The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

part of us. At a certain point, we inwardly rebel at the loss of what is so
essentially a part of us.
In primitive cultures around the world, the wisest man or woman in
the tribe was the shaman, the healer who could communicate with the
spirit world. The male shaman had an inner woman or wife whom he
listened to closely and who guided him. The female shaman had the
inner husband. The shamans’ power came from the depth of their
communication with this inner figure, which was experienced as a real
woman or man from within. The shaman figure reflects a profound
psychological truth that our most primitive ancestors had access to. In
fact, in the myths of many ancient cultures—Persian, Hebrew, Greek,
Egyptian—original humans were believed to be both male and female;
this made them so powerful that the gods feared them and split them
in half.

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Understand: The return to your original nature contains
elemental power. By relating more to the natural feminine or
masculine parts within you, you will unleash energy that has been
repressed; your mind will recover its natural fluidity; you will
understand and relate better to those of the opposite sex; and by
ridding yourself of the defensiveness you have in relation to your
gender role, you will feel secure in who you are. This return requires
that you play with styles of thinking and acting that are more
masculine or feminine, depending on your imbalance. But before
describing such a process, we must first come to terms with a deeply
ingrained human prejudice about the masculine and the feminine.
For millennia, it has been men who largely defined masculine and
feminine roles and who imposed value judgments on them. Feminine
styles of thinking were associated with irrationality, and feminine ways
of acting seen as weak and inferior. We may have outwardly
progressed in terms of inequality between the genders, but inwardly
these judgments still have profound roots in us. The masculine style of
thinking is still esteemed as superior, and femininity is still
experienced as soft and weak. Many women have internalized these
judgments. They feel that being equal means being able to be as tough
and aggressive as men. But what is truly needed in the modern world is
to see the masculine and the feminine as completely equal in potential
reasoning power and strength of action, but in different ways.
Let us say there are feminine and masculine styles when it comes to
thinking, taking action, learning from experience, and relating to other
people. These styles have been reflected in the behavior of men and
women for thousands of years. Some are related to physiological
differences, some stem mostly from culture. Certainly there are men
who have more feminine styles and women more masculine styles, but
almost all of us are imbalanced to one side or the other. Our task is to
open ourselves up to the opposite. We have only our rigidity to lose.