Nutrition, Boundaries and the 3 Stages
After animal farming, my next favorite topic is the topic of Masculine – Feminine dynamics and how they affect our relationships with other people, our relationship with food and even our relationship with insects.
David Deida describes the three stages of the spiritual maturation of our inner Masculine and inner Feminine and thus, as a consequence and reflection, of our relationships. The topic of boundaries is key in his considerations, and they evolve through the stages. I also see strong correlations in the dietary realm.
Disclaimer
The description of the three stages below is not to be misunderstood as a linear process and even less as a value system by which we judge our own or somebody else’s performance or progress. It is meant to help bring awareness into our relationship dynamics, first and foremost the relationship we have with ourselves, which is the one that will be reflected in all others. We might experience moments of all stages in one single day. It is also normal to oscillate between stages as we grow from one to the next, and even to “regress” at times to earlier stages. The more we are able to recognize from which place we (or somebody else) are operating in a given situation, the more empowered we are to choose our course of action. That said, the process has its own speed and timing. While we are in a certain stage, it feels like the ultimate truth to us and sometimes it’s important to simply accept that this is where we are NOW and that things will evolve naturally when we have fully integrated our lessons.
Stage 1: Victim Consciousness and Drama Triangle
We usually start out in stage 1, which is rather unconscious and entangled in drama, victim consciousness and co-dependency.
The common denominator of the first stage is the experience of being the VICTIM to a suppressive, dominant, controlling and/or abusive Masculine that we depend on (as children) or choose to depend on (as adults). This may be the Masculine in our mother, in our father, in a sibling, in a teacher, in classmates, in a romantic partner or even in the state. We are judged, belittled, humiliated or maybe even abused physically or verbally. Even if we are “only” repressed in our expression, without major violence, we conclude that it is not save to be who we are, that we are not ok the way we are. Usually girls are suppressed in their Masculine expression (girls don’t wear trousers, don’t play with certain toys, don’t study, don’t play soccer, should not have or publicly state their opinion, should not be loud or aggressive, etc.), while boys are more suppressed in their Feminine expression (boys don’t have long hair, don’t cry, don’t dance, don’t play with puppets, don’t wash the dishes, etc.)
Depending on our character, our gender and the social context we grow up in, some of us might try to rebel and fight back, while others resign immediately. Ultimately, most of us end up closing down our hearts, shutting down our voices, dimming our lights, accommodating and people pleasing as a pure means of survival for as long as we have to (or choose to) be in that dependant life situation. We suppress our pain and our true needs and desires, losing touch with them under the shells of protective coping mechanisms. We either become deeply insecure doormats, allowing disrespectful, abusive and invasive behavior, needy for even the smallest crumbs of affection and recognition, accompanied by occasional “dramatic” emotional outbursts, as a compensation for the constant bottling up. Or we become apparently very self-assured and maybe even violent ourselves.
Usually we focus on the external appearance of our body in that stage, wanting to be adored and desired for our its beauty and using it to attract and secure “love”. At the same time, we unconsciously take out our suppressed rage onto our body, punishing it and abusing it, through junk food, drugs, smoking, alcohol, overexercising, dieting, unconscious sex, etc., mirroring the same unhealthy and abusive Masculine-Feminine dynamic we live on the outside, on the inside.
As a reflection of our lack of discernment and inability to say no, we might suffer from conditions such as leaky gut, invasions with parasites or candida. We might also experience conditions such as autoimmune disease (rage directed against oneself), skin conditions (conflicts around physical boundaries, also often unexpressed rage), low thyroid (suppressed voice and expression), weight gain (as a means of protection) or weight loss (desire to disappear).
Our attachment style is insecure; we confuse the anxiety produced by an emotionally unstable and uncommitted parent or partner with love. Some of us stay in that dynamic for all their lives, moving from an abusive child-parent relationship into the save haven of an abusive and codependent adult relationship or even a codependent victim relationship with the state. Others manage to become somewhat independent (see next stage), but regularly fall back into stage 1 states of FEELING, attitudes and behaviors, often feeling like the victim to external circumstances, to our bodies, to illness, to the requirements of our job, to our concrete living conditions, complaining a lot and blaming others for our choices.
