MFN Introduction
===
Hi everyone. Welcome to, We Don't Have a Clue About Love. I'm here with Katie Eden Todd and in this very special series, we'll be delving into what exactly masculine, feminine, and neutral styles of relating are.
Katie Eden Todd is an archetypal therapist, author, and speaker, and has devoted her life to helping thousands of people remember who they are, why they're here and what love actually is and requires. Her dedication to illuminating our inner world is inspiring and has spanned over 35 years. She has a profound understanding of how universal patterns influence our lives on a soul level.
These patterns are deeply embedded in our psyche, shaping our self awareness, emotional intelligence, relationships, and personal growth. Katie has refined her understanding of these patterns into 12 super archetypes detailed in her book series, User Guide to Humans. But in this series, we're going from 12 to three, and that is enough to transform your relationships.
So Katie, how did the concept of MFN come about?
Thank you for asking Mim. Really interesting. I actually started with my archetypal patterns and writing archetypes decades ago and had 113. Now, there were certain people who loved delving into that, but it's quite complex. What I found with my clients, I'd been working for nearly 15 years as a private therapist at that point. And when I could see people's potential, I'd get all excited about it. They get all excited about it and then they'd have a massive contraction and they'd go into fear and they wouldn't believe me. No, I don't think I can do that. That's not me. And they'd pull right back. And I realized people needed evidence of who they were. Real evidence. So I then, it's been over 23 years now, began writing about archetypes to prove evidence that this is you. If you've got this one, you've got the light and the shadow. And you know why they believed they had it? Because they knew they had the shadows. Sometimes that you've got both sides of the coin. Sometimes you can think, no, I don't have that. I don't have that. But if you do, you have got the shadow, then you've definitely got that. And that's where to aim for, which is really helpful. Anyway, lots happened in my life, dark nights of the soul. And I thought it's too big. I need to simplify it.
So I went down to 12. Put nine or ten archetypes under the archetype personas, worked a treat. And then I thought, can we go down even further? Like, how simple can we make this? And I'd studied in the US decades ago, and I'd been fascinated with masculine and feminine. But I hadn't stayed with it, but I was fascinated, like, the two hemispheres of the brain, yin and yang.
This is a concept that's been around for thousands of years. And When I was working with people, I thought, yeah, but it doesn't cover everyone. And then I realized there was a third, and this is what's unique in my work. There's the masculine archetype, light and shadow. There's a feminine energy. These are energies, light and shadow, and there's a neutral one. And we have two, we have a combination of two, that's one stronger than the other that we seem to lean into. And that's how we'll relate to people. It's how we process, it's how we operate in life. Really interesting and you're born with it. You are born with it. Um, It has caused you a lot of trouble when you have gone into the shadow of it. When we're at our most evolved, we bring in the second one that we've got of those three and we start to get a bit more rounded and we're less self sabotaging and damaging. When we're really together in those brief moments when that happens, we're able to bring all three parts together and it's like this is the best of me.
This is me. This is what I've got. So I found doing some courses called cellmates or soulmates, which is a fascinating concept. Cellmates meaning like I'm stuck in a relationship and it's like being in jail That's what it feels like. It's lonely. I feel unloved. I feel unlovable. The same things go on over and over again.
I feel like giving up. I don't know what love is. Most people have lived cellmate relationships at some point. And what's the road to soulmates? Well, the road to soulmates was just doing MFN. People didn't even need to know their personas. They could literally see Oh my god, this is you. This is you. This is my child who I'm at war with. This is my child that doesn't like it when I do XYZ, but if I'm this, that feels like love for them. So it was learning about how to make the people that we're relating with feel seen, heard, loved, and valued. Like how should I interact with you? How should I interact with them? And it's different according to their MFN. Now, everybody listening or watching picks up these energies. And when we describe them in detail, you'll go, got it.
I understand that. It's really, really helpful. If you don't know the way that your shadow side of your particular MFN mode is operating and that you keep, it's the most comfortable way to be, but that you are actually shooting yourself in the foot again and again and again and again, and possibly blaming the other or playing victim. My favorite is when clients play victim, doesn't trigger me at all, Mim. I'm really calm and I get very triggered. I get very triggered. Let's be honest here, I wanna break people out of doing this to themselves unconsciously. Like, let's be aware of what we're doing. Let's be able to push pause. And go oh, I can feel that reaction coming up in me. Do I go down there for the millionth time or do I stop and maybe learn how to choose differently? The way that I've done it for a million times. It's like a 75 lane highway. It's like, well, that's the only road, isn't it? But no, there's a pothole over there. Just a little track. And every time we go down there, we're building a neuron, layers of path here, a new path of how to relate, how to connect to people, how to get what we really want, and how to be what we really want, how to present in the way we want to present to people. that too long an answer? There you go.
No, no, I'm just taking stock of what I wanted to circle back to one of those. In your work, there's this idea that it's an act of love to adapt ourselves, to speak someone else's language. And I think that has been, maybe rebelled against in like, no, I'm not going to change who I am. I'm not going to sacrifice my way for someone else's, but it's actually an act of love.
