Introduction
The Devoted and Vulnerable was born at the turn of 2020, when my partner, the Devoted, came across Zak Roedde and his content for how to create the relationship of your dreams. In his book, Irresistibly Feminine, Zak talks about the relationship dynamic known as polarity. This is the practice of one partner embodying the masculine pole, the electric energy, and the other partner embodying the feminine pole, the magnetic energy, in order to maintain attraction between the couple.
My polarity based blog posts are written based on the philosophies Zak shares in his book and my own experience embodying the Vulnerable expression. I highly recommend Zak's book, as he thoroughly explains a lot of the concepts I am simply reiterating here. I humbly recommend the audiobook version of Irresistibly Feminine, since it happens to be narrated by the Devoted and was produced by yours truly!
Expectations in Polarized Relationships
Expectations kill devotion.
Let's start there.
The feminine pole does not lead to outcomes, and an expectation is an outcome. When she leads to outcomes, she is doing so because she doesn't feel safe and she doesn't trust the masculine pole to honor what is in her heart and devote to it. This kills the masculine pole's ability and desire to devote to her.
A masculine pole’s greatest need is to lead. His role is to have an inner vision and to lead to it however he sees fit. The feminine pole guides this leadership, but not through expectations or outcomes. She guides his leadership by expressing vulnerably what is in her heart. Her heart is the most beautiful thing to him, and her role is to show him this heart vulnerably and authentically. He will then check his own inner boundaries and course correct, if he deems it necessary. If she is expressing vulnerably in order to direct toward an outcome, this is manipulation and it will undermine the polarization, since she is leading, albeit subliminally
So, what is she to do when she notices she has an expectation? The feminine pole is asked to trace the expectation back to the vulnerability in her heart which is causing the expectation.
For me, it feels a lot like reverse engineering. At the beginning of my exploration of polarized relating, my feelings were very unknown to me, and often I would not be aware of them or catch them until they had manifested into an expectation. The Devoted, my masculine pole, spent a lot of time with me in those early days, leading me back to the feeling that caused the expectation. I have not mastered this shift completely and it is still something that comes up for us to navigate.
So, here’s an example of what this shift from expectations to feelings looks like. Let's say we're out socializing and I am ready to leave. The outcome I desire is to go home. I notice I have this desire. Instead of expressing it, I ask myself, "what is the feeling in my heart right now that is causing me to want to leave?" This one is easy for me to find. "I feel tired," my heart tells me. Now I have a feeling to express to my masculine pole, however, I must still make sure that I do not have an expectation tied into this expression. If I express, "I feel tired," and expect him to lead us home immediately, I am being manipulative, since I am covertly leading to an outcome. It is my role, as the feminine pole, to express my feelings and trust my pole will lead to an outcome that honors my expressions. It is also my role to surrender to his lead, which means trusting in the who, what, where, how and why of his lead, especially when it is different than what I would do. This is the point of releasing expectations.
In this example, he may choose to lead us to leave immediately, or it may be an hour before he leads us to go. This is part of the surrender of the feminine pole to the inner vision of the masculine pole. If she trusts that he has her heart at the center of his leadership, she knows her exhaustion will be a factor in his lead, yet when he chooses to leave is still up to him to lead. There may be another aspect of his inner vision that informs his decision to extend their stay. If she gets upset because he doesn't lead them to leave immediately, she is in essence not trusting in his devotion to her heart, nor to his own inner vision.
This doesn't mean she cannot express to him her feelings in response to his lead. However, she must remain aware of her temptation to lead covertly through her expression. If she expresses feeling disappointed by his lead because she wants him to feel guilty and lead to leave more quickly the next time, she is manipulating him to satisfy her expectation of an outcome. He will feel this manipulation, even if just subconsciously, and it will repel him from her.
Another aspect to be aware of when communicating her important and valid feelings to him, is when to share them. It is important to allow the masculine pole’s leadership to play out fully, before expressing how it made her feel. A masculine pole must be allowed to make a mistake in his leadership. This is how he will learn. If the feminine pole is attempting to prevent him from making a mistake, then she is leading him. He will not learn and he will come to resent her. The result is depolarizing and repels the couple from each other. Therefore, when expressing that his lead has caused a feeling that doesn’t feel good to her, she must first allow that lead to take place.
