Dark half of the Year - part 3 Shadow Work, Misogyny & Balancing the Masculine and Feminine (Ep 43)

Welcome back to the dark half of the year. In this third and final part of our mini-series, Hannah and Sarah dive deep into the theme of shadow work, exploring what it means to meet the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away, and how this relates to misogyny and the imbalance of masculine and feminine energies in our world.

Together, we open a gentle, honest conversation about how these patterns show up in our daily lives and collective systems from the subtle ways we reject feminine qualities like softness and stillness, to the wider effects of patriarchy on both women and men.

You’ll hear personal stories, insights on healthy boundaries, and tangible ways to start healing the feminine wound all with compassion, curiosity, and care.

This episode invites you to:
🌑 Understand what shadow work truly is and how to do it safely
🌗 Reflect on how misogyny and patriarchy shape your inner world
🌕 Embrace the balance of masculine and feminine energies within you
💫 Learn four simple ways to end misogyny.... starting with yourself

Recorded during Scorpio season, this conversation is raw, real, and restorative, it's an invitation to hold both light and dark with love.

Resources & Mentions:

• Dr. Previn Karion (YouTube – talks on misogyny and psychology)
• The Holistic Health Collective membership & moon ceremonies join a moon ceremony here https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/moonceremony 
• Silent Retreat in January 2026 (Kent) — now open to men and women more info here: https://www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk/retreats/

Connect with us:
Website: www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk

Instagram: @holistichealthcollectiveuk

If you would like our free moon download to get the list of the 12 astrological signs and how they impact your body parts and emotions, grab that here: https://holistichealthc.kartra.com/page/moondownload