In terms of food, the first stage corresponds to any dietary strategy that we undertake that comes from this place of unconsciousness and victim mentality. This may look like controlling our calories and fat intake and/or forcing our bodies to exercise in order to lose weight or to comply with some external beauty standard. It may look like trashing the body with junk food and/or not listening to it when it comes to the quantity of food that it would need, either over- or underfeeding it. Using food in order to numb ourselves from uncomfortable emotions (which belong to the Feminine realm) also belongs here. It also looks like abusing animals in factory farms and in general growing degenerative food that abuses the Earth and harms all of us. We do not really care to what extent a food truly nourishes ourselves or this planet, all that counts is whether it tastes good and will not make us fat. We often feel victim to the food industry, to our financial limitations and in general to the external circumstances of our concrete life situation.
We HAVE to eat the way we do because we do not have enough money to buy better food, because the health stores are too far away, because the industries make us addicted with all their sugar, salt and additives, because this is simply the food that is served at our workplace, because we do not have the time to cook, because even the organic food is all just a big fraud, because it is the only pleasure in our lives, etc. etc.
We are comfortable in poor-me attitude, looking for the system to save us with their financial support, health care, insurance and pension plans, while complaining about it at the same time.
While in stage 1 victim consciousness, we find ourselves in constant drama triangle, oscillating between victim and villain, either allowing others to step all over us (being the victim) or being invasive and perpetrating ourselves (usually without noticing it). We always attract the reciprocal energy, who is actually there to HELP us transition into the next stage – the big NO, self-responsibilization and self-sufficiency.
Collectively, this phase manifests as the suppression and abuse of women, children and animals, the abuse of Nature and the intent to submit them to technology, and, on the inside, the overvaluation of the mind and the negation of the needs of the body and the soul.
Stage 2: Independence and Self-Sufficiency
The second stage describes the necessary step towards independence, self-responsibility and self-sufficiency. We break free (or so it seems) from the dominance of the Masculine and emancipate. We learn to step into our own Masculine, setting boundaries, expressing what we perceive as our needs and desires, asserting ourselves, and taking care of our own needs: financially, emotionally, physically. We choose self-direction over being directed by somebody else, at least in some areas of our lives.
Most of us go through that stage at some point, usually as we grow up and move out of our parents house (however, some people move from one co-dependent relationship to another and never take that step into self-responsibility). Women especially have traditionally and collectively been suppressed in their Masculine expression and lived in dependency of their family and husbands. So it is especially the they who, in the second stage, learn to be and stand “their own man”. Men, on the contrary, have been more suppressed emotionally (don’t cry) and in this second stage they learn to feel and love the Feminine again, softening, embracing and expressing their emotions, becoming more understanding and compassionate, opening themselves to the “irrational” realms of the heart and intuition...
In other words, women masculinize and men feminize. The result are relationships of “equals”, where everybody is responsible for their own body, health, household, finances, emotions and childhood wounds. Self-reliance and independence are emphasized. The concept of “free” and open relationships also enters here. Commitment is first and foremost to ones own physical and emotional well-being.
After the suppression and abuse experienced in stage 1, the Feminine now learns to feel and express her needs, desires and especially her boundaries, her NO. At first she tends to assert it in a quite radical, angry and defensive way, as a compensation for a still not very strong-spined inner Masculine. This is when we might radically expel people from our Life (or experience other people cutting cords with us), no matter the experiences we have shared or what we have perceived about each others character before – we must just have been wrong in our assessment and after all they were not the person we thought they were. On the other hand, in other situations we might completely ignore our NO, pushing ourselves far outside our comfort zones in order to comply with some idea of how an independent and unattached person “should” feel and behave. To the extent that our inner Masculine grows in presence and confidence and, as a consequence, we can more and more trust his support, our self-asserting becomes more calm, serene and less violent – but not less decisive. A NO is a NO and don’t you dare to not respect it! Learning about non-violent communication, consent and the different dynamics of giving and receiving is of crucial importance in that context, as is the discernment between the no (and also the yes) that stem from trauma and wounding, and the ones that are aligned with our deeper selves.