Can you tell me more about that?
Okay. Yeah, great. This is a love language. You know, there was the book that was very famous a long time ago, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
Oh,
this Yeah, yeah.
This is masculine feminine. Just the two.
And it's sort of suggesting that women have the feminine, men have the masculine, which I would like to say, fuck off. Let's tell the truth here. That's not how it works. When I'm talking about masculine, feminine, neutral, I'm not talking about gender. I'm not talking about your bits, people. Let's get over yourselves. I I don't care about your bits. They're not important. These are your energies.
See, the way I'm speaking now is masculine. Just to give an example, you know, I am primary masculine, the first one that we have is masculine. My masculine is big. I have a very large masculine and my feminine is second. You happen to be the same but we have different personas so it comes out differently. May I say I think you're a bit more well rounded than me, Mim, in that you do have quite a strong neutral strength as well and I don't, I overcompensate it with masculine where you, you're naturally born a bit more even. So it's really interesting seeing how the mixes that people are. People are fascinating. Everyone who is listening, you are fascinating. They're all gorgeous. They're all wonderful. They're all fantastic and they're all fucked when they're in the shadow. So there we are. None is better than another. None
No.
Is
better than another.
No,
and on,
On that note, because that's really crucial is, um, both you and I are MFs, but we're so, so different still, which harks back to
your original archetypes,
where
there are 12. Yeah.
can
go So,
That always to have in the back of our minds when we're relating to people in an MFN way, there's, there's deeper differences there too.
There
really are. So some people like to dig really deeply. So then you can go further back if you want to. But if you just want to stay here to understand all the people in your life, there's enough information here to transform everything. And to make the people in your life feel genuinely loved. So we don't know enough about love.
We don't know what love is. We don't know what it looks like. I have two children who are neutral feminines, different genders, NFs.
NFs. So here I come in as a parent, you know, loud, you can do it, passionate, be out there, masculine, decisive, bang, bang, bang, really fast, really fast. And they just freeze. It's way too much for them. That's not their style. Now, When an NF speaks to me, and they're incredibly calm, rational, logical, cautious, and let's just be... take our time and think this and I'm all emotion. I don't want to do the mind, slow, cool, calm it down, you know, don't throw your bucket of cold water over me like my mother used to do, she was an NM. I don't appreciate that. That'll just make my masculine... I'll get more fiery. I'll be more fiery. I'll be more self destructive. I'll be more abusive, more intimidating. More my way of the highway. This is my shadow that happens and you have a similar shadow. It's never helped us. We've never been heard.
We've never been seen. We've never been more loved from this. We've actually only set up the same pattern of feeling unlovable and even hated because masculines are hated in the shadow and don't know how to do it. It's funny, can I just say, Mim, that I've seen so many parents in my 35 years who might be FN
feminine
and neutral, or neutral feminine, and they have a little primary masculine child come along. And they haven't got a fucking clue. And everything they try to do and tone you down just sets this child right off. And the child feels deeply unmet. And they don't know how to put the boundaries in because they don't like conflict. The feminines don't like conflict and we just want to keep it nice.
Can we just calm down? You know, it's wrong to be so fired up and none of them are wrong. They're just styles and innate ways of being and relating and they all need particular guidance. And we need to learn how to parent them in ourselves. And then when we see a partner and know that a partner has got this. We need to be able to recognize that when they're in struggling and they're in what I call child, the shadow parts of it, you know, they're not making much sense and they're a bit agitated, they're a bit triggered, they're a bit stressed. I can take it personally and go to war with my masculine or I could push pause, even though I'm fucking annoyed at what I'm having to listen to and coming from love go, they're struggling right now. It's not what they're talking about. When we're struggling, we never name what the issue is accurately. Never, ever, ever. like the starting one ninth of the iceberg and eight nights underneath, which the Titanic hit. The underneath bit. There's a pain, a fracture here that's been hit. It's not about that.
So how about we don't buy into that and it's holding space. So love is I hold space. I recognise... I know my style and I know my shadows and I take ownership of them and I take responsibility to regulate them and use them as best I can. I will still get it wrong. But less and less often when I'm aware, and I'll apologize when I get it wrong. But love is also when others are struggling in N, in F or M, I see it. And love is, I know not to take it personally. I know to hold that space, to listen, and to wait, and maybe draw out a conversation, if that's appropriate for the style, which we'll get into in later episodes, exactly what way works for that person. And that style, that energy, whatever the gender is, and if we can honor where they're struggling and give them what they need at that time, it gives them a chance to come out of that. That is love, but it takes an enormous amount of knowledge and we're not taught it Mim. How can we know what we were never taught?
No, and we continue to hit the same walls, expecting a different result.
We do.
Yeah, and one of the, one of the many things I love about this work and when I discovered that I'm primary masculine, yet I'm a woman, you know, cause this whole language throws it all on its head, that it's nothing to do with gender, but I felt so seen.
