32:08 

entities, meaning more masculine?

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  32:11 

Yes. And where fear came in? And how did fear begin to influence the need for either squelching, feminine or creating protection? You know, one of them, one of the archetypal qualities of masculine is the protector. That's one of the archetypes. And so, what is the how, and what are they protecting? And what for and what are the ways they're protecting, we all need to have, you know, it's kind of makes me think of anger as a very important, necessary emotion that we have and a powerful one and how it can actually create clarity, but out of balance, that anger can create rage and violence and destruction

Jade  32:54 

and confusion, the opposite of clarity.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  32:57 

Yeah, so that piece of where feminine energies and when were the feminine powers suppressed? And how did that actually create imbalances in men, I mean, my heart goes out to men who have not been able to, and this is only coming, I think, more recently, in our culture, where men connecting to their own vulnerability, their own sense of emotions, their own sense of their own creative power of about what feels in flow for them, as opposed to being able to feel like they only need to show up as a certain form. I need to, you know, classically, you know, provide for my family with finances and not show emotions and go on the battlefield and kill people and protect everything from a village to a culture to a country. So I think that out of balance, that it has created a lot of destruction and pain. And that's what I think we're looking at down the only I mean, one of the main importance and importance of looking at masculine feminine archetypes right now is how has our culture gotten out of whack with these elements of patriarchy being almost left alone with too much power and how to balance with their own inner feminine? You know, I work with a lot of couples and work with men and I work with women. And one of my, what I see again, again, a lot of my male patients such clients is that their shame, deep shame and not having had a space to access their feelings and when they access feelings, there's even more shame. And where can that pain have a place to flow and where can the pain have a place to be held and nurtured and accepted so they can begin to act? set their own pain and have anger that isn't suppressed that so many men are so terrified if they experienced the power of their own force, they can't do that, because they fear it would be too destructive. I can't, I might be a monster. I if I had a dear friend of mine that will speak to me about, you know, I don't think I ever I think if I ever were to experience the power of my own rage, it would destroy me and other people. And so I can't do that. And I I take what if we take the word rage out of there? And what if we say what do we? What would it be like to experience your own power? And that might mean in a Rachel state, but how can you do that safely, so that you can experience all of yourself without feeling shamed or truncated in a way that you feel you have to cut off that part of yourself, which is self-castration.

Jade  35:58 

So if, if the listener doesn't mind and you don't mind, I'm going to throw a hand grenade into the room, it's oftentimes term because like throwing a hand grenade into the room basically means that I'm going to say something that's going to be controversial, perhaps jarring and perhaps offensive to perhaps you and the listeners, but I want to say it because, you know, I talked to a lot of men about this, and, and I, and I think it's important to, to sort of give this perspective and then I want to see what you think about it. So a lot of men don't like the term patriarchy, because it has this very sort of negative connotation. I personally don't have that issue with it, because I look at it like it's self-evident to me that men had men and white men had been the ones in power. However, the hand grenade in the room goes like this. From my perspective, when we're talking about polarities, part of the issue that is going on is that rather than women showing up with their feminine side to balance out the quote, patriarchy with a matriarchy, what it has become as women doing the exact same thing that men have been doing. In other words, by setting up this idea that, you know, there's the patriarchy over there. And we are going to this is getting a little bit political, but I just want to throw this into the room is in terms of polarity, that we need to sort of take this on point out how dysfunctional men are set up this almost dichotomy of feminine being sort of better than masculine. So I know that this is not necessarily what you're saying, but I just want to throw this in. And then what to me ends up happening here is that you end up doing the exact same thing, even though you might be in a feminine looking body, you actually end up perpetrating the exact same cycle of pain and the exact same cycle of power by adopting these masculine sort of, you know, energetics and traits and then perpetrating them on masculine looking individuals who, who then begin to suffer as a result of it. So from my perspective, what I see here is that it's not our culture is currently is not necessarily feminine rising up in a matriarchal sort of balancing act to help the masculine it's more that female looking feminine looking individuals are coming with more even more masculine energy oftentimes and doing the exact same thing spiritually trying to subjugate or overpower you know, the perceived, you know, sort of masculine a front from masculine looking people and to me, this is why the polarity issue is a problem for me because I essentially go work doing the exact same thing in my mind in relationships and in culture as a whole. It's no different in my mind, actually, in a sense that it is still a masculine type of energetic being perpetrated by a feminine looking individuals who aren't actually in their feminine,