We learn to respect ourselves and to respect others in their individuality. We also learn to demand this respect and to not move faster than our nervous system can manage. All of this are crucial steps in our maturation process. AND we can become so afraid of NOT respecting ourselves, of abusing ourselves, of stepping over our own or others boundaries (or allowing others to do so), even in minor ways, that we can become obsessed, rigid and hyper-vigilant of our needs and energy, often unintentionally rejecting nourishment together with the potential “toxicity” (and often also unconsciously crossing the boundaries of others in an attempt to “respect” ourselves 100%). This is not a judgment nor a “problem”, it is an almost to be expected part of the process. It simply shows that we don’t yet fully trust ourselves, our intention to take care of ourselves, our (physical or energetic) boundaries, our capacity to discern between what nourishes and what harms us… and also our (physical and energetic) resilience- the capacity to recover from the exposure to a potentially “toxic” substance or energy. We might feel so vulnerable and penetrable, that we become overprotective and close down in an attempt to protect ourselves, not even able to look certain people in the eye because of fear of “energetic contamination”.
In extreme forms, this obsession with “healthy” boundaries might result in disconnecting ourselves from Life, from others, from “dirty” nature. We might experience issues with our ability to open to intimacy, eating disorders like orthorexia, and on a gut level in digestive hypersensitivity, irritable gut, skin breakouts and general inflammation, which – paradoxically – leads to the same end result as the overly permeable gut, namely not providing ourselves with the profound (soul) nourishment we truly need.
Food-wise the second phase corresponds to becoming more aware and taking responsibility for our health, not only our physical appearance. We might exercise and improve the quality of the food that we eat, choosing healthier and environmentally more sustainable foods and in general caring more about the well-being of our bodies, of the animals and of the planet. As a consequence of the abuse experienced in stage 1, it is likely that (at some point) we now go to the other extreme, strongly rejecting what we consider to be potentially “toxic”. Where before we were not able to say no to anything, we now say it to almost everything (maybe not all at once though): processed foods, sugar, gluten, dairy, meat, or even all animal foods… whatever we happen to consider “the villain” and get “inflamed” about. We consider certain foods to be the “root cause” of all our (and this planets) ailments and exclude them categorically.
The same might be true for any chemical substance or energetic disturbance. We are strongly “against” allopathic medicine, vaccination, electro-magnetic interference, wifi, and a whole array of other enemies (or just one chosen one), fighting them heavily and even trying to impose our views and needs on other people.
Again, none of this is “bad” or a problem, just part of the maturation process. Even in stage 3 you are likely to still be “against” many of the above-mentioned things. The difference is a) the inner place you are coming from: resistance and fighting or simply doing what feels “right” and most loving for you without any need to change the world outside of you, and b) your level of coherence, you are not fighting chemtrails or propagating veganism on the one hand, while on the other hand smoking a pack of cigarettes per day.
In stage 2 we slowly learn to trust and love ourselves, our bodies and our minds, and also Life. However, we still waver, especially in the face of illness or symptoms, or generally things going against our liking. Our default mode still is to “fight” them, only that now we are more likely to turn to natural remedies or therapies instead of chemical ones (except for in very serious situations, where we even succumb back to the conventional system to “save” us). No matter whether we turn to natural or synthetic/technological support, we still tend to come from fear and we still tend to feel like the victim to something outside of us. By doing so, we, unintentionally and unconsciously, give it a lot of power – and even perpetrate that which we are fighting against (law of polarity: the more you fight the dark, the stronger it grows in power).
In this phase, some women also go to the other extreme when it comes to their relationship with men. They might feel so angry and revengeful, that they now start to apply the same strategies of suppression and abuse they (or the group they identify with) suffered in stage 1, rejecting, fighting and suppressing men. Female violence against men (or other women who don’t agree with them) is one of the big taboos of our times, as is misusing laws meant to protect women from legitimate (!) male violence to get innocent males into trouble or even prison.
Others may simply feel that they don’t actually need men anymore – they can take care of themselves, have their best orgasms using their vibrator and can even get a baby on their own… even if she chooses to engage in relationships, she will always stay on guard and never fully give herself. And so she will attract and choose a partner who won’t either.