Because if we don't take into account people's different relating styles, we're speaking on deaf ears. Like if someone thinks they're going to reach me by talking calmly and methodically and with facts and research, you're actually going to piss me off more. Whereas if you talk to me with passion and volume and like feeling and you actually give a shit about something, then I will hear you.
I'm
engaged.
Yeah.
Yeah, but the other one is framed as like, no, we should all be calm. We should be like, no, not necessarily. It depends on who you're talking to. And, and like, let's, let's dive into it. So I reckon let's go through M, F and N.
Yeah. Yeah.
What . . each look look like in the dark and the light,
wherever you want to begin.
Okay, so those with masculine, and it might be your second one, so you might relate to a bit, but maybe you're a feminine on top, or a neutral on top, or it's your first one. If it's your first one, we call it your primary, or your dominant, because this is the one... it's your go to. A really good thing to know about this is when we're in child and we're struggling most, we just use one. The others don't get a look in. So we're very unbalanced. If you think about three legs of a tripod, the lesson of maturity in life is I have to grow, you know, I've got a very long masculine leg. I've got a feminine up to here and my neutral is up here so I can keep falling over this. And
I did forever
in
relationships, even as a therapist with clients or whatever, like you'll have our patterns of how we get it wrong. And then I've, it's really hard work to develop the ones you don't have in your weak end. Like don't wanna. Because I like doing this one. I like having my little explosions and going off, which is my style. And it might be, oh, but I like pleasing and being nice and letting everyone know I'm such a lovely person, said the feminine.
And the neutral goes, well, you know, mine's superior because I'm calm and I'm unemotional. Like, we've all got our thing and we can believe... masculines and neutrals believe they've got the best ones. And feminines go, yeah, I know mine's not the best. Just, so both masculine and neutral can be, you know, arrogant and superior and the feminine can feel inferior.
That's a mirror of our patriarchal world, actually, where the feminine has been diminished into something that it's not really, and we need the feminine in every gender and every person to come through strongly as it really is not in the diminished way that it's been so far, but that's another conversation. So. Masculine, in the dark, in child, and I, when I say child, I'm thinking of someone, I think, and we all go into child, we think we're chronological, we're chronological adults, but we think we're emotionally adult, no, no, no, there's a bit of delusion for you, people.. So, masculines in child, meaning I'm operating under five years of age. I'm angry, I'm hot, I'm blaming. I can get the temperature. I am triggered. It's my way or the highway. Like, I am right, and I am the leader, and there's no buts to batter, and you do as I say. I'm not tolerating it. You want a war? I'll fight you to the death. I don't care. I'll bring it, bring it on. I'll prove it to you. I'll show it to you.
You've got no idea who you're dealing with. And so a lot of people just slink away. They go, oh, none of them have got any courage. They're all hopeless. No one can cope with it. Well, stuff them. I'll go and do my own thing. You've never thought like that in your life before, have you, Mim?
So
called out.
Yeah.
Yeah. So called out.
So called out. See, I love people who can own the shadow side. What is the light side? We don't go here all the time. This is when we're struggling. This is when old pain points that haven't healed yet. We don't even know they're there because they're under the water in the eight nights. That's when they're triggered and we can be eruptive. We can go from zero to 100 very quickly. Now, all of the people listening and watching, they know people who can go from zero to 100 quickly. Do they not? And that might be their weakest. And they're going, yeah, I don't like to do that. I don't like to get angry, said the FNs and the NFs. Well, guess what?
You're going to have to learn to bring in some positive masculine. So let's see the positive masculine. So the positive masculine is creative, has fire and passion and drive and resilience and they get knocked down and they get up again and they get knocked down and they get up again and it's like this matters, this is important, I believe in it, I have faith, it has generosity, extraordinary generosity, it wants to make a difference, it wants to love, wants to give, it wants to expand, it's about growth and the lessons for masculine are humility. That's not easy for a masculine, to admit that they're wrong, to have remorse, to realise they have bullied, they have intimidated, that at times, they never, most people haven't had their masculines parented well when they were children, they were too big for the parents, and so they either had power struggles and were at war, and they were shamed for it, which just made us more stubborn and more, well, I'll do it my way, like it pushed us in the wrong direction, that we needed someone who could stand in and say, I love your fire, I love your passion, Mim. But you do this, you're going to set people up to hate you, sweetheart. So no.
See, that would have been love.
That
fierceness to be parented with that fierceness, not
calm down or go and work it out and come back. Just to
Oh my God.
in that fire. That's
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. And you have to win every time? Well, that's fine. You're happy to live alone? Is that all right with you?
See, I hear
best. can hear it.
I'm talking your language.
Yeah.
I'm not changing who I am. I really believe in all of us knowing who we are. Most people don't, haven't got a clue who they are. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping people remember who they are and why they're here. Their purpose and their relating styles, and how they sabotage love and their gifts in love.
This is a really rich language of love. I'm not changing who I am, but love is I'm adult enough to be who I am and meet you there. So I'll meet you there and with clients, I'll meet them there. I don't come in guns blazing to a feminine. I mean, I did when I started. Poor buggers. Come on, you can do it. Just need a bit of fire and passion.