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  39:26 

either qualities. Yeah, well, I think 100% But you have to you have to look at the progression when women started to say, hey, we want to work. And then it was we want to have jobs we want to get paid as much. They in order to be accepted in a masculine based society. They had to be little men or big men. Right? So they had to take on the qualities of the masculine. Look at Hillary Clinton, right. She needed to meet men at a men's quote game, and there are plenty of Men who can facilitate or act from feminine energies. But really, when we looked at business, when we look at the history of business and the women had to become very masculinized, to be accepted, and to be met, you know, they this is another thing is like women's bodies is that we, you know, growing up, I was taught, it doesn't matter if you have your period, you get up you go, be a man, you know, so to speak, if you want to succeed, go and do your thing. And even It wasn't until recently that I allowed myself to look at my own cycles as how do what does my body need? What do I need, especially as an athlete? Can I pay attention to that? And not just say, doesn't matter where I'm at in my cycle? And I can still ride or do whatever I need to do? athletically. So yeah, I think women needed to show up in their masculine side to be met. Now, I think we're evolving now as a society is that leading from the feminine is becoming slightly more, it's on at least it's on the radar, and what does it mean and what's it look like to lead from the feminine? I think some of the models that we have in business, that are not looking at hierarchical top down models, and collaborative models are leading from the feminine. So I do think the anger and rage of women that have has often, you know, come to the center to say, Okay, I want to be listened to and I want to be heard, how do I be? How do I have the polarity? Listen to me, do I need to meet them in their energy? Or can I do it in a different way? And I think, you know, Gandhi had a very feminine approach to peace.

Jade  41:46 

Yeah, some of my favorite males had. And the reason I bring it up is because from my perspective, and I do want to get into, you know, I like that you kind of framed it this way, because I do think we can look at the macro level culture, and then we can look at the micro level sort of, you know, dynamics between in Romans, and then we can look at the quantum level, I guess, as an individual. But from my perspective, I think, in this conversation, what I would like, and it's really a question, but it is also where I do think I'm largely coming from, I look at it, like what we need is leaders, males and females who are masters of both their masculine and their feminine, we don't need feminine leaders who have circumvented that in place of masculinity and doing the same toxic masculinity that has been perpetrated. Now, just coming from a female looking person, what we need is both leaders on both sides, you know, feminine leaders, masculine leaders who are, are marrying these two things. And I know plenty of men like that. And plenty of leaders like that. You mentioned, one Gandhi, we have, you know, people like Nelson Mandela, who, you know, really swung, swung wildly back and forth before he actually was able to marry those two, we have people like Martin Luther King, also who, you know, struggle, people like Malcolm X, who also struggled with these, but we have historical figures who have done very good work in the world, who have struggled with these and who, by the time we began to celebrate them, seem to have been able to marry these things. And so this is why I think it's a very interesting conversation to have, because then it doesn't become male, female, which in my mind, the world is becoming gray in that regard anyway. And from my perspective, I say, that's just a natural evolution of humanity doesn't scare me. And it's not something I see as bad. But also I go, we need to also marry these polarities with within ourselves and not look at it, like feminine only comes from a woman, and masculine only comes from a man, it's the marriage sort of, of the two. And one thing I would say what this might look like, from my perspective, and I want to get your take on before we just address romance here in just a minute, is that to me, it would look like as you mentioned, hierarchies, right? You know, this, this idea of competence hierarchies. And I would say that's a very male thing, maybe I'm wrong about that. But I would say that's a very male related thing. It's very much like you're here, I'm here, I'm good at this, you're good at this, I'm better at that, you know, you stay in your lane kind of thing. And to me, the you know, so we all know what that looks like. And I would argue that most people who are claiming feminine, you know, energetics are still coming at it from that sort of hierarchical point of view, they're fighting on the hierarchy. What I like is with the male and females who have married their masculine, and feminine polarities are more looking at it, like it's an ecosystem, that we all play a role that we all have our part to play that everyone is has importance there. And yes, within an ecosystem, you will find pockets of hierarchy. But those hierarchies are in the context of a greater ecosystem and a greater holistic, integrated, inclusive way of approaching the world and governments that do that. And leaders that do that, whether male or female, I think are the embodiment of this more inclusive, sort of polarity. And then I would say that relationships that do that as well, that don't try to get caught in these dynamics. And this is where I think the day to day The Way of the Superior Man type stuff tends to go sideways for me, because it can easily turn into, oh, let me be in my masculine because I'm the man and you stay in your feminine because you're the woman and the more trouble there is in the relationship will just increase that polarity, I'll get more masculine, and you have to get more feminine, I would, from my perspective, see that it's really about understanding these dynamics and being an ecosystem and in partnership with, you know, ourselves, whether it be in government at a macro level, whether it be at an individual romantic level, so that this is more of an ecosystem, not this hierarchical, you know, graded sort of system. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that it's a lot. But I think it's really important when we start to look at this, especially if we're going to try to be next level humans, which I think are people who are more integrative, inclusive and holistic with these dynamics.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  49:47 

I mean, this is, I think, completely evidenced by the fact it's not an accident as consciousness is expanding to understand these things. It's not an accident that this is also the movement right now of the gradation of gender right now. Binary we can't talk about masculine or feminine or leaders or men, male or female without mentioning the fact that so much in our culture right now is brought a giant awareness to this non binary, that people who may be born in a female body or a male body, really are now beginning to identify what gender do I really feel what gender internally, what energies Am I allied with. And so I do think that evidence that our society is bringing such wonderful awareness to this right now also shows that our consciousness is expanding into more aspects of truth of what is true. And so where this aspect of masculine and feminine can is moving toward is a more integrated and nuanced, as opposed to polarized, and within that one, or that one unit as the stuff we get to think about. And is it useful, as we said in the beginning, like what's the usefulness of thinking about these aspects of ourselves, but to allow there to be, you know, a real amalgam? And so I think it is, it will hopefully be less important to say, Oh, I am a female leader, but we need now to do that, because it has been met with such suppression, that it's just a balancing on I think, when things are extreme, naturally, in the sight of physics at pendulums until it comes more to center.