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Transcript

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Yes. Welcome to the Holistic Health Sisters podcast of Wellness and Real Life Sisters Hannah Carr and Sarah King from the Holistic Health Collective. In this podcast, we're going to be sharing our passion for, of course, holistic health, but also spirituality, healings, hormone, plant medicine, seasonal living, our love of nature, and our love of community. So we are gonna invite you to take a pause and take a nice deep breath. And join us on a path of healing, of self-discovery and self-love, and of stepping into the brilliance of who you really are. This is a podcast for the seekers out there. Those of you who know there's more to life than just surviving or going through the motions, and you want more, more health, wealth, happiness, love, compassion, connection, trust, surrender. And more faith. And you want that for others too. So we can make this world a better place for us all. So go and grab a cup of ceremonial grade cacao and join us as we explore what moves through us, that which is divinely led, so we can all move from fear to walls. More faith. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Welcome back to the dark half of the year. This is part three where we are diving into shadow work, as that's a great thing to do at this time of year and particularly misogyny the masculine and feminine polarities. And it's both myself and Sarah here for this third part, and Sarah's gonna kick us off by sharing a little bit about. What does shadow work mean and what is misogyny? And just making sure that we are all starting from, a clear place. Yeah. Hi everyone. Welcome. And let's just start with a bit of a full belly breath because we're gonna dive into some shadow work, collective shadows, and we all hold them. So it's really important to look after yourself. To resource to listen with curiosity. And our intention for talking about this subject is to bring balance and harmony through our words and through our information sharing. So there's no blame and there's no shame. And this episode really is to empower all of us. So we are recording this in Scorpio season. There'll be a Scorpio New Moon episode following this one, and that really will delve into shadow work more deeply. So signpost in you there, but generally speaking, shadow work is the process of exploring and integrating the hidden parts of the psyche, known as the shadow self. And they can include repressed emotions, fears, and even desires. And a lot of the work on the shadow aspects of ourselves was done by the psychologist Carl Jung. And we've done lots of work in this, in the membership, in the holistic health circle. And we've put little package together of exploring shadow work through adrenaline and mirror work and breath work. And there's lots of ways that you can do it. But I do recommend. Just making sure that you are resourced enough when you do your shadow work.'cause it can bring up a lot and be destabilizing if we're not being aware. And we are going to be speaking about misogyny as well. And the definition of misogyny is a deep seated, dislike, contempt, or prejudiced against women. And it can range from subtle biases to overt hostility. And violence. So just pausing. Take a breath. I also wanted a reference. We'd be speaking about masculine and feminine. Energies within us that we all hold and carry that are recognized in the subtle body anatomy in many cultures, but not so well known in the western world or sciences. We all carry masculine and feminine energies, so not necessarily man versus woman. You might know them as yin yang. Sun, moon, but one cannot exist without the other. So I'm gonna give us a list of these. So when we reference the rejection of some of the feminine energies, men are rejecting these within themselves. And women too. Some of the masculine energies, so I'll just ping pong between them. So the masculine is life, the feminine is death. Masculine is movement. Feminine stillness. Masculine male, feminine female. Sun, moon, hot, cold, hard, soft, light, dark, aggressive, passive dominance, submission, strong, weak, big, small, love hate. Affirmative negative. So as I read that list, I can already feel within me the question or the making wrong or rejecting some of those feminine qualities like death or small or softness, because we've been so deeply programmed to think that they're not valuable. And I just wondered if anything came up for you, Hannah, as I was reading that list out. What came to mind for me when I think about the masculine and the feminine, which was not on that list, was straight and curvy. So often when you look at a man, just the silhouette, is just very straight. And for a woman it's very curvy and it's just the opposites, isn't it? And it is just that polarity, because we can't know one without the other. We can't know what cold is without hot, we can't know what. Daytime is without night. And that's why we have these polarities in this 3D reality is really, so we know the other and it's not helping any of us to be rejecting any part of the polarity experience, I guess is the best way to say it. Yeah. And another one, which I didn't read out, but the, the way that the mind thinks in the masculine is quite logical and binary, but for feminine, it's chaos. And again, that's not. Negative term chaos. Chaos is great because it can really integrate creativity, but there's so many negative connotations on that. So if that's coming up within you as the listener, just hold that with curiosity. And if we are triggering you in a trauma-informed lens, triggers come up usually when we are safe enough to look at that shadow part. And so if you can do that work with us, my dears. We are trying to heal this wound of the rejection of the feminine by doing this episode. So how it shows up. And we'll speak specifically through our lived experience as women that live in the west and women of privilege and pretty much fully abled bodies. And we know that. This is not the case for women across the world and that women have come a really long way here in the west when it comes to closing some of the equalities, and there's a long way to go as well. But we. We just wanted to speak to our sisters in other cultures that are maybe imprisoned and abused more radically than us. And sending them love and compassion how it's showing up. We'll speak to personal experience, but in generally it can range from blatant aggression. To more covert actions that undermine women. So for example, de derogatory language, sexist slurs, or demeaning terms when referring to women, such as calling them emotional, bossy, irrational, and they reinforce the stereotypes that women are inferior or less capable than men. Objectification, you know so much around physical appearance and women still treating them as objects of male desire. And this behavior is often seen in the media advertising and everyday interactions where women are valued more for their looks