Be decisive. Let's go, you know, let's work out a plan. We'll do this, this and this. Come back next week and tell me how you've done this. and they shrink
Into the
fetal position and whatever fire they had has now disappeared and
Yeah.
I can't do it. I won't be
able to do it. And I don't have this. And I've actually had a divorce with my masculine and I'm not bringing it back because you guys, you masculines... you're so arrogant.
You're so ugly. People hate you. I don't want to be like you.
You take up so much space.
You take up too much space.
And
it's the truth.
Yeah.
It's
me, me, me, me. And what would
you like to say about me? You know, that's where the
masculine
gets.
Mmm.
It's not
attractive, Mim.
No, and you've alluded to, I like how you differentiate between the three by temperature and pace.
Yeah.
So this is fast and hot. And decisive. It's like, what do you mean slow down and write a plan?
Yep.
And
I'm
The other strength...
I'm
jumping in doing it now.
Yeah,
I'm doing it now. I want it yesterday.
Is masculine.
That's it.
That's it.
Yep. Yep. And what, cause what has really stood out to me about masculine, particularly for those who have it least... one of the strengths is confidence and self belief and, and a drive, like you actually follow through on making your dream happen, which you and I as primary masculines, I don't know if you experience it this way, but when I have a vision, like visionary is part of masculine.
I, it's like, I believe it's already happened. Like I'm so certain of my vision. I so believe in it. It's just a matter of time.
Get out of my way, people.
That's exactly it.
That's exactly it. You've got a double visionary because you've got neutral as well. Which is an analyst visionary, so you can also build the steps to make it happen.
True. So yeah, so...
You do that, you do that, don't you?
Well, seven years of uni, I kind of did it the conventional way.
No no, you've got a natural... yeah, I did 11 years, see I win, I'd
You win.
I'd like to win, masculine, I'm gonna win,
I did 11 years.
You get the trophy.
But... I get the trophy, but I'm not an analyst visionary, you are.
No.
You've got
that, and I haven't got it. So
you're, you're a
bit stronger there, which, but it's a double gift. So, there's a double gift there, it's really good to know, it's just good
to know.
Yeah.
There you have it.
Cause earlier...
This is what we find out.
Yeah. Yeah. You said earlier that we have two, is it the case that we just have two or we have all three, but one is just
a lot
So weak So weak. Some people really can draw on all three and I think you're one of them. But I don't think that's all that common. Most of us are just two, like I do MF. But every time I've, you know, had dark nights of the soul and long dark periods, the lesson for me is always to bring in neutral. Like, to bring in, not cold neutral, not the child neutral, but adult neutral or elder neutral. know, we hear a lot about toxic masculine. Well, there's toxic feminine, which I will explain, because feminines like to pretend they don't have it, and I have news for you. And neutrals believe, that their way is the right way, the way of the truth in life. And you know, that's the obvious way it should be.
And it's not either that's toxic neutral, but there's all... there is sacred masculine, there is sacred feminine, and there is sacred neutral. And you only get to the sacredness and the potential and the elder, like thinking of a wise elder, Yoda mentor sort of person, Mim, you know, wholeness inside of ourselves, when they've all married each other, when the three have come
together
and united.
You can't actually be that if you're missing one of them. But that's not, you know, you've got two pretty well, one really strong, one stronger, and then you've just got to work on the weaker one and bring out the middle one.
There's two things to work on. That's manageable.
Yeah.
And yeah. And it's, it's a really clear pathway because once you map it out, it's like, okay, I'm an NF. I'm gonna benefit from bringing in some more proactivity, confidence, belief in myself and what I want to pull the trigger on things, not just procrastinate and like retreat. It's very clear and like the pathway forward.
So part of the work is like, if you're missing masculine... so say you're an NF or an FN, it's not hard. Like, so masculine is your third one. What is it that I need that's going to turn my life around? And I can bring it down to two words, bold heart.
Hmm.
A
bold heart. And then I can put four. So it's decisiveness because the thing without masculine is they're not decisive. Decisive, courageous, bringing courage, bring in passion and bring in faith. Have faith in yourself. Don't be afraid to fail. Masculines fail epically. Like I was laughing when you were saying, you know, I've got my vision. I know what I'm doing. I'm building it. It's going to happen. And, but they don't, but they don't all happen like nine out of 10 don't bloody happen, Mim.
No. Hmm.
I'm just that
bit older than you. And, you know, I was absolutely certain, like there's a certainty. Underneath the arrogance and certainty... the certainty is actually what is very off putting for other people. The arrogance and certainty is what drives people away, if you have masculine. And underneath though, there is a fragility and an insecurity. And the more insecure we are, the more we speak up how confident we are.
Yes.
So
that should be like a
little warning sign. Wow, I'm really over the top about this at the moment. Maybe there's an insecurity that I need to attend to inside here.
Hmm.
