DENÉ LOGAN WANTS US TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR MASCULINE + FEMININE ENERGY
Happy Gemini season, everyone!
Now, I love all my newsletter guests, but I really enjoyed today’s conversation with Dené Logan. She is a marriage and family therapist, group facilitator, wisdom seeker, and now author of her first book Soveirgn Love. She injects a lot of spiritual and ancestral wisdom into her work that is so needed in the world of talk therapy.
I was first introduced to her a few months ago when a friend DM’d me one of her videos. In this video Dené was talking about avoidant energy and how it often rejects us before we can reject it. She was speaking from personal experience as a woman who identifies with avoidant attachment, and I think there’s often a misconception that women naturally have anxious attachment while men are avoidant but that’s simply not true. Personally, hearing a woman talk about her experiences on that side of the spectrum really helps me find compassion for the men whom I’ve done that anxious/avoidant dance with.
Even though Dené and I exist on opposite sides of the attachment spectrum, it really felt like we were speaking the same language. Below, Dené breaks down masculine and feminine energetics, why we need both, how they play out in relationships, how community will influence how we enter partnerships in the future, and how dating apps exacerbate attachment wounds.
Dené! I can’t wait to discuss your thoughts on modern dating, but first, what were you like as a child?
Dené: That made me emotional a little. Much of what I've come to understand about our healing is that it's really just a return to that space of wisdom that we carried when we were little children. So much of what's socialized out of us is just our ability to be our authentic selves that we carried when we were little.
In the last four years, my 12-year marriage ended. So much of my life has been externally focused on how other people are experiencing me and how I create attachments with others. If I am in this space where I will attempt to create a secure sense of self and attachment with myself, what does that look like? What I realized was it was really going back for that little girl and rediscovering what she liked. Who was she? I spent a lot of time alone in my room, listening to Les Misérables and different musicals and singing at the top of my lungs, pretending I was on stage. That is an aspect of the feminine that I have rediscovered: my ability to play and not be so afraid of getting it wrong and not feeling like I need to be perfect to be worthy of love.
You’re speaking directly to my heart right now. When did you decide you wanted to be a therapist?
Dené: We did some family therapy at one point, and I was fascinated by the breakthroughs I saw my mother having. My mom said, "If you love this so much, why don't you be a therapist?" I was like, "Well, I don't know if I want to go back to grad school." All the excuses, but then I was like, "I do really love this." The school I went to really marries a lot of the principles that I loved, the spiritual seeking with understanding our human experience in a way that really came to life for me. The depth of psychology is often called the psychology of the soul.
As a wisdom seeker myself, my entry point was astrology. It felt like a way to understand myself better and learn about others. I was always very curious about how my mind worked and other people's minds worked.
Dené: I feel like you were such a conscious, aware child.
Well, I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 12 for anxiety. I think there is such a need for therapists to really be in touch with a spiritual element of their choosing. Psychology can feel just very... like everything is in the head. At one point, I wanted to be a therapist. I ended up working in fashion, but when I was leaving my publishing job, there was part of me that was like... "What if I go back to school, and then I can be a therapist who marries psychology and astrology?" I know some of those people exist, but there are not enough, in my opinion.
Dené: I could not agree more, Chrissy. When I started doing this work, the majority of my clients struggled with anxiety. That was the devil I knew well and was able to be supportive of. I think there is so much in what you're saying about the ways that we have been practicing therapy, and these healing modalities have been from a very in-the-head, masculine, linear way of holding this. What we're starting to understand, I believe, is the limitations around that. It’s funny to say as a talk therapist, but it's true. I'm seeing more and more that what I'm telling my clients is, "No, let's do some somatic work, and let's get in our bodies, and tap into the wisdom there." Trust is the word that comes to mind when I think about tapping into our feminine, but we're just not taught to see the wisdom in these ancient practices.
I know, and everyone will say it’s woo woo, but it’s not.
Dené: Yeah, they are ancient and for a reason. We've always been seeking, "What am I doing here? Where do I go when I leave this body?"
What's my purpose?