than their abilities. I saw a post on social media yesterday, Sarah, and it was written about a couple that had broken up and they said the woman and named her age, and then they mentioned the man and didn't name his age, and there were so many comments from women saying. Why is that? Why have you mentioned the age of the woman but not the man? So it is it seems to be subtle, but it runs through lots of Yeah. Like subtle threads through society where that shouldn't make a difference at all. But that's a headline, right? That people want to read and things that people are interested in. Absolutely. Yeah. Another one is dismissing women's opinions. So misogynists might consistently undermine or dismiss a woman's ideas or opinions, especially in professional settings. So it might be that you're constantly interrupted during conversations, or you might doubt your expertise in areas typically dominated by men or masculine energy. And then the other one is hostility towards women's empowerment. Individuals with misogynistic tendencies often react negatively to female empowerment, feminism or movements aimed at achieving gender equality. They may express hostility towards women in leadership positions or dismiss feminist concerns as trivial. Oh, okay. So we've still got a long way to go. But Hannah and I wanted it. I always bring our vulnerable personal experiences in. And I would say that I grew up in misogynstic household and I really just noticed, and we spoke about the rejection of the feminine of our own personal cycles in the other episodes of this dark half of the year miniseries. But shall we speak a little bit to. It was like, growing up in that way and how it manifested within our own thoughts and behaviors and actions. Yeah, absolutely. And I heard you take a breath, Sarah. All, it does all feel quite heavy, but we are actually taking those first tentative steps of. Bringing out the shadows and into the light in a public way for us. Bear with us while we do this, and then we invite you to do that in your own micro ways in your world as well, with your family, with your friends, maybe on your platforms as well. I suppose what I'd start by saying is, yeah, I agree with you. I think that we did grow up in, a household like that. And it made me reject aspects of the feminine to want to fit into what seemed to be acceptable. And so that might be from like ways that I was dressing, I've definitely always felt much more empowered in a pair of trousers or a trousers suit then. Then just a dress and even maybe just being in an dress or a skirt has never felt as safe for me in society as it has to be in a pair of trousers. In a very simple way. I remember trying to increase some of my skills that were judged in our household. And women, for example, women drivers were a big thing that was judged. So I wanted to make sure that I became. A really good driver. So I wasn't a target of that. How would I say it that attack a target of that attack. What ways did it show up for you, Sarah? Now that I've done my training for being a trauma informed coach and practitioner, looking at those stress responses of the fawn response in particular, so soft came up rather than strong as a feminine quality. It wasn't something I really wanted to embody, but when you are faced with something that is bigger. Stronger, louder, faster, more physically powerful than you. Then what you have left to, to do is go into these self preservation techniques like the fawn response, which is really showed up as people pleasing for me. And it's really worth saying again, as I do pretty much every time I speak about the stress responses. Oh, there are no wrong responses. They're not something to try and. Overcome, so to speak because they were saving you and they were protecting you, and so they were completely appropriate. And I'm glad that I was able to do that. Otherwise, you're at risk of your life basically. So people pleasing became a really big thing. Not knowing You could say yes when you want to say no or no, when you really want to say yes and giving yourself away to the point where. I was actually told, and I dunno if you was that I own you. Yeah. So I believed that and I felt like then I was there for someone else to serve someone else's needs. And I didn't have the right to tap into my own needs and life purpose. And if I did, I was, I felt guilty about that. And I did speak about colonization on our last. taurus podcasts because that's what that is. It's taking, using wielding power to take ownership of something where we should we should all feel empowered of our own inner landscape and our own bodies. Therefore, us, they can be enjoyed by others, but that's for us to decide. And set our own healthy boundaries around. Nobody else has the right to your body unless you give them permission. So yeah, that's a, quite a deep wound, but I do feel really much more empowered around that one. So exercise your right to tune into your own inner Yes. And your own inner No. And your maybe as well. And we teach these in our containers, don't we? The embodiment of this, because for people that have undergone stress and trauma, they'll be in their heads as a safe space. So they'll just be tuned to what was the right thing to do or say to stop somebody else reacting or being empowered. Absolutely. I think it's worth mentioning about patriarchy here as well. So apart from our own personal experience of misogyny, of which we could probably talk about all day patriarchy has been, we think around for six to 10,000 years. So it's not just in the homes, but it's actually in religion, government, it's in enforced laws. It's in the military as well. And what that means is that. Our systems are largely dominated by men. So they're oppressing the feminine, they're holding the power, they're holding the superiority. And it even showed up in things like women only more in more recent decades, being able to get their own mortgage and their own bank account, and even being able to work as well. And so this doesn't only affect women like Sarah said at the beginning, but it actually represses the feminine within men as well. And so for men themselves, it might only be safe to have certain roles. So for a young boy, that may be that it's not really accepted in a family to go to a dance class for example, but it is. Acceptable to go to rugby or football, even though the young boy may not want to do that. But it also limits a man's emotional expression as well. And for women, I would say for most women in the Western world, we are much more likely to be able to express ourself emotionally, but it is still suppressed to an extent. And for men it also suppresses, their sexuality. And just ideas itself. It's like more rigid and more narrow ideas. So it's come through this patriarchal society as ways that we're all living and to be honest, it's ways that we're all missing out as well. Yeah, and actually I just mentioned the word misandry, which is the opposite. It's the hatred and contempt for men. That's the counterpart