Reclaiming the inner feminine is at the heart of a man's somatic journey.
What does it actually mean to be “masculine” and how does he get there?
I’ve worked with hundreds of men over the years, and I believe society has it backwards.
It’s not about him just “being more masculine,” like it’s a switch he can flip or something he can grind his way into through dopamine and action alone - that’s the old story.
Before he can embody true masculinity, he must reclaim something far more wise and intelligent - his inner feminine.
Somatic work is often seen as a return to the feminine — and this is just as true for men as it is for women.
When a man steps into somatic work, whether he knows it or not, he is touching into the feminine - not as gender identity, but in energetic qualities, somatic patterns and inner orinatition. He is exploring his emotional body, sensory world, and inner landscape. These are the realms of the feminine: receptivity, intuition, flow, rest and feeling.
And to be the solid anchor the world often tells him to be, he must first welcome his polarity. To build the capacity to feel the feminine within.
The Womb Within
Every man carries an energetic womb, a space within that holds the imprint of all the women who came before him. The feminine is not foreign to him; it is his origin. He, too, bears the weight of ancestral and cultural patterns. He, too, carries trauma.
This doesn’t negate the systems of patriarchy, capitalism, or hierarchy that he may participate in - both realities can coexist. But in somatic healing, we aren't so focused on who caused what. We’re focused on how it shows up in his experiences. How it’s patterns in his nervous system.
This work becomes a bridge to his divinity, to a version of masculinity that includes wholeness . Wholeness because it’s an integration of both energetic systems.
What This Work Opens Up for Him
As men come into their bodies, they begin to feel what they were taught to suppress:
The fear of their animalistic nature
Their longing for true intimacy and pleasure
Their shadows (the things we don’t see about ourselves or what’s been denied)
The restless chaos and compulsions that signal unmet needs and unspoken truths.
All of this reflects both the light and dark aspects of their inner feminine.
The Mother Thread
Much of this work circles back to the mother - not always the woman herself, but the archetype of the feminine she represents. Psychology calls it the “mother wound.” But somatic work reveals patterns in:
What he wasn’t allowed to say
His relationship to emotion
How he holds sensation in his body
How he connects to the right brain, the gut, the heart
The left side of his body (often associated with the feminine in somatic maps)
As a somatic practitioner, I track how he relates to food, pleasure, intimacy, nourishment, his own mother, and how he views, or feels betrayed by, women overall. These are the places where early relational imprints often disrupted his sense of safety and connection.
My Own Journey
What most don’t know is that I began this work with men because, honestly, I wasn’t yet at home in my own femininity. Working with men felt like a way to explore something deeply misunderstood. So many women I knew longed to rest in a man’s presence - to be guided by him. And I found myself wondering: what was actually guiding him? But that’s another article for another day!
Fast forward to today - I’ve worked with juvenile boys, inmates, men deep in addiction, men with wealth and broken families, men on Vancouver’s downtown east side. And again and again, I feel the same ache in them:
A boy desperate to be enough.
A man longing to close the gap between mind and heart.
A human trying to come home to himself.
Beyond Doing: The Anchor of Being
Masculinity is often associated with doing - structure, direction, and action. But healing doesn’t come through effort or dopamine alone. It requires inhabiting the body, grounding into presence, co-regulating with others who can attune to him (which is especially important, as many men have had to face big emotions alone), and building the capacity to be with all of who he is, including the masks he’s worn to feel accepted in the world.
And without integrating his feminine, he can become rigid. Disconnected. Dogmatic.
Through somatic work, he gains flexibility - in body and mind. He learns to stay open while rooted. To lead from presence, rather than performance.
The Nervous System and Early Patterning
Attachment theory offers insight here. Many men internalize early messages that reward emotional suppression and self-reliance. Vulnerability is seen as weakness; intimacy as threat.
In somatic healing, he learns to feel without fleeing - to build enough stability in his nervous system to hold his experience. This becomes the real medicine for what’s too often pathologized as avoidance.
Integration is the New Strength
A man’s well-being today requires a radical shift: integration of both energetic systems. When this happens:
He moves with intention, not reactivity.
He leads from inner truth, not a fragmented self.
He becomes capable of holding others, and himself - with depth and compassion.
This is what the work becomes for so many of the men I meet: A return to his wholeness.
A return to the feminine - literal, symbolic, somatic.
A reconnection to the parts of themselves they were never meant to lose.