Dené: All of those things. We used those tools to give us that sense of "We can trust that we are held by something bigger." Regarding clinical psychology, we still hold a linear framework in couples work. When we talk about couples therapy, the same research has been used since the '70s. If you think about the research that was done at that time, women couldn't even have their own credit card or checking account. So, there have been a lot of variables that impacted the way I might show up for couples therapy or the way I'm showing up in my relationship and not necessarily being honest about many things.
As a woman of color, a lot of times when I watched couple dynamics, I would think about how much I withheld in the world to keep myself safe in various environments. I learned how to negotiate safety from a very particular lens. And it meant a lot of times that I was guarded and didn't show people a lot of my authentic self, but women do this a lot, too, and men do it in their own ways. There's all of these ways that I talk with couples about how we have intimacy without intimacy because there's all of these generational patterns that have been passed down to cultivate safety that nobody's talked about in terms of, "Let's mirror each other and give lots of techniques for effective communication." It's like, "If my survival depends on your finances, then I can't be honest with you." Nobody's talking about that. So there's all different ways we've been socialized based on those variables that nobody's talked about.
Your first book is coming out in May, called Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within. I think for anyone who's spending a lot of time on social media these days and gets wrapped up in dating TikTok, spiritual TikTok, and all of that, there's a lot of talk about the masculine and feminine. I feel like it's largely misunderstood because we hear masculine and feminine and automatically think gender roles. People think it's like, "Oh, being traditionally feminine, a house wife, and the alpha male." That's not what this is about at all. So, I would love to start with you taking us through what it means in your framework. What does the masculine energetic look like to you or feel like to you versus feminine, and how do they work together in relationship?
Dené: These energetics show up in all of us. The masculine energetic is confidence, mission, I believe in who I am. A feminine, energetic is trusting, receptive to life, it's remembering my soul; we are more than just these physical bodies. Now, some of these things are nuanced if we bring it into the dance in relationships. I think what I was so struck by was I didn't realize how hungry I was for masculine containment as a woman because there are so many ways that we have just really been socialized by the modern feminist movement.
And I love it. We're all grateful for it— to protect our feminine ability to receive and to be held. I've never talked to a woman about this where she hasn't said a man in heteronormative dynamics saying, "Hey, I got you." It isn't like, ahh satisfying. We're socialized to believe we're not supposed to feel, and we do feel it. So there are all these ways that I've started working with couples around this quadrant that I have in the book with wounded masculine and wounded feminine energy and healthy masculine, healthy feminine energy, and how we take responsibility for where our energy is right now and what the relationship dynamic is needing. They're not fixed states. If I am, as a woman, really in my wounded masculine energy because I'm in mom mode, and I'm overwhelmed, tired, and irritated with my husband and I'm all contemptuous and all of these things. I need to get into my healthy feminine.
So I need to move it up to the quadrant, to that diagonal of healthy feminine energy, receptivity, and vulnerability, and saying, "I'm overwhelmed. I'm really struggling, and I can't feel myself anymore. I can't even recognize my body, all of these things." In that dynamic, my husband would contain that. He would be like, "Hey, I got this. You do this while I do this." That feels so good to have that masculine containment. So there are ways that we're learning to hold multiple truths simultaneously that, yes, we all have both of these energetics. It's not a fixed role I play because I'm a woman so I need to be in my feminine. But I am in this dance of these energetics, and paying attention to where my energy is, and how do I take responsibility for my energy? And what ends up happening is when I bring myself into a healthier energetic, then we inevitably create polarity, not just in our partnerships but in all of our relationships.
What are your thoughts on the state of modern dating right now?
Dené: The pendulum has to swing so far out of alignment for us to come back somewhere in the middle and meet one another back in humanity. I think there's been a baseline that we are incomplete until we're partnered. There are historical reasons why that has been the case. If we look at the start of patriarchy, women not only needed that for survival but also there was a way that in order to contain the feminine and the wild energy that couldn't be named and understood and put in a bottle with a cap on it, to control that, we had to instill fear in women. "If you don't get married or if you're a widow who won't get remarried, we will burn you alive or harm you." Those things were strategically carried out. This is ancestral trauma of if you're not chosen, if you're not someone's wife, it won't be safe for you.