of misogyny. Much less frequently discussed, but equally harmful. And we wanna be really careful in our spaces not to feed into that because we've got a love of all humans and actually we have worked in our business. Pretty much exclusively with women for five years. And that's shifting now because we feel we've done the inner work of coming into harmony and really expressing and healing the shadow aspects of our inner feminine. And then that's reflecting externally for us where we feel safe enough now to invite the masculine or men into our containers as well. Bring that into balance. Yeah, and I do like to look at the psychology of where things begin and. Most in, in quotations. Bad behavior in life really comes from fear. And so I wanna point some people to a resource around misogyny actually, which is, there's a guy called Dr. Previn Karion I think K-A-R-I-O-N. And if you type that into YouTube and type in misogyny, he actually, speaks about that. And what he says is that men fundamentally don't have a relationship with the earth and with life itself because they can't give birth. And because of that, there is. A lack, I guess a lack there and a fear. And because of that, they then fear that they need to control. So I think that's really interesting is this behavior really coming from a fear? And that could be researched a little bit with that doctor. Yeah, that's a great resource. And linking back to fear again. And as I drop more into compassion as we do our own inner healing and compassion overrides judgment.'cause it's very easy to blame others and say all the problems are in the world are down to the toxic patriarchy and maybe we can find lots and lots of evidence for that as well. Why are those people with the power acting that way, they must feel really threatened. And remember many threats are perceived threats. They're not real. And so I was coming, I was having that conversation about with my partner this morning about the powers that be, and I said that they must. Feel so in fear to, to feel they need to control things so much. And fear is on the spectrum of love. It's just the polar opposite, isn't it? So in, in some way our life is an expression of love because it is connecting us back to the oneness. But it really has tipped too far in the opposite direction. And again, we've spoken to this in many of the episodes about. The destruction of planet Earth at such a rapid pace. She doesn't have time to restore herself anymore.'cause we're consuming so much. And so we are, as a planet, we're holding too much fear at the moment, but it's not all doom and gloom because we do get to work on that within ourselves. That's the only thing we can really control, is our own experience and we can do our own healing. We love doing it collectively and bringing people together with the same intention, but. If you're listening to this and you're a woman or not, there are some easy ways that we can put an end to misogyny. So I'm gonna give four easy ways, and one is to stop judging yourself and other women. Yeah. Because when we criticize and judge ourselves, we cannot see the value in who we are or what we do. It's often that it's not enough, not good enough. All of these not enoughness. So we have to start with ourselves and believe in our own self-worth and confidently radiate it as much as we can. And, we judge our appearance we judge ourselves and our achievements or productivity, and we will be measuring ourselves against other women or men too, which means we're not in that state of acceptance. And while we're at it, why don't we stop comparing ourselves to men? Different anatomy, different energy cycles, different hormones or different measures, right? So yes. The men, the world's sort of been built for men the size of your phones to your car seats, to the health system the medication. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, men are amazing in their own ways, but they don't thrive in the toxic patriarchal system. That's why there's such high suicide rates, or porn addiction or loneliness. So they're not having an easy time of it either. So second way we can put an into misogyny is to celebrate other women. Stronger together, find your tribe. We really, we were brought up to be in competition with other women and that often means feeling jealous or not good enough. And this really keeps us locked in that system of individuality and separation. But we really do thrive together. I've definitely seen that within you, Hannah, and within our containers. There was a fear of being seen by other women, and now we are happy to show up in quotations imperfectly. As long as we've got that intention of helping others it doesn't feel as scary for me as it used to. What's your experience? It feels wonderful. It feels beautiful, but I guess I feel, do feel like I am calling in. Less judgmental women, so it feels easier to be safer around them. But that's only gonna be a reflection of myself, which means I'm less judgmental of other women and just of things in life. And so those people are coming to me more easily. I think I'd add to that where you said, let's celebrating women. The other side of that is if you feel like you need to moan, bitch complain, or judge something in yourself or another woman, it would be catching that and sitting with that, having the courage to sit with that and ask yourself why. What is even the underlying fear. So to catch those. Complaints or that gossip maybe it feels fun sometimes to gossip a little bit. Yeah, and just being brave to pause and ask yourself I think what perhaps you're really getting out of that is a sense of bonding with someone else. But the truth is it's not that great because you know that it might be about you Sometime there's not really deep trust there with another sister who's doing that with you because you know it may come. Be turned back on you at any point. So to have the courage and the bravery to maybe even say to your sister friends that actually, I'm not sure this is for my highest good or our highest good anymore. Choose to focus on perhaps what you admire, what you like, or what you'd like to work towards a little bit more rather than that kind of gossip kind of energy. Yeah, I love. And then one other way we can work on misogyny within ourselves is to embrace our menstrual cycle. We spoke about that in the last episode in detail. And if you don't have an inner cycle connecting with the moon cycle, so again, I'll take you back to episode one where we're all about moon cycles and showing you that nature is beautiful in every season, even when it's bare and dark and decomposing. Because you're not part of nature. You are nature. You have your own cycle, your own rhythm. And these can be unique to you and they can be a doorway to your gifts. So you know, track your inner cycle and celebrate the seasons, the seasonal changes. See if you can challenge yourself to find as many things that you love about autumn and winter as you do about the other months, and hold those. Shadow aspects of