Jade  51:26 

Yeah, it's maybe we need to stop talking about it, like almost this is a female in her, you know, inner masculine or feminine or male and his masculine, feminine. And just be like, this is a human who has integrated, masculine and feminine.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  51:39 

Yeah, I was speaking with a friend of mine the other day, who has a 15 year old daughter, and they were talking about romance or having crushes. And the daughter said, you know, I don't get it, Mom, why do people have to be like, Oh, I like that girl, or I like that boy, why don't they just like the person. And I'm in 100%, like agreement with that. Now there are, that doesn't mean that there's not the humans that are like, Oh, I am a cisgendered male. And so I am straight, specific, a heterosexual cisgender male that wants a cisgender heterosexual female, it's not mixing that either, there's room for that polarity to be on the wave of what is here. And when we look at the bell curve, and that 68% of what's in the center is probably going to look different once we balance and truly balanced to both our hearts and our divine wisdom.

Jade  52:37 

Yeah, I love this so much. Because I think that, you know, ultimately, if we just look at evolution as a whole, this makes sense that this would be the way that we are gum. And I want to just throw one other aspect of this because again, this is to play devil's advocate. And also it is something that bothers me is we have this but it to me, I go we are evolving. We are one team human, we are evolving. So it makes sense that the end to me, it's been going on all along, it's just that now culture is in a place where it is, in my mind balancing more and contending more with this idea that we are simultaneously individuals and members of groups. And then the next level human understands is they understand that it can't just be all me. And it can't just be all us. It has to be both always I have to take care of myself and I must simultaneously take care of the group. To me a base level human goes it's me, me, me, culture level human goes. It's my team, my team, my team and the next level human goes no, it's me and the team and I must always take actions and live in a way that support me and the sort of individuals that are and the group as a whole. But that being said, one of the things that happens in this is that you alluded to this if I'm a sis hetero man, which I am and I want to be romantically involved with sis hetero women. What we need to do in my mind is make allowances what tends to happen is we tend to overemphasize what is new and you know, fight vigorously for it, perhaps for good reason. And then we begin to undervalue what is old and from my perspective in these arguments, what we need to do is we need to honor both we need to be able to honor you know, the SIS hetero orientation, and not demean it and be dehumanizing with it and be divisive in our language towards it in the EU as we integrate these other things that we have been divisive towards and dehumanizing towards this is the greatest struggle that we have as humans is not to come back and say, because everyone the culture has been divisive and dehumanizing in this way to this or you rotation. Now this orientation must also be divisive and dehumanizing to the old orientation. This is the exact wrong approach, and I would say is the approach that is not integrative of masculine and feminine. Once again, it is a more masculine, oriented approach to life, regardless of what you know, sex or, you know, it's coming from. And so to me, once again, if we're really going to talk about this stuff, we need to continue to be integrative, inclusive and holistic, and not let these pendulum swing so wildly, that we then become divisive and dehumanizing and become the thing we hate. And I'll, I'll leave it there. But I want to hear your final thoughts on this.

Dr. Erika Czerwinski  55:43 

Yeah, well, I think we can't have that converse, I think in order to have that conversation when you talk about what safety is. Because the reason why things get so polarized if we use that word again, or there's a rebuttal against something, it's because something hasn't felt safe, or felt heard, and there wasn't enough space for something. So if someone is needing to be seen or heard, because they feel suppressed, or they feel subjugated that they're needing to use that much pressure, an equal amount of pressure back. So that pendulum is swinging back, because they're feeling that they need a force that they haven't had enough space. So we get to either the individual that we are more flexible and more calm when their safety. And we can't love like, in the sense of where love is flowing and free happens in safe places. If our limbic system is ignited, then we're in a different mode, we're in fight survival freeze, you know, freeze fight mode. And when we're in a safe place, we have a lot more flexibility and expand expanded capacity for listening and hearing. So we might even just think about where is safety? And how do we create that either in an individual relationship or on the macro with a country and I think we're what we're experiencing right now in a lot of fields. If we go you know, concentric circles when there is such polarity, it's because there really isn't a place to come together and say, Hey, there's room enough for you room enough for me and so I don't need to fight you. And I can have more flexibility and fluidity.

Jade  57:30 

You've been listening to the next level human podcast with Dr. Jade Teta. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe and consider leaving a review. You make the biggest difference when you pass on your lessons and inspire others. That's why reviews like this are so powerful. Your words may be the only ones that resonate for someone else. Please remember the information in this podcast is for educational purposes only. Always consult your personal Physician or Therapist before making any lifestyle changes. And finally, thank you for where you are in the world. And the difference you make.