The Best Valentines Day Gift You Can Give Your Partner, Guaranteed.

What if I told you I could give you a Valentine’s day gift idea that would be appreciated by your partner for the remainder of your relationship? The gift I’m referring to is the gift of restoring the archetypical balance within yourself through your masculine and feminine energies. Figuring out where your imbalances lie can greatly reduce the level of frustration felt in your romantic relationship.

First, let’s briefly touch on feminine and masculine archetypes and what they are. To preface, I’m in no way an expert on this topic, quite the contrary. But having a basic understanding of these concepts was enough for me to realize my own imbalances and make shifts to restore balance in myself. One more thing to note is that masculine and feminine energies are genderless.. So, let’s strip those labels right now and proceed with genderless definitions for the energy archetypes.

Masculine Energy is logical, linear, confident, competitive, strong, independent etc. Masculine energy solves problems. It moves logically, removes emotions from situations and is matter of fact in nature. It’s linear, it sees a clear path from A to Z and it follows the proper steps to get there. Masculine energy takes action and is often involved in “doing”. This makes masculine energy confident. Masculine energy is strong and emotionally reliable. And finally, masculine energy is often independent.

Too much masculine energy is going to manifest in issues in the following ways. Think about a man or woman who’s solely focused on work, power, and prestige. Everything else sort of falls to the wayside. They become overly compensatory in their professional lives and it leads to being empty in their personal lives. Where masculine is more involved in “doing” feminine energy is often involved in “feeling”. You can easily see that if there is too much masculine energy, this can be hard to emotionally connect to a person. So, pinpoint where you see the masculine as being too strong and balance it with the feminine counterpart.

Feminine energy is emotional, intuitive, free spirited, expressive and it listens. Feminine energy allows you to be empathetic, kind, loving and nurturing of others. The intuitive leads you to embody creativity and sensitivity. It allows you to feel into things. Feminine energy is free spirited and lives in the moment. It’s not rigid and goal oriented like masculine energy. This is the energy that allows you to be free and do as you please. It promotes doing the things you love without heaping stress on yourself. You aren’t worried as much about that big promotion or working overtime as you are about having a wonderful work-life balance. Finally, feminine energy is open, cooperative and trusting.

Too much feminine energy is also not a great thing when it comes to relationships. If you’re too free spirited you can lack direction and seem aloof. If you’re too empathetic, you may prioritize other people’s needs before your own. If you’re too emotional, then there can’t be honest discord regarding your relationship because you’re too emotionally triggered to have open and honest discussions.

So, now we’ve reached the point where I have to be open and honest with my journey and how I identified issues and took action to change. The first step was recognizing the patterns that kept causing frustrations in my relationship. First, was my lack of direction and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life long term. Second, my relationship with alcohol wasn’t healthy and its detriment outweighed any sense of trust or strength I had built up over the week. Third, I would constantly get frustrated because I wasn’t dealing with my emotions and feelings properly.

I restored the balance within myself by taking action, building confidence and providing myself a sense of direction. I physically sat down, wrote out my goals and wrote out all of the steps I needed to take in order to achieve those goals. I broke them down into the easiest and most manageable steps so that I wouldn’t overwhelm myself. The more tasks I accomplished on the way to that goal, the more confidence I built. I became a more driven, goal oriented and confident masculine version of myself simply by writing things down and taking action every day.

Another way my energy was out of balance was the lack of strength. My relationship with alcohol wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I wasn’t getting bombed routinely. I barely drank during the week and wouldn’t get super drunk on the weekends. But it had its influence in other ways. Now, strength is probably one of the most important masculine energies that all men think they possess, but is often misunderstood. Add to it, the masculine relationship with drinking a beer after a hard day. In reality, alcohol made me less dependable. I was forgetful and I would prioritize “my time” which consisted of turning on a game, having a few beers and numbing myself from the world. I wasn’t handling my stresses in ways that were healthy, I was simply masking them with alcohol and sports. This was a weakness for me, so I took a break from drinking, from sports and dove deep into figuring out myself.

Thirdly, was the way I handled my emotions. A lot of men don’t know how to handle their emotions. To be candid, when I talk to men about deeper emotional things, they typically start by saying “not to be weird or anything.” As a man, that’s the stigma we’ve been raised to live in. Which is to think that talking about your emotions makes you weird. Being strong emotionally, to most men, means suppressing your feelings. I was avoiding mine. It wasn’t until I started journaling that I figured out the WHY behind what was frustrating me and making me feel depressed and sorry for myself. Understanding the thoughts and emotions I was feeling lead me on a direct path to change my life. Your triggers and your emotions are the keys you need to become the best version of yourself.

Feeling uncomfortable with your feelings and emotions is totally normal. It’s a huge reason why journaling was so powerful for me. Nobody needed to witness my emotions being poured out onto paper. Although I was dealing with my emotions, I was dealing with them on my own in a controlled environment. I was safe. It allowed me to feel my emotions all the way through. Feeling the emotions, learning lessons from them, and being able to move forward as the emotions passed through me is what was always needed.

Valentine’s day is a perfect starting point, to start journaling, face your emotions and become a more energetically balanced partner. Make the vow to your partner that you’re going to be better. You’re not going to say you're sorry for these things anymore. You’re going to focus on the things that have become routine frustrations in your relationship and put in the work to figure out why they’re present and you’re going to regain your balance. Do it for them, but more importantly, do it for you. The peace of being in harmony and in balance will be felt by everyone around you. As I made changes, I witnessed changes in my wife that she wasn’t even consciously aware of. Restoring balance in yourself will inextricably bring more balance into your relationship.

If you have any questions, if you’d like to discuss your situation or thoughts with me, I’d be more than happy to engage with you on this topic. Shoot me a message on Instagram or Facebook to discuss further.

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Valentine’s Day.

Thanks for Reading.