We've never had a reckoning around that. So we're still glorifying to little girls that one day you wear the white dress, it's a dream come true. And what I see with couples is like, "Okay, I'm in the happily ever afters." Is that all? Now what? I got the dress. I got the ring, and…it's such a buildup that one other person is supposed to be fulfilling all these things that one person could never conceivably have the capacity to fulfill. So, I think there's a lot of a lack of relational fulfillment. They've done all these Pew research studies on how younger people are not partnering. There’s AI and all the ways they can isolate and not choose to connect with other human beings.
It's really important that we talk about why it has been so unfulfilling because many of the younger generation, from what I've seen, are like, "Why would I buy into this? My parents seem unhappy, and I don't see what's in it for me." Especially at a time when women can take care of themselves. We no longer need to be partnered for survival. I think our partnerships need to step it up a little bit in terms of fulfillment. But what that looks like, and my hypothesis, is we will move back into a more community, feminine, collaborative way of being as a society, which is a little bit of what we saw in 2020. I was so fascinated watching neighbors who had never talked to one another but who had to work and had children at home, and they were like, "Look, I've got kids. You've got kids. Can we split the day and figure this out? Maybe hire someone to help us teach the kids."
Our innate way of being started to return. We know how to do this; we know how to create community. Let's do this out of a survival need. I believe that's how we are meant to live. I don't think these nuclear family structures are serving us. I think when we're more community-based as a people, we will enter into partnerships when it's justified, not because I'm incomplete as a self. I think that that will lead to more relational fulfillment. I think people will phase out dating apps a bit. The ghosting and all of the ways that people are shuffling each other like baseball cards and not being human with one another. People are getting so disenchanted with the whole process.
Yeah, I know. Everyone is saying, "I'm off the apps. I'm getting off the apps." I recently saw a New York Times story about how the younger generations are moving away from dating apps. I feel like that is a very common sentiment. I don't know if I would go back on the apps. It's hard, though. Yes, I'm a social person, but I'm also 38 years old. It can feel like there's no way to meet people without forcing yourself to be out and about constantly. So, I think that also feels daunting for people.
On another note, I’m 38, and I'm in my first serious relationship because of a dating app. I think there are a lot of women who are/were like me, and also men, who have never been in a serious relationship. Or they’re like, "I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still a virgin." They carry so much shame around that because they think they’re the only ones. But I think it's so much more common than we know. It's just that no one wants to speak about it because it feels like there's something wrong with us, which is why I try to share these stories about myself.
Dené: Yeah. And I love that you are speaking about it because to me, that is still a product of the construct that we should be partnered or there's something wrong. How often do we say things like, "So-and-so is so great? Why is she still single?" That all of a sudden you become a self or you become worthy when someone has chosen you. But that's by design, and it's the greatest ruse, from my perspective.
When you think about what marriage is, and I don't know if you saw that documentary or read the book Fair Play, when you examine what marriage is, it’s kind of a raw deal. It's not great for women. Listen, with the right partner; hopefully, this is not the case, but in terms of societal norms, we are often working all day, and our second shift of work starts when we're responsible for all of the emotional labor, all of the play dates, cleaning, and all of the things that need to be done for the kids. Where the husband, a lot of times in heteronormative dynamics, is just let me know what you want me to do, and I'll do it. But it's like, "If I have to tell you what to do, that's still me carrying a responsibility of what needs to be done."
So, to your point, I think there's a real way we need to examine why I want this thing. Do I want this thing? And yeah, a lot of times it might be I would like a family. I would like children. That's completely real and valid. There are a lot of women I see that are saying there are ways that we do that in community if that's what I want. And this is not me negating the importance of fathers. Fathers are so vital. But there are ways that we can have some of that energy of that longing being fulfilled.
Also, I don't know if you follow Yung Pueblo, he's starting a dating app. Out of necessity, I think we will start having different conversations about how we can connect with people. I facilitate retreats (Note: the next one is in October in Mykonos!) and I'm seeing more and more groups of women and men like, "I want to travel the world. I don't want to do it alone, but I want to do it with like-minded seekers and community." It's a different way of doing life than we're in the nuclear family thing and we go on vacation once a year or whatever it is.
Yeah, I think it's hard to break out of that thinking, especially if you grow up in America, where there's just this idea that your life is supposed to follow a certain timeline. You go to college, graduate, get a job, and hopefully meet your partner in college. I spent most of my twenties tormenting myself over the fact that I was single.
