Don’t Belittle Yourself

What is gender but a mental construct of who we are, to replace who we authentically are? Once upon a time it was thought that it’s a good idea to have different roles for men and women in society and so gender was concocted: what roles should women and men play? how should they behave in order to fulfil their roles? and what’s acceptable for them to aspire to at a personal level to fulfil them?

The gendered self concept is a straight jacket for women and men with heavy social penalties of ostracism if they deviated from it

But the world has changed dramatically since these ideas became an unwritten law, so why do we still adhere to the behavioural prescriptions? Why do we still believe it’s acceptable to replace who we authentically are with some old fashioned near theology of how women and men should be? If we were fully aware of what we’re doing to ourselves and how much it is costing us to continue adopting a gendered self concept, would we still do it?

The Gender Myth

It boggles the mind that in the 21^st century we still believe we need a mental construct to tell us who we are, instead of just BEING who we are. Is it not astonishing that we still think that we need a code of conduct based on our sex as male or female? Which implicitly means men and women cannot and should not behave in the same way. We readily accept it’s unacceptable to have different codes of conduct and value systems based on race and colour, but we don’t accept the same based on sex, why is that?

It always comes down to confusion, mixed with fear of change, loss and abandonment; let’s explore those in details.

Confusion: Confusing sex with gender

Our confusion about gender is boundless. It is claimed by many that gender is biological but that simply cannot be true. Being male or female is all that is biological, everything else is conditioned. Our brains are plastic, neuroscience has demonstrated. There is ample neuroscientific evidence that our beliefs affect even our biology in determining who gets sick and who bonds with children. So when it comes to beliefs and behavioural outcomes, it really is a case of garbage in garbage out: we believe men and women are essentially different, we conclude they should have different roles and behaviours in society, and we teach this erroneous belief system at home, in schools, at work and in every walk of life.

Quantum physics is leaving no doubt that everything is in the eyes of the beholder: nothing we see, hear or experience is separate from our consciousness and our desire to see, hear or experience it; the prover proves what the thinker thinks.

This is exactly why gender expression varies enormously from country to county, culture to culture and across time in the same country or culture; what is really changing is our ideas of how women and men should be, gender expression follows from that, for gender is no more than ideas of how men and men should be. If there was any truth to gender biology, it should remain stable over time and across the world, just as maleness and femaleness does.

Sure gender conditioning can be so wound in that it feels a 100% natural and reflexive, especially when it comes to women caring and men bread winning, but this does not detract from the fact that it’s still social conditioning and not hard wired biology; if it was conditioned into our mind it can be conditioned out, it is that simple. This may prompt some to say that, given how natural gender conditioning feels, it’s as impossible to change as biology, but that too cannot be true because we need to remember that we brought this conditioning on ourselves, by believing it to be in our self interest at some point, and so we can equally reverse it.

What is changeable, gender conditioning, can be changed but what is unchangeable, who we are, our spirit, our essence and our being, cannot.

We must also ask ourselves a big question here: are we after the truth which is the only thing that can truly serve us, or are we after convenience, comfort zones and staying on autopilot, knowing that throughout history this has not served us?  Had it served us, we would not be having this conversation about gender now; instead we would be experiencing nothing but peace and joy and perfect relationships.

Fear of Change, Loss and Abandonment

If we are after being true to ourselves what is stopping us from abandoning outdated gender ideas? FEAR.

Fear of Change

Fear of change is one of the biggest fears of the human condition, believing wrongly that change will result in inferior outcomes when what we are really afraid of is coming out of our comfort zone, our false sense of security.

Fear of Loss

The next layer of fear is fear of loss of identity, which is an oxymoron because gender is not our real identity; quite the opposite, gender denies we have a real identity and gives us an artificial one instead. So fear of loss of gender identity is also fear of coming out of the comfort zone and false security of having a gendered identity, so in essence it’s fear of losing an illusion!

And yet, this fear can be tricky to confront, given how deep our gender conditioning is. But we must remember there is no freedom until we have become truly authentic in our identity. It helps to ask ourselves here: do I want what feels comfortable on the surface and gives me an easy life, or do I want to set myself free of false gender identification and connect with my deeper sense of self and my life purpose?

The appearance of having an easy life when we conform to gender expectations often hides considerable emotional repression to silence what our heart is really after that is not in line with these expectations.

Fear of Abandonment

The final layer of fear is that fear of abandonment; if we stop following gendered ideas of who we should be as women and men and follow our heart instead in how we want to live and express in our life, will people still relate to us in the same way or will they abandon us? When we are facing this kind of people pleasing fear, it’s good to remember how priceless is the freedom of not subjecting ourselves and others to the expectation and the pressure of thinking and behaving in the prescribed way that gender roles entail.

Instead of looking over our shoulder to see who is accepting and who is rejecting us because of what we think and how we behave, we can spend our life following our passion, our intuition and our joy.

Step into Your Greatness

The greatest reward of abandoning gendered self concepts, gendered roles and gendered stereotypes is having a very deep connection with our real self, our soul, our spirit the essence of who we truly are. This comes from an innate knowing of who we are that is far greater that ideas and concepts can ever describe or prescribe. This is the only way to shine so to speak and to connect authentically with those around us.

We’re far more valuable that the roles we play in society that can diminish our spirit, and when we release ourselves from gendered roles the world becomes our oyster in connecting, communicating, and creating.

Importantly, once all concepts of gendered personality are stripped from our self identification, we start to see very clearly that we truly are one and the same as men and women. There is no other condition necessary to have fulfilling relationships but this.

Live in Joy

Muna