Ultimately, however, the “independent career woman” betrays and abuses her deepest heart as does the dependent “doormat” woman of stage 1. No matter what she achieves in the business world, she never really feels fulfilled by it for long. Deep down, she is yearning to be able to trust the Masculine so deeply, that she can fully surrender to him, that she can fully open and expose her vulnerable heart, that she can fully relax in the safety of his firm and unwavering presence and commitment, whether “he” comes in the form of a man or the Universe itself. Yet she feels so hurt and betrayed, that she has closed her heart in fear, effectively suppressing the deep pain of not living as open Love, creative playfulness and blissful surrender. She does not yet trust the Masculine, nor anybody really. And it makes sense, because she is still learning to trust herself.
When the pain and longing come up in spite of her best efforts to distract herself with work, exercise, shopping, food, socializing, internet, etc., she beats herself up for her inability to simply focus on the positive sides of life, for her inability to be free of attachment, free of desire, free of any “negative” emotions, as she (mis-) understood is the way she “should” feel as an “awake” person. Just like men, she has come to define her self-worth through her performance, including her spiritual performance. She is a perfectionist in ALL areas of her life. Ultimately, of course, this pattern is simply covering up her lack of trust, in herself and in Life, and the deep insecurity resulting from it.
Ultimately, we still operate from victim consciousness and drama triangle in this phase, meaning their is a perpetrator, a victim and a savior. Neo-Feminisim fits in here, as does veganism or any form of activism really. They all (on the surface) emphasize extreme kindness (the Feminine), however they also (often, not always) come with very rigid boundaries and even aggression and violence, both being an expression of that very same (mostly unconscious) Masculine energy they are railing against. Ultimately, they ignore bigger truths of Nature (which is the ultimate manifestation of the Feminine), that are not as simplistic as they might seem at first sight.
In summary, our Masculine and Feminine continue to be disconnected in stage 2. We do not yet fully trust ourselves, our bodies or Life, nor are we in touch with our deepest needs, desires and purpose, and so we cannot respect them, even if we wanted to. The Masculine is still dominating the Feminine, just that this time with inverted roles. Collectively, women are trying to be like men and suppressing the deep Feminine in themselves and in others – often hidden behind socially well-accepted values of freedom, empowerment, health, equality, kindness, etc.
Our relationships of “equals”, with women exercising their Masculine and men their Feminine, neutralizes and ultimately kills passion and polarity. Our romantic relationships feel more like business projects. Our sexual libido and fertility decrease as does our vitality due to the fact that we now carry the burden of both home AND work responsibility. Instead of “free” and empowered, many women, especially, feel exhausted, burned out, bitter and resentful. Not understanding the dynamics at play, they might project it all onto their partners or on some other external factor, and so the downward-spiral continues…
Still, this is an important and inevitable phase to move through and to integrate. We need it in order to mature our Masculine, women by learning to assert themselves more, and men by giving more space to their inner Feminine and to women. Even when we move to stage 3, depending on the context, we might still choose to apply tools from stage 2 relating. It is when we get stuck in it, that we will feel deeply unfulfilled, even if our life looks „successful“ from the outside.
Stage 3: Devotion and Unshakable Trust
If we DO manage to move on from stage 2, we eventually find ourselves in the third stage. In this stage, the Feminine has integrated her Masculine and the Masculine has integrated his Feminine. We have developed our inner Shiva, the one that is able to simply notice, observe and be present with whatever is moving through us at a given moment, thoughts, emotions, sensations, Life energy – our inner Shakti… without needing to fix or change anything immediately. We have (mostly) moved beyond reactivity and are able to respond instead from a deeper place of calm. The more we develop our capacity to lovingly hold space for all that we think, feel and are, the more the formerly hidden parts of ourselves dare to come to the surface and show themselves, and – if we do not suppress ourselves again in our expression- the more we get to know ourselves in our most authentic and vulnerable truth.
Our Masculine and Feminine are more and more trusting each other, knowing that they can go further together than each by themselves. This allows them to take on their original roles again (or feel the desire to do so), but this time from a place of conscious choice and empowerment, not from unconsciousness and obligation. The pendulum that had swung from one extreme (suppression-domination) into its opposite (complete “freedom” and “independence”), now comes back to balance.