Dené: That is the ancestral pain point. There's a reason I have such a visceral response that is conditioned within us. To me, the resistance is: my market value has gone nowhere. I have to ask myself, "What are you talking about?" The fear is bigger than the felt experience, right? I'm still here, and actually, I'm getting more fabulous by the day as I age.
I've become way more confident and comfortable in myself in my thirties. But I think there was also this part of me that felt like, “I'm very committed to doing the work but I'm still not in a relationship." So some frustration comes in. But it's also just a matter of timing. We're all on our different journeys.
Dené: It’s an element of the rise of the feminine, we trust divine timing versus the masculine framework that this is what you do. You go to school, get a job, a white picket fence, and then a kid– because some external authority has told us this creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. Who are these fulfilled people? That's not to say there’s something wrong with wanting these things. I think that there's a way that we are learning to trust more in the reality that literally what is meant for me will not miss me because there is a divine unfolding and a rhythm and intelligence to all of this versus our ego mind's belief that if I don't control, it won't happen. Still, I got to make it happen, right?
I can't tell you how many women I work with who have had success in every area of their lives; they've done all the things, and this is the one thing that I can't. Another person is the variable that I can't control.
Wounded masculine and feminine. What does that look like?
Dené: So, the wounded masculine energetic is much of what we societally have held as “normal.” So much of our society is rooted in wounded masculine empirical values: competition, needs to fix, can't be wrong, constant productivity, I need to prove myself and afraid of failure. I often say in Indigenous populations, you're just born understanding and knowing you belong here and are welcome to our community. But we live in a society where you need to hustle for belonging the moment you're born. You need to prove yourself. You need to try to get famous, and you need to do something to be “worthy.”
The wounded feminine is the more anxious energy. So that energetic is afraid of being left, constantly clinging, people pleasing, "Who do you need me to be? I'll be whatever you need me to be so you will not leave and love me." So many of us as women end up in our relationships, living in a wounded masculine armor of like, "I'll handle it. I don't trust anyone to do this for me. I'll do it myself." We’re often raised by mothers who were like, "Don't trust men.”
In my case, my dad was also telling me, don't trust men.
Dené: And so much of it is like, you need to take care of yourself, and you can't. I think so many of us were raised not to be equipped to know how to trust in a partner, and we need to if we’re going to be in a partnership and aren’t able to receive the leadership that we often longed for from our masculine partner. A lot of us as women end up living more in our wounded masculine paradigm. So, we inevitably create polarity. I see a lot of men living in their wounded feminine. What we don't think about is that the feminine is often the energetic that drives sensuality and longs for more connection. But how often is it the case that the man always wants sex?
He's constantly begging for it. Please see me; please pay attention to me. I see couples come in with this every day. And I'm like, "Brother, how do I..." You are in your wounded feminine right now, which is repelling her. I realized we have to figure out a way to talk about this. I heard Connor Beaton on his podcast, ManTalks, say, "A woman doesn't want to be responsible for your emotional landscape." It was after my marriage ended that something clicked that I didn't have the words to articulate: the frustration I had always felt with my husband being, "See me, pay more attention to me. I need you."
Men are not socialized to have deep connections with other men, so their life becomes their outlet for all that, right? And we can do that, but it ends up feeling maternal if they can't lead themselves. It's not so often that we're looking for a man to lead us because that can feel paternal, but it's like, "Can you lead yourself? Can you be the authority in your own life? Because if you can't, I'll do it, but I won't trust you, and I won't feel safe with you. And frankly, the big difficult truth is I won't respect you." Many women don't respect the men they're with for that reason.
We're in an era of sassy men, as the internet likes to say.
Dené: Have you seen these memes of the man waiting for the woman to open their door and do all of the things? They’re an exaggeration of what is happening, but it's like, "She needs to chase me. What are you bringing to the table?"
I know. This whole what do you bring to the table thing? High value men and women business. I don't know where we are going from here.
Dené: It's gotten so dehumanizing, and I don't know. If we start with this level of animosity and adversarial energy, you need to prove it, and do this for me: What do we think happens three to four years into a marriage?