Instead of racing
ahead, making the same mistakes, and then I did go too fast, and I didn't put these steps in, which would have saved me all this trouble. Maybe I do need to bring in the N, but I'm so impatient I want it yesterday. Anyway, that's masculine. We're going to talk about that in a whole episode.
And I call, I call, I
call the
two, I call the two things, when you've got the combination, avatars. So, we have the avatars, could be MF, MN. Yeah, we're going to go there. We're going to go there. It's so much fun and you all listen and see this and you go, that's so and so, that's so and so. And suddenly you know how they would like to be communicated with, the pace they want to go, the style, when you don't push them to do what they're weakest at. know, how to avoid conflict while still being true to yourself. Okay. Feminine, shall we do the next one?
Perfect.
So, So feminines are conflict averse. Their temperature... um, they're sort of, I'll go at your pace, but I'm not leading. I'm not leading. So if you're going slow and neutral and cautiously, okay, that's fine.
Or you want to go fast? Okay, I'll go fast with you, but as long as I don't have the responsibility for the decisions. Okay. So their temperature is tepid. Not too hot. I can't find a better word...
too hot, Not too cold.
Lukewarm?
Lukewarm?
Tepid. Yeah, I thought
that as well, but like, I don't find that particularly complimentary myself.
Um, Boiling hot's not complimentary, so let's put it out there. Lukewarm, tepid. So, I just like to take the middle ground. I like to stay emotionally in the middle ground. I don't want to feel too, you know, I just... that's the feminine. So, I like to please people. I like people to get along. I like harmony. I like to nurture people.
I like to give to people. I like to make sure that they're okay. If you're okay, I'm okay. Are you okay, Mim? You okay? You got you got what you need? Did you want a cuppa? You're fine? You're fine? Oh, good. And then if feminine's can find, if they start talking too deeply about things, they might make a joke and go, you know, because I don't want to make it too deep, because someone might not like that.
They might be offended. They might be irritated. So let's just keep everything in the middle ground so as not to upset anybody, because we don't want to deal with upset. And actually the feminines can be quite anxious when they can feel, you know, there's a neutral over there getting into an argument about don't use that word. not right use of the word. What do you mean? And you're going off that, you're not worth listening to. You're just too hot headed. I'm not listening to you. If you calm down and come back later, I'll listen to you. Like, I'm just giving an example. And the feminines are going, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, the world's going to end. I don't know how to please people. It's like, feminines need to, they're looking for a place to belong, to attach to, and they're looking to be needed. And so they like to help. So they can be, I'll be whatever you need me to be as long as you love me and I can be there. Is that okay? And so when they change partners or jobs or whatever. Yep. Oh, you're into that. That sounds good. I'll be into that. They don't know who they are. It's a big chameleon. And now I
have this second, I have this second, so do you. So I'm naming my shadow here. They get passive as opposed to decisive can get passive to paralyzed. Feminine can go into fawn and flight. They can even freeze. Like there's a few styles. The masculine goes fight, like I'll just fight you. I don't care. I'll fight you. So you know that about yourself. I love competition. I love watching the Olympics. You know, I like the competition. Um, but the feminine will go into fawn. Like,
I'll flatter
you.
I just want to, I don't want to,
be alone. There's a huge codependency. I can't be alone. And I need to be attached to someone because I don't feel complete in myself as a person. This is the dark belief. Whereas the masculine thinks they're a God, you know, and everyone should bow down and obey.
It's their way of the highway. I've got news for you masculines. Wait till I get stuck in. You're going to enjoy that episode. Gold stars to you, though. Like, you get top of the table if you listen. Like, go for it, people. Um, and then the feminines have this mistaken view of inferiority, but that's because of our patriarchal world has always taught it that way. Whereas the feminine is kindness, love, humility, patience. It's funny. What the feminine needs to learn is what the masculine has, and what the masculine needs to learn is what the feminine has. Like, they really are meant to have a sacred union of marriage, but not where there's a hierarchy and place, Mim.
Mm, and yeah, because earlier you said that all three, I don't want to forget this, I'm going to raise it now, all three manipulate in different ways. So, so how, what would be the differences between masculine and feminine manipulation?
So masculine is going to promise you the world.
