Wounded Masculine Energy And Its Meaning
Table of Contents Show
1. Understanding Masculine Energy
The Concept of Masculine Energy
Masculine energy, a term rooted in gender archetypes, is an abstract concept. It does not necessarily relate to biological sex or gender identity, but rather it represents a set of traits like strength, independence, assertiveness, and logic.
The Influence of Masculine Energy
When balanced, masculine energy can be empowering. It drives ambition, fosters resilience, and encourages strategic thinking. However, when out of balance, it can result in what is often termed as "wounded" and / or "toxic" masculinity which are in many ways different from each other.
While toxic masculinity refers to an individual who is predominantly a bully masquerading as masculine, wounded masculinity refers to an individual who suffers from a paralysis by analysis.
This individual can’t decide what is masculine enough or not, consumes extraordinary amounts of self-help and in the end still remains placid.
Wounded Masculine Energy
2. What Does Wounded Masculine Energy Mean?
Wounded masculine energy refers to the paralyzing effects from the polarization of modern masculinity, often associated with aggression or timidity, emotional suppression or over expression, and unhealthy competition or lack of it.
3. What Are The Wounded Masculine Energy Traits In Men?
Wounded masculine energy manifests in several ways, representing the worst of toxic and timid forms of masculinity at the same time.
An individual with a wounded masculine energy is confused, paralyzed one and who often exhibits four extreme subsets of masculinity in volatility
Excessive aggression or timidity
Zero emotion and / or over sensitivity
Over-dominance or absolute submission
Hyper-competitiveness or complete lack of it
Such confusion, which often begins with the mind, soon takes over the body. Read more on how its absence makes a man completely paralyzed, as what happened to Jacques, a middle aged bank executive in the story “Signs Of Wounded Masculine Energy: Fragments Of A Broken Mirror”.
Wounded masculine energy predominantly leads to social incapacities, while also encouraging destructive patterns such as substance abuse or violence.
4. Impact on Personal Relationships
Wounded masculine energy can cause turmoil in personal relationships. It may make individuals emotionally unavailable, excessively controlling or the exact opposite of over dependence, hyper sensitive, over emotional, leading to strained connections with friends, family, and romantic partners.
5. Impact on Professional Life
In professional settings, wounded masculine energy can foster either toxic work environments or individuals who are passive aggressive.
Recall that while wounded masculine energy can be toxic, it also incapacitates all the positive aspects of masculinity due an individual’s passivity. It can lead to unhealthy competition, poor communication, and lack of empathy, damaging team dynamics and individual morale.
6. What Are The Causes of Wounded Masculine Energy?
Bi-Polar Societal Expectations
The bipolar societal expectation for men to always be "strong" or always be “vulnerable”, to never show vulnerability to always be vulnerable, often contributes to wounded masculine energy.
This bipolar pressure to conform to stereotypical traditional vs modern masculine behaviors can lead to emotional suppression or over expression and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Emotional Suppression and over expression
Societal norms either discourage men from expressing their feelings or encourage them to over-express emotions, while men who also happen to be consumers, consume every bit of these bipolar extremes with impunity.
All this rampant emotional suppression and over-expression manifests as anger, anxiety, depression, but worse as a paralysis, which is the most common indicator of wounded masculine energy.
Unhealthy Competitiveness Or Lack Of It
The notion of masculinity is often linked to competition. If yesterday, it was survival of the fittest, which made competition pure, today it is mixed with a dozen spots for first place. Whether it is at work, where meaningless titles will be dished out, in sport as well, there will be three dozen champions. And it starts early because already in school, there are 30 spots for the “best” something for a class of 30 students.
These extreme polarities in competition, where on one end its life or death, while on the other hand everyone's a winner only creates a group of confused men who end up searching for the calculus of winning rather than a purpose, thus resulting in a wounded masculine energy.
This energy, marked by either constant need to "win," or everyone's a winner, leads to confusion and emotional exhaustion where in the end there is no essence to winning.
7. How Do You Heal Wounded Masculine Energy?
Wounded masculine energy is largely the mind than the body. Men who pursue hyper self development and are obsessed with self help often find themselves paralyzed. This is a typical phenomenon in teaching pedagogy where students can explain logic but can’t apply it.
There are two timeless methods to fix wounded masculine energy.
Stop Adding And Start Subtracting
Solve A Problem by Solving a Problem
A. Stop Adding And Start Subtracting
Individuals when faced with problems physical or mental instinctively add things, disguised as remedies. A troubled individual will immediately jump to therapy or medication, or obsessively pursue answers.
Why don’t individuals ever subtract? Why not start cutting things down. For example, intermittent fasting which has only become a fad has been practiced for thousands of years as a remedy for illness. And the essence of fasting is in the subtraction. Why not do something similar with our minds, and cut out the dopamine from the tsunami of bi-polar views all around us?
B. Solve A Problem by Solving a Problem The Way Diamond Cuts Diamonds
“Reconnecting with the self”, “introspecting one's emotions and vulnerabilities” are all the popular narratives today in a world that is hyper individualistic and self obsessed. Every remedy we come across today begins with I, Me and Myself.
Why not take an outward view of solving a problem by reverting to the oldest remedy in mankind “responsibility’. We have already applied this before to our children, and especially naughty children. Many teachers would make the most difficult child the class representative as a way to tame their naughtiness by responsibility, rather than punish the naughtiness out of them. especially a mental one.
Hence a crucial part of healing wounded masculine energy is to assume responsibility over someone. This is far from the puffy and fluffy exercises like mindfulness, meditation, or engaging in activities that foster “self-expression” and “emotional release”.
Go to the nearest orphanage, or refugee centre, or any place which breeds problems. Pick one problem in the form of a human being, assume its responsibility and you will find your masculinity back while you will be busy solving it.
8. Conclusion
Wounded masculine energy is a concern that goes beyond individual struggles, impacting our communities and society as a whole. It's birthed from confused societal norms and expectations that often suppress or over express emotions while promoting unhealthy competitiveness or lack of it.
The healing process requires a singular approach which excludes self-awareness, or professional help, or self-reconnection but simply forcing oneself to assume responsibility over one or more human beings as the only remedy.
