I was talking to a young woman a few weeks ago regarding a very challenging situation of a friend of hers who had too much to drink one night and having a man sexually assault her. The young woman said, "well, she needs to take responsibility for the fact that she was drunk." Time stood still for me in that moment as though the Divine was asking me to take notice with complete awareness, to listen, to see the bigger picture, and to open my heart and dive deep. This was all while my jaw was hitting the floor. In that moment, I saw how women have worked so hard to overcome obstacles of inequality, build up their strength to say no, to fight back, to reclaim their power as women and not to sink into despair and drown in the energy of the victim. I saw women taking full responsibility for their actions, for the cards that fate has seemingly handed them. But then I also saw, that while we've been rising strong, we've also been letting men off the hook. We've tipped the scale to taking full responsibility without holding men accountable. We've become so great at taking care of everything and becoming totally self-reliant in many different ways. Yes, it would be wise for the young woman mentioned to take heed and not put herself in a vulnerable position of being drunk. But what struck me during this conversation, is that our expectation of men has become so low. In that moment I said to her, 'wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where when a woman was in a vulnerable state that our expectations were that we'd be protected by men rather than taken advantage of?" This isn't the case. We automatically assume the opposite. This isn't just in extreme situations of abuse or violence. This happens in our own marriages with the men we love. How many of us have settled and allowed our men to stay stuck or wounded or emotionally absent? How many of us have given up and filled in the gaps of our longing for the return of the Sacred Masculine? Let go of our desire for true connection, intimacy, tantric love making with an attempt to replace it with our work, or children or friends?
When I say we need to hold them accountable, I'm not talking about any kind of punishing act. What I'm talking about is insisting that men rise up and become the Sacred Masculine. How many of us have given up on this idea that men can rise strong too? And not strong in the way of over powering, domineering, or controlling. But to align with their inner strength and discover their own Sacred Masculine that they have as much right to as we do our Divine Feminine. We can't force this, because that way never works. But what we can do, is to dive deep into our hearts and ask ourselves, have I given up the idea that men can embody the Sacred Masculine? Have I cultivated a space within myself where this can happen? Or have I closed the door? Have I let them off the hook? Given up? What I've learned in my Inner Alchemy training, is the tremendous power we have to shift realities by being aware of our inner world and our personal stories. What if we shifted our expectations to believing men can embody the Sacred Masculine, while unlocking the door within us that has been shut so long ago?
What if we began seeing them in this way,
and opened our hearts for their return?
We've risen strong and are still rising. We've proven to ourselves that we can endure, beat the odds, become successful, raise children while providing a home and remain generous of heart while doing so. But we're missing our partners and it's time they return. I'm not suggesting women take on additional responsibility of 'making this happen'. I'm offering a possibility that perhaps we've reached our grail quest and it's time to fully open, blossom and become the chalice that receives in the Sacred Masculine.