Women realize that while they CAN do (almost) everything that men do, it does (mostly) not fulfill their deepest hearts’ desire. No matter what successes a woman achieves, it will never lastingly make her happy. To the contrary, carrying the load of both being a woman and a man exhausts her. At some point she realizes that her deepest pleasure does not come from taking care of herself (which she is perfectly able to do), but from being taken care of – by a man or by Life itself. Men realize that their deepest fulfillment comes from giving their gift, giving themselves fully without holding anything back, putting it all at the service of LOVE, of the Feminine, using it to create more openness in this world, included in their woman of choice. They realize that the freedom they thought to preserve by not committing to a single woman is false and that there is true freedom to be found in deep commitment. A woman realizes that she does not have to do anything to inspire love, commitment, service and devotion in a man – her fully embodied, radiant being is enough. Once she can allow herself to simply receive all that the Masculine (in form of a man or in form of Life itself) wants to give to her, she can deeply relax in the safety of that container – and from there true creativity, including creative action, can arise. She might still run a business and make money, but it no longer comes at the expense of her true essence.
We realize that our boundaries, while protecting us from toxicity, might also be keeping us closed to nourishing Love. We have come to realize that we are not self-sufficient and that we need other people (and Life itself) to help us to open our hearts beyond our own capacity. The need for polarity is acknowledged, especially in romantic partnership. Sex, rather than being a commodity we share with anyone in the spirit of “freedom” and “liberation”, is recognized as sacred and even a spiritual gateway, that goes far beyond mechanical stimulation, and we share it with more discernment.
Because we have learned to own and express our NO and our YES, we feel save enough now to open our hearts in full trust – trusting ourselves, trusting Life and trusting chosen people. We can consciously allow our NO to be disrespected and our boundaries to be violated, knowing that the intention is to serve consciousness and the openness of LOVE. We have learned that the NO and the YES that we feel in the body are not always coming from our deepest selves, but are heavily informed by story, by our own interpretation of a certain situation. And while we generally trust even those trauma-informed sensations to help us uncover some more of these (usually unconscious) stories behind them, we have learned to trust beyond our stories and to keep our hearts open when all our patterns tell us to close. Where before we were afraid of conflict, believing that it instantly meant the end of a relationship, we now become more comfortable with it – both when we are challenged in our boundaries (by Life, a lover or a trusted person), and when it is on us to consciously and humorously challenge the boundaries of others, in order to help them open beyond their self-imposed shells. Our capacity to hold both discomfort and pleasure grows.
Our trust in Life and Love grows so strong, that it becomes unshakable. Even if our human part still wavers at times and goes through the motions of fear, resistance and pain, our divine part always knows that there is a deeper meaning and sense to what is happening. Rather than believing, we know on a cellular level that things are not happening to us, but for us, which allows us to come back to a place of peace and calm relatively quickly – not by by-passing the pain, but by trusting it so much that we can dare to dive deeply into it and, in the process, transcending and alchemizing it.
Our state of being no longer depends on any outside condition. We know that Nature, Life, the body… does not make mistakes; that illness, accidents or even death are not arbitrary nor meant to “punish” us. We are not helpless victims to germs, viruses, bacteria, or even war. We know that if we are meant to fall ill or even die, we will, and that there is no way to run from our destiny, not by vaccinating, not by wearing a mask, not by hiding inside our homes forever, not by cutting out a specific organ or taking lots of vitamin C.
We take full responsibility for our soul’s journey and the choice it made to incarnate in this body, in this family, in this part of the world, at this point in time. We realize that it’s not about good or bad, but simply about experiencing certain aspects of Life, integrating certain energetic constellations, and learning certain lessons. We are finally able to say YES, to consciously agree with and fully own these choices our deeper self made.
We finally reconcile and own all our parts: the human and the divine, the mother and the lover, the bitch and the witch, the courageous one and the fearful one, the one that gives Life and the one that gives Death, the villain and the saint, and all in between. No longer disowning anything, we stop judging ourselves and we stop judging others. We finally come to a place of true inner peace.
As a consequence, we can finally step out of fear. We can step out of victim consciousness. And if our human part happens to fall back into it, we also trust that part of our experience fully, entering through it into even deeper layers of our being, clearing out more stories, consciously experiencing the intensity of Life energy moving through us (which is what emotions truly are).