Have we ever over promised? And over reached? Stay with me, I'll give you this, I'll give you that, I'll give you that, but just do what I say. And then when I haven't delivered on these promises, which I did want to deliver, but I never had a prayers chance of doing it. And when I said I'd have it by next month, it might be 11 years later, but it's still coming. I promise you it's still coming. This is a big pitfall. Grandiose, grandiose promises. And then the feminine goes, they said they'd look after me. They said they'd give me this. They said we'd go, all right, I'll stay attached then. It's like a dog on a lead, like I'll stay attached to them, it's like a lion and a dog, I'll do that. So, um, whereas how does a feminine, how do they manipulate? Well, they use emotion. There's tears, there's poor me. How could you be so mean to me? This is so unfair. What did I do to deserve this? Oh, well, I'm going to give you the list when we do the feminine. Because in being so passive, and refusing to take responsibility but wanting your partner to parent you as whether as well as turn you into a princess and give you the life of your dreams or um, playing codependent, refusing to step up in your own life. Well, you know, this is what happens. You, you hand yourself over to powerful masculines, whatever gender, and then you say they were so rude to me, they were so cruel to me, they were so unkind to me, they were so mean to me, they were so this, this, this. But you didn't have a voice, you didn't speak up, you didn't have any boundaries, you weren't prepared to lead your own life, you were just going to come in and you wanted the payoff. So the niceness is a manipulation, the pleasing is a manipulation, the tears, woe is me, I can't believe you were that cruel, is a manipulation. You're supposed to look after me, I'm really fragile. That is a terrible thing to believe about yourself because no one is that. Mim, I don't believe anyone is that. We're not playing fucking damsels in distress anymore and there isn't a king over there who's the greatest either. So masculines, get off your throne, put the crown in the bin and damsels in distress, it's time to find out who you really are because you're a stunning human being and you've actually got as much power as the next person. And we need to find that because you're playing a role that is causing you to get hurt too often, but it's by your own hand.
The way I differentiate it, I don't know if it's correct, but masculines manipulate through power and feminines manipulate through victimhood.
Yeah.
They,
other...
the
promising,
the power is I have the power to deliver this, this, this, this, this,
Yeah, yeah. Would you say though, cause the way you described masculine manipulation in the over promising, feminines
say yes to everything because they want to please. So they also let down people, right?
They do, and they're over promising, like, oh, and it, so a feminine coming in and pleasing and just being a fawning servant.
Mmm.
Saying
yes to everything, when
actually, they don't want to.
I don't want to do that.
They don't even know that they don't want to, they don't even stop to go, do I want this?
There's...
They don't even stop to question.
It's just, yes, yes. And they don't... and so they put themselves in places so that their cup is empty internally of self love,
Hmm.
So love, love isn't fawning. Love isn't saying yes to everything with no boundaries. That's not love. And then the masculines go off their trees because I don't feel loved.
You don't get me. You don't see me. And then the feminines are going, well, you don't love me. You don't see me. I'm not feeling them. And so here we have this lack of what we wanted and neither are capable of filling that. We've got to find the masculine, the missing masculine inside of us, the missing feminine for those without feminine. It's kindness. This is compassion, patience, humility. That's what we've got to put in. How good are we at that? Like we have to work at that. If you're
Hmm.
Missing
the feminine, that's,
they're hard
things, the ones that you don't know. So it's also an over promising of I'll be anything you need me to be. I'll make you feel fantastic, but that's not love. So there's another over promising. That's a great point, Mim. Thank you.
Yeah. And the, I mean, the other strengths of the feminine are things like joy and playfulness and optimism, enthusiasm, unconditional love, and this actually emotional resilience that the masculine doesn't have. You know, the feminine has this profound acceptance that we age and we grieve and shit happens in life and we can't control it and we can't change it.
The feminine holds space for that, right?
They can if they're adult. The child feminine hasn't got a clue. They don't do it at all.
Yeah.
I love
that you said that,
but it's true. It's absolutely true. The feminine is not judgmental. You know, the masculine is very judgmental and so is neutral when they're struggling, but the feminine actually doesn't look at the world that way.
They don't judge people naturally. There's a patience and acceptance and a, well, what's the story behind? There's a compassion. That's there and the patience to be able to hang in with people and you know, the feminine has had a very hard time in our patriarchal era, like a horrible time treated appallingly with very, very little and they know that connection and relationships are really what matters, not material things like the feminine knows that well, being with you, spending time with you is everything really like there's a natural understanding of that, which I think is beautiful and I think we're coming to value that more and since the pandemic, we learned that lesson the hard way.
Yeah. We had to just sit and be with ourselves because that's
And,
you
differentiate them is... You go.
Yeah, so when we couldn't see the people we loved, we realised how important that was.
Yeah, yeah. Because the feminine is being, the masculine is doing, and the neutral is observing.
But yeah, observing and thinking.
Yeah.
Yeah,
So
In the dark though, then the... in the dark... The feminine, you could say is feeling, but then the masculine feels passionately. So it's, it's tricky. It does depend on the archetypes that are underneath in the FN, because there's, there's four super archetypes in feminine, there's four in masculine, there's four in neutral.
So you might have different ones to me, and that's why we're a little bit different in where we go in our feminine, but it's still very, very strong. Um, The feminine can be so busy in child serving another person, that they're not feeling at all.
Yeah.
That, that, can
happen, can't it?
Yeah. And that reminds me... When I'm introducing these concepts to clients, they think that feminine is emotional and masculine is, is not, but M and F are actually so emotional. It's neutral that is the one that is void of emotion.
Yeah.
That
rather goes to
logic and thinking and
practicalities first. And to be overly emotional means you'll make a wrong decision. You'll get it... it's, it's not well considered. It doesn't have enough facts. It doesn't have enough evidence. And that if you plan well, you can actually avoid the pitfalls of watching that bloody masculine leap for the stars and crash down on the, on the rock again, and then up he gets, does it again and does it again.