There is a disconnect between how men and women at this moment in history are experiencing what's happening. Men still say, "You're going to be alone with your cats forever." And the women are like, "Threaten me with a good time.” I'm not afraid, but I'm fascinated watching women say, "All we want is a man who knows himself well and is maybe in a little bit of therapy and doing his own work." And men are like, "We can't be what they want. They want all these things. They want a man in this very small 3% of earners." And I'm like, "That is not what I hear women saying." I don't know, there's a real unwillingness to... and I don't want to put that on our brothers. I think there's just a way that it feels like it's too confusing, and so it feels overwhelming to them.
When it comes to work, I can really operate from this healthy feminine, where I have a job that can be very unstable, but every day, I trust that I will have work, I will have money, and I don't worry about it. I trust it. But it was very hard for me to trust when it came to my romantic life until, honestly, last year, something just shifted for me. I think it was also keeping that feminine energetic principle in mind that I can't hold on to anything too tight. And then I met my boyfriend last summer.
Dené: It's funny how these things work. I'm like, "Yes, of course you did." When we're in the space to receive, not from a person so much, but from the universe. I believe as long as we're not attempting to manipulate and negotiate how it will happen, the universe is like, "Well, just wait for my support." But the minute we're like, "Universe, I trust you, thy will be done. I'm out of it. I am just going to live and enjoy my life." The universe is like, "All right, let's do this. You're ready. Let's bring you all the gifts you are ready to receive." We can't receive when we're in that contracted state of, I don't know when, and I'm looking, and a bit afraid that it's not going to happen.
Also, it's one thing to know in your head, "Okay, yes, I'm going to meet someone, and I have to let go" and whatever. It’s another to understand that in your body and move accordingly.
Dené: What I suggest in terms of holding it is how I would live my life if that were never the case. That, to me, is... surrender. I let go completely. So what would I be doing if that never came? Of course, the big breath and even a moment of grief rushes over us as we allow ourselves to have that thought. But if I surrender, I'm not waiting on anything. Suddenly, we carry a very different energy through life, and it's receptive to whatever we're meant to experience. But you're right, it's one of those things like we're ready. That's with whatever the thing is that we're surrendering to. We can't let go until we're ready to. So, we have to be gentle with ourselves while in the process.
Do you think dating apps are exacerbating insecure attachment styles?
Dené: I absolutely do. I know people meet on dating apps, and you're the anomaly when you do. They're not designed to support people meeting people. They charge a lot monthly and don't want you to meet someone. They want you on there. I worked in addiction recovery before returning to grad school for a while. There's so much about these attachment variables that are just so similar in terms of the hits of dopamine and withdrawal. People get addicted in a very similar way. And it's like, "I'm done with it. I'm off the dating apps, and I'm not doing this anymore. Okay, let me look and see what's out there."
Then I get a couple of matches, I go out with this guy, he ghosts me, and I deeply feel diminished. My worthiness is challenged by that. But I think there's something in the reclamation of power, and it's tough because it is possible to meet someone great on a dating app. For the larger percentage of people on there, they're reinforcing these attachment wounds.
Again, they're not fixed states, but it allows them to play out those avoidant tendencies. When someone is more anxious in their attachment energy, it's just off to the races with all this anxious energy. It’s so disempowering, to be completely honest. I think we're going to outgrow them. I just saw Bumble has a feature where you can report if someone has ghosted you. I don't know. I don't love that. I want us to take personal responsibility for me being in my power, and how I feel about myself and my life. Yes, I'm so unbelievably open to connection. Still, I'm not holding my breath until it gets here.
Yeah, I think we're taking this a step too far now. It's like the ghosting police are here to arrest you. Do you identify as having an avoidant attachment? I would love to talk more about that since I feel like I give anxious attachment a lot of attention.
Dené: In most of my relationships, I would've been the more avoidant energy. What I have found though, is if I am with someone who is extremely avoidant, it evokes an anxious energetic within me. We will create virility, and that's fascinating about these masculine and feminine energetics. I think of the wounded feminine energetic as the more anxious energetic and the wounded masculine energetic as the more avoidant energetic.
What is often misunderstood about people who run avoidant is a lot of times, there was a real flooding that came in from their childhood experiences or their family of origin of feeling controlled. Or so much was required of them from others that they didn't become a self. So the avoidant fears being engulfed by relationships and that feeling of “I can't be a self and be in a relationship with you,” in the same way that someone who runs anxious just wants that feeling of “ah, I am attached to you” and bringing you back to me. It's about nervous system regulation on either side of the coin. They're both about control.