Another consequence of stepping out of victim consciousness is that our relationships become devotional. We realize the limitations that “free” and open relationships have, especially when it comes to the depth of intimacy and the expansion of love that is possible. Or not possible, because we just never feel save enough to fully open in such constellations. We consciously choose a partner (but also friends, mentors, etc.) whose deep heart we feel we can trust fully, and we devote ourselves to theirs and our own growth, to our respective openness, authenticity and consciousness – beyond our own personal desires or preferences, beyond our own resistances and patterns that would keep us locked in (seemingly safe) closure and disconnection.
It is devotion that makes us do what deep down feels “right” rather than what would make us feel comfortable. It is devotion that allows us to stay open when our triggers would tell us to close. It is devotion that allows the Feminine to open her heart in full emotional display of her pain when her man (or someone else in her life) is being a jerk, rather than shutting down and escaping into the “safety” of her own space. It is devotion that allows the Masculine to stay rather than run away when faced with the intensity and the chaos of those Feminines emotions.
It is also devotion that allows us to eventually move beyond our own stories of feeling rejected, unloved or betrayed in a given situation, remembering the love we have for this chosen person and the love they have for us – our mutual devotion to serve each others openness. That is when instead of sending them to hell, insisting on our “boundaries” and doubting our own assessment of them the moment they act against our liking (as we would have done in stage 2), we choose to trust – to truly trust. We choose to trust their deepest heart, even as it is (temporarily) covered up in shells or confronting us with one of our own hidden and uncomfortable shadow parts. We choose to trust Life who has brought us together in this present moment. And we choose to trust ourselves, our perception, discernment, and assessment that we made from a place of deep inner alignment of heart, mind and womb/belly and that led us choose to commit to them.
And so we see and recognize our pain, feel it fully, identify the story behind, and then remember to trust the deeper wisdom in Life, in them, in us. This unconditional trust is what allows us to remain open, to come back to Love, to move beyond our own closure behind protective shells, and to reach out with Love, helping them to move beyond their patterns, if the case is that those patterns have temporarily disconnected them from their essence.
We are primarily devoted to LOVE, and only secondarily to a specific person or relationship. We are not afraid to lose a relationship that is NOT a representation of LOVE, even if a part of us would like to cling to it. We put LOVE first always, no matter what form that Love wants to take. This gives us the freedom to be who we are in all authenticity, not holding anything back. We don’t manipulate, pretend or people please. We also no longer need to radically shut people out of our lives in rage. We simply decide that we are not aligned and part ways sending them Love and wishing them well in our hearts.
For as long as we are not in relationship with another person (and also when we are), we practice deepening our relationship with the Universe, practicing opening our hearts and our bodies to Life independent of any partner. Over time, we attract TRUE Love, and we are able to say YES to it. We give up the notion of false freedom that prevents us from truly committing to someone. We allow ourselves to become dependent again, which is not the same as co-dependent. We CAN be alone, but we choose not to, because we know in all our cells that we can open more together than on our own. We devote ourselves to each other to ultimately serve ALL Life and Love better.
Even though stage 1 and stage 3 may look similar from the outside in some aspects, the big difference between them is that in stage 3 we act from a place of consciousness, openness and trust, while in stage 1 we act from a place of unconsciousness, closure and fear. In stage 1 we close our hearts and bodies (and often also eyes) in order to not feel so much. In stage 3 we practice keeping our hearts and bodies open at all times, feeling all there is to feel in all its intensity, the pleasure and the pain, the joy and the sadness, the gratitude and the rage. We allow all of it to simply move through us, to move us, without restriction. From the outside, this may look a lot like the drama in stage 1, but is a completely different thing.
When it comes to our relationship with food, we mature and relax our food boundaries as well. We no longer place that much power in foods to determine our well-being. We know that the body has a certain resilience and trust it fully. We still take care of ourselves and this planet, of course, but from a place of true joy and curiosity rather than dogma and rigidity. We no longer go to any extreme, neither rejecting animal foods (Masculine), nor fat nor carbs (both expressions of the Feminine). We are no longer afraid of any food nor symptom, deeply trusting Life, our bodies, our intuition, our symptoms and even death. We are able to discern superficial cravings from true soul needs. We are able to see the interconnectedness of ALL foods and nutrients and how none is inherently “bad”. We come back to common sense and a true understanding of deep Nature, which is not separated in any way. In other words, this stage corresponds to truly regenerative nutrition, the fertile way of eating and living, that I personally practice and also describe and transmit in my work with people.