It's like, Seriously, there's a method that you could do this instead. That's the neutral vision that they can... they like process that makes them feel safe and structure and security and facts and evidence. But a child neutral, Mim, lives from the neck up. The child neutral doesn't want to feel, doesn't want to go to vulnerability, doesn't want to soften, doesn't want to admit vulnerability, wants to have control.
I want to be able to control everything in my life. I want to be able to control my relationships. Something that a neutral can say. I've heard it in clients so many times. A neutral in a relationship couple session saying, and then they came and told me they wanted to talk about the relationship. Well, I had to go to work in a few hours and I hadn't been forewarned.
And you know, if you want to talk about that, you've got to give me warning. I can't just drop into that and talk about that. It's not the time. It was almost like you didn't put it on the meetings agenda.
Hmm.
And, and the feminine person who the courage it took for them to finally say, could we talk about something that's really not working that we keep hitting the same brick wall painfully over and over again, which when they finally did speak it, they got smashed down because the neutral has got no intention of going there.
No.
I'll analyze the relationship.
Thank you very much. I'll deconstruct the relationship. I'll get pedantic about words. Don't say I'm this. I don't do that. What do you mean by that? We'll talk about that. We're not going to go into emotional patterns. Now, that's just when the neutral is separate.
We've all got M, F and N. It's just a matter of strengths and the order. So when an N is like that, they get freezing cold, if we're talking temperature. They are so fucking slow and cautious. And the more out of control they feel emotionally, the more micro controlling they are, the more dictatorial they are, that you have to do this, this, this, this, this, this. Tick, tick, tick. No, you can't leap over there, masculine. You haven't done the 15 steps in between. That's a fail. No. No. And then the masculine goes, well, I'll show you, I'll fight you. I don't have to do that. And so they war in different styles. They both think each other very lowly of each other, may I say. This happens in relationships in homes all the time. Whereas the strength of a neutral is it can save a lot of time. It can be... an adult, a light neutral can feel... a light... A light neutral has access to their emotions. They're not afraid to be passionate. They're not afraid to be vulnerable and to soften and to be compassionate. They have passion and compassion and it's mixed in.
And then they have the wisdom on top to be able to be the overseer of seeing what's going on.
Yeah.
So these the superpower gifts.
Masculine passion, compassion for the feminine, and then it's the... the wisdom comes in from the neutral.
Mm. And one of their strengths that I've had to learn a lot from is discernment, that they,
right,
they,
really We're really bad at
it.
I know, yeah, like this sense of pausing and considering and then diplomacy and discretion. And there's a professionalism and reliability that neutrals are the people you ask to get a job done because they tick all the boxes, they cross the T's, they dot the I's, they're very thorough.
So there's... like for you and I as MFs, there's a lot to learn from, from neutral.
A lot
to learn. And, and, and anytime I've added a bit of neutral, I've benefited. There's just no... anytime we'll add our weakness, we always benefit. So yes, you do want that, that those skills and there's respect for people. And they will speak with diplomacy and they're not going to be abusive. And I don't like highly emotive language.
And there's lots of places for that, that calmness. But if you have a fear of going to the inner intensity in yourself, the fire in yourself, primary neutral, the compassion and tenderness and vulnerability in yourself. If you haven't accessed them, then you'll keep overstressing the neutral as that's the way to do.
And it's about control. It's about making sure you don't hit emotion. Like your life is actually about defense and that will get in the way. And then a neutral will be overly perfectionistic about that's not perfect yet and they lose the big picture even though they're a visionary they lose the big picture and they keep... no I need to do that detail I need to redo that and that has to be redone that has to be redone because I don't want to risk going out there and being judged. There's a strong judge
A very critical judge in the neutral, but that also gets turned on themselves.
So they're super critical and that paralyzes their ability to act. And then they separate from feeling and then they work harder and try to get it right. Very independent. So relationships can be hard for them because they're used to compartmentalizing that's their comfort zone.
And you can feel so lonely in a relationship with a primary neutral, right?
You can, so you can feel bullied and abused in every which way with a masculine. You can feel like you've got a weeping hysterical child that'll never grow up Um, with a feminine, and you can feel the loneliest person in the world with a neutral who can't share a single personal inner world thing and it's just about getting the boxes done and you're living in isolation, but in the same house.
And so two questions. The first, and this is based on what I hear from clients often in my practice when introducing MFN is why... They're, they're curious as to why you've decided to use the language masculine feminine, because they just are so tied to gender. And the second is why introduce a third, which after explaining them, you can hear it's its own distinct type that needs to be noticed outside of masculine and feminine that we've had a gap
in.
But yeah, tell me, tell me about that.
Okay. So everyone knows about yin and
yang. This is a concept that's thousands of years old. I didn't choose it. It's not, it's not from me. You know, Jung talked about anima and animus and as masculine, feminine, I always forget which ones which, I'm not Jungian, but incredible where he went. So masculine, feminine energies. These are energies of how we are. We're made up of energies, Mim. So masculine feminine was always there. I actually studied it a bit in Kansas when I studied overseas a long, long time ago. And it was the thing that really drew my attention. But it didn't explain people enough.