I control this dynamic by keeping you away from me. The other is I control you by keeping you close to me. I think it's often misunderstood, and there's a lot of villanization around the avoidant. If you understand how flooded this person is and that they shut down because they can't take it anymore, it's not calculated. A lot of times, it hasn't felt safe for me to be around people. And what people don’t often want to talk about with anxious energy, is that it can be assaulting sometimes. I've been there, but we can be a little villainizing of the avoidant, so they feel it's unsafe to tell you how I feel if you're coming at me.
I’ve been there and I see so many other people doing it. I think it helps us feel like we have some control because we’re like, "Oh, it's not me. It's because you’re avoiding emotions, and you just can't handle this."
Dené: Yeah, and there's a way that we have just been conditioned to outsource our power and externalize whatever the thing is. I'll take complete ownership when I have dated someone avoidant after being married, and I was going too fast, and I wasn't in my body. I was just chasing this person and wanting this thing versus can I be present with myself? How do I feel when I'm around this person? Really important information is, how do I feel when I'm not with this person? Do I feel calm and grounded in my body? If so, that's really important information. These relationships are cosmic designs that bring us back to our wholeness. They're just placing a mirror in front of us so we can see ourselves.
I saw a video that you posted recently, where you said something along the lines of how we often fall in love with someone for how that person makes us feel about ourselves versus falling in love with someone because they inspire us to be a better version of ourselves. I liked that.
Dené: We all do it, right? There's so much content that is this is a red flag and find someone who does this, and if they don't do this, and it's like but how am I showing up in this dynamic? We've been conditioned to hold a distorted idea of what love is. I wrote this book because I would watch couples and just be like, "What we're doing here is not loving." I think if we take responsibility for our energy and fill our cups, it doesn't mean we don't have intimacy. It doesn't mean that we don't need one another. There's a way that we've just been competing for energy, and I'm going to suck the life force out of this person so that I can feel a little bit more whole. First, that's not loving, but it doesn't work. It's like I'm pulling and pouring into a bucket with a hole in the bottom, and it keeps seeping out. I'm still needing more because I’m not whole.
What are the tips for healing a wounded masculine and feminine?
Dené: My handy dandy chart in the book is if I'm in wounded masculine, I need to figure out ways to get into my healthy feminine. So wounded masculine, that contemptuous, critical, avoid and pull back energy. I need to be vulnerable. I need to take up space with the truth of who I am. I need to allow myself to be seen and trust that it'll be okay. If I'm wounded feminine, I'm attempting to cling, people pleasing. I need someone to choose me and want me, and healing for that is to go into my healthy masculine. And that's like, I got me. I am always held by something bigger. I trust in myself. I utilize the tools, whatever that is, hiking, therapy, meditation, whatever the tools are, to bring me back to myself.
Again, these energetics aren't fixed. So we will fall into these wounded spaces from time to time. Many of my couples will have the little chart up on their refrigerator. So they notice when they’re wounded or healthy. It’s just about paying attention. We get to the point where we notice, like, "Ooh, I am really pulling back in my avoidant energy and my wounded masculine right now, so I need to be vulnerable. I need to say the thing. I must take up space with the truth of how this feels for me." So it becomes a little bit more natural.
What's bringing you joy right now?
Dené: I love this moment in history that we're living through. I am inspired by how we are healing, rising and showing up, and having conversations we haven't had in our lifetime. Even the fact that we talk about spirituality the way that you and I are, and it's a lot more natural within the cultural vernacular. It feels exciting to me.
Yes, I know. As terrible as this time can also feel, I do think we are on the precipice of a major change in collective consciousness.
Dené: I think patriarchial paradigms are dying, right? The Barbie movie, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and all of these things where it's like, "Yes, feminine energy." I don't believe we're subbing this for a matriarchal culture. It's going to be a more integrated way of being, but I think that it's like a fish removed from the water. It's thrashing, and it feels big and scary, but I have a lot of faith in the fact that there were prophecies that during the Aquarian age, the rise of the feminine was going to happen. So this was written to be the time that all of this shifted and what we get to be alive for. It's amazing.