In our party example, the masculine pole needs to be trusted to honor his feminine pole’s expression of feeling tired. If she circles back around to him 30 minutes in, ready to express her feelings of discontent that he hasn’t led them to leave yet, she has not fully given his lead a chance to play out. In this example, it is recommended that she wait until the following morning to check in with how she feels about his leadership the night before.
Perhaps she checks in and notices she doesn’t actually feel tired at all, in which case, her problem of feeling tired was solved adequately, even if they left an hour after she thought they should in order for her not to be tired the next day. Or perhaps, when she checks in she notices she is feeling tired and exhausted. This is the proper time to express to him these feelings.
However, she must still be aware of the energy with which she is expressing to him and to be sure it is without blame. The feminine pole is responsible for how she feels and blaming the masculine pole is always depolarizing. Her blaming of him is manipulation. It is coming from a desire for him to feel guilty about what he has done and to lead him toward a different outcome next time. Blame will repel the masculine pole from the feminine pole. Instead, she is encouraged to share her important and valid feelings with him openly and vulnerably, without any expectation or desire for him to change. In this way, it is up to his own evaluation of his own inner boundaries to decide whether he needs to course correct next time. He will naturally be upset that she is tired and exhausted, his inner vision includes his feminine pole’s radiance after all!
How to know whether a man is worthy of your trust is a different blog post altogether, but the short answer I feel intrinsically at this time is that her feelings will tell her whether she can trust him or not. When he says to me that he is devoted to the radiance of my heart and it is at the center of every decision he makes, I trust him. I feel the truth in his words and allow myself to vulnerably surrender to that truth, opening to receive his devotion as fully as I can.
I also wish to discuss how expectations and outcomes can be the result of a feminine pole feeling triggered and unsafe. Especially when she has been hurt in the past by her vulnerable expression with a masculine pole, she is bound to want to lead in order to protect her heart. Yet, it is the masculine pole's role to protect, and allowing her fear to move her into the masculine polarity, will cause the two poles to repel each other once again.
This was, and still is, one of the hardest parts of this practice for me. Recognizing that I feel like leading because I do not feel safe. Something from my past is coming up and instead of allowing myself to feel it fully and express it vulnerably with my masculine pole, trusting him to care for my heart and protect it, I work to avoid it all together by assuming the lead, robbing him of the chance for him to devote, for me to receive and for healing to occur.
While we're on the topic of expectations, I have one more topic to discuss. This is addressed to the feminine poles who insist they enjoy devoting to their masculine poles. One thing I've discovered to be true is that when a feminine pole devotes to a masculine pole, she is doing so without a thorough analysis through the polarized lens.
When we apply this lens, we’ll see that the biggest elephant in the room is that we’ve associated the feminine expression of love with nurturing, when, in reality, nurturing is the role of the masculine pole. Nurturing is devoting. We are taught that the feminine archetype, the mother, is a nurturer at heart, and therefore the feminine pole mistakenly applies that nurturing to the masculine pole in an attempt to express her love for him. What she doesn’t realize is that her nurturing shifts the polarized dynamic into a mother son dynamic, and in response, the masculine pole shifts toward behaving like a child- an outcome neither pole desires if they wish to maintain attraction. In a true polarized dynamic, the feminine pole shows her love for her masculine pole by showing him her heart and receiving his devotion to it. Vulnerable expression of feelings is the antidote to nurturing.
A smaller, yet still impactful elephant in the room here, is the motivation for a feminine pole’s devotion. Beyond her desire to nurture because she mistakenly believes that is her role, if she honestly evaluates the motivation for her devotion further, she may find an expectation hidden in there. Here is the question she must ask herself, “Am I devoting to him with the underlying expectation that he will reciprocate with devotion?” If so, this is manipulation and she has stepped out of the feminine polarity.
Let’s take the example of a feminine pole making a big deal of celebrating the masculine pole for his birthday without him leading her to do so. Why is she doing this? Is it truly because she loves him and this is how she expresses her love for him? Or does she subconsciously hope he’ll “get the hint” and “return the favor” when it is her birthday? If she has this expectation, she has stepped outside of the feminine pole.
And so, my discussion on expectations comes to a close for now. Though this is still an area I am working on, I have received the benefit of expressing and surrendering to his lead many times. I am grateful to be releasing the drama and disappointments that expectations bring. Hopefully, this will help you to understand how to do it too!
With Love,
The Vulnerable