So when I'm working with people, I'm going, yeah, but there's something else because some people aren't primary feminine or primary masculine. And then the minute I saw from all my archetypal work, my 12 archetypes, super archetypes, the personas and my 113 archetypes, which were before that. So it's, you know, it took me a while to get down to three. As soon as had neutral, I had everyone. I had, I could explain everyone and I've done lots of groups. We've called them cellmates or soulmates and relationship groups and just using MFN and oh my God, you know, parenting, friendship, siblings. So in our world, the patriarchal world has been very black and white.
It's been binary. It's been, you're a man, you should be masculine. You're a woman, you should be feminine. Well, you and I failed that and it was painful being like that, but there are a lot of men don't have M.
Yeah.
They
might be
NF and FN and
that's extremely painful. This is difficult. And I love gender diversity that's coming through now. And I love MFN because it's accurate. It's about, there's all sorts of varieties. No one is the same as anyone else. And let's celebrate gender diversity. Let's celebrate, sexual diversity. Let's celebrate our uniqueness because the patriarchal world wanted to put us in boxes and we're not, and masculine was deemed good.
Neutral was very good. You know, follow the conforming path, study, get a good job, work up, save money, get a promotion, stick within, make sure you've got 9 to 5, do well, keep achieving, keep achieving, keep achieving, then retire, should have good superannuation, then off you go, how's your life? And for, for this generation coming through, I mean, my kids are your age, Mim, and others, they are not wired. Their archetypes aren't wired to fit that model because that model was one that served post World War II when our world had to be built, rebuilt. We needed lots of people like that, but we don't have as many numbers of that coming through. Different numbers of different personas and MFN combinations come through for different times. And so, we have now, we're having a huge variety in the truth of who we are, which is gender diverse. And it's not even three, it's five, it's whatever you like. You know, because I can take you to 12, I can take you to 113, whatever you like. We can find you your uniqueness. But so now bringing the third is critical to healing.
We are actually in a time of moving to a feminine rising era, where the third is coming through. Where the real, empowered feminine that holds space for the unknown, for emotion, for the spiritual, is coming in, the neutral is coming in, the masculine is here. They're starting to meld together where we're here at the timeline change of the end of the patriarchal era and we can see it and so all these young people who you talk to, and the neurodiverse their superpowers of the neurodiverse which is strongly in some of the feminine personas and some of the neutral I would say, I mean, it can be in any of them.
Like it's just not limited. We're not about limits. We're about helping identify and foster the strengths we've got, the hidden talent, but also put in the support that's needed because we all have things that need to be worked on.
Mm. And I mean, on that note, because, uh, you know, we could go forever, but if we were to land somewhere, it would be, what would you leave people with in terms of how this language helps on a day to day practical level in life, relationships, work?
On a day to day level, think of how often you're triggered and, or the same argument comes up or the same impasse child, partner, friend, boss. Are you not sick of hitting the brick wall? Would you like to know that they are this and you are this and you're trying to reach them this way and they can't hear that language.
It's like speaking different languages, whether it be, you know, Russian to Mandarin and we keep going and we keep going. And why do they value this? And I don't, they're wrong. Like, would you like to know how to connect with people better? Would you like to know how to connect with yourself? And have more freedom to be who you were born to be. Now that you realize, I'm actually this. If you don't know it, how can you let it free? How can you foster it? This is about, it's the journey to love. It's the journey to self love and how to love others. This language is about real love language, not men are from Mars and women are from fucking Venus. That is the binary.
If it's two, it's wrong.
Hmm.
If it's two, it's
wrong. Because the truth is we are, it's a trinity. It's it's gotta have all three and we've got all three. This is the truth of self love. Consciousness means I don't keep hitting the same patterns and when that conflict comes up, Mim, and you push pause and you don't go there and maybe you hold space for yourself or you hold space for someone else that you actually do love and it doesn't go down that way and you get a deeper connection. You get a laugh. You get intimacy. You get more closeness which is what we wanted in the first place. It's just exhilarating. It's, it's the joy and it's peace. It's about peace. It's about joy. It's about love, darling.
Hmm. Thanks, Katie. And because where we go from here is we're going to dive into episodes that get even more specific on each M, F, and N, family blueprints, family replicas, how we can put this in practice as, as self parenting. So I'm really looking forward to, to getting deeper into those things. Is there anything else you wanted to share before we finish today?
Just thank you. Thank you so much for having
me.
I think the world's ready for this information now, Mim. I think the world's ready to be different and for us to let go of what feels so entrenched as, well, I'm this. Well, you know, a lot of that's coming off. This, this is the time to move to who we really are.
I think a lot of people are ready. So, thank you so much for letting me have the opportunity.
Hmm. Thanks Katie. And if anyone wants to dive into more, head to Katie's website, katieedentodd.com. But yeah, there'll be more information in the show notes and we look forward to seeing you in the,
in the upcoming episodes.