you. So when fear creeps in or doubt or gossiping about somebody else, meet that with curiosity and what is that about me? What is that serving? It will be serving something. And what I'd say is it was keeping you safe in some way because we do live in a patriarchal society. And to be othered, to be cast out and to be different. Is could be dangerous in some way. It leaves you outside the tribe. But what's the reality of that for you today? Where could you start? Where could you start that 1% step towards harmonizing your inner masculine in your inner feminine? Okay. So to recap, there's four easy ways you as a woman can help to put an end to misogyny. One, stop judging yourself and other women. Two, stop comparing yourself to men. Three, celebrate other women and four, tune into the moon or menstrual cycle. Beautiful. I do feel like we've actively worked on all of those and that is harmonizing those judgments within ourselves. And I think just reflecting on misogyny and maybe people that you feel. Are still displaying those tendencies. Just from a personal point of view, I don't think that there's anything that as a woman you can say or do to change someone's mind. If they haven't got respect for you, they haven't got respect for you, and that is part of their soul's journey and their evolution, which might take a very long time. To bring back into balance. And for me, I just feel like distance is the only thing that I can put between me and them, and it's actually a respect thing to actually give them space and distance to work on themselves and come to their own realizations in a time when they are ready to, without trying to force something upon someone. Would you have any different ideas about that, Sarah? About how someone, if they feel they've got perhaps a very misogynistic father or brother or friend or colleague what do you think? A tangible way that they could, protect themselves from that a little bit. I think boundaries is the best thing to look at. So micro boundaries and macro boundaries. Like you say, one, you might need to put distance between you and somebody else, but if it's your boss and you can't do that on a daily level, on a daily basis. You need to be able to tune into your own inner experience and notice when boundaries are being crossed and what damage that might be doing to you, and start to speak your truth. I can't stay later than seven o'clock tonight without any explanation or over explaining things. So using, again, that 1% rule of what could I, how could I protect myself in this scenario? And also seeking safe people and safe places. Is there a healthy divine masculine in your life, whether that's a woman exhibiting the healthy masculine or a man and leaning on them for support. In a healthy way interdependent of each other. If you haven't got healthy masculine examples around you. I would be inclined to literally ask God the universe to bring those people to me. And I have done that many times in my life. And it has really worked from wise elders to teachers, to the healthy masculine, to, I've asked the universe before for more male friends because. I'd lost that connection over the years, and whenever I've asked it, it might not always be instantaneous, but those people have been brought to me in time. So that feels like that's tried and tested for me. And I often look to spiritual teachers or leaders that seem like healthy males. Or people that are in the public view that you admire as a male that seem to be balanced. They can express their emotions and they can lead from their heart as well. So they've got a sense of strength within them and courage, but they're not afraid to touch in with their emotions and it, and express them as well. And obviously they see women and men as equals. That's another way to encourage the healthy expression of the masculine as well, isn't it? To provide a safe space for the masculine to express. Because sometimes women can be turned off, if you like, by a man that seems weak in that way, but that's really us just rejecting the feminine within ourselves and within the masculine as well. So to actually hold that safe space and maybe even validate those expressions to know that they are valued. Absolutely. And so part of the part of the healing we are doing is really to stop. Us fighting against each other as humans and to start to see the best in one another. And it might mean that you need to withdraw and rediscover parts of you in order to do that. So if anything's coming up for you, if you've been moved emotionally in this podcast or even triggered, we'd like to hear from you either way. And if you want to seek support through us, we have got our moon ceremonies open, as we've mentioned before now and so this is a really great way to, to do shadow work through the full moon ceremonies and to set intentions with the new moon ceremonies. And another word is one of the yin yang or masculine feminine opposites are masculine is language and feminine is silence. And aren't we a nation of over talkers often? We'd rather talk about our problems and issues rather than listen inwardly to them. So our. Silent retreat that we are hosting in January, 2026 in Kent is nearly full and it is open to men and women. So if you are called to explore that silence, that inner feminine aspect, and as I said, we're doing this in January because it's it's a very quiet month in nature. And so nature is showing us, let's be quiet, let's go within. And to see what's there for us, what wisdom is there, and what healing needs to take place or celebration. So we would love to to see you there. We've got three more spots left. I think I'd like to close by sharing a personal experience of as I've grown in confidence as I've got older and, been on my own healing journey, I actually asked someone who I would consider misogynistic, why they acted. In the way that they acted. So I obviously felt safe enough to ask this person at that time, and it was a very soul to soul question I was asking with curiosity and without judgment. And the answer was I always knew that it was wrong. And so what I'd like to leave as a closing thought is hurt. People do hurt people. That's not to excuse behavior, but it is to help us bring in more compassion rather than only judgment. When these types of behaviors are exhibited, and even if we want to distance ourself from that person and put in that space that we spoke about earlier, we can still understand perhaps from an energetic standpoint that compassion is. Required here, and that person is probably going for a lot of hurt themselves. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. Share and take the time to heal yourself and start with that compassionate peace for yourself. Strengthen it within so that then you can project it without as well. So thank you so much for listening to this episode, and we, as I said, we'd really like to hear from any points that have moved you or even triggered you, and we are here for support. Please reach out, you get us on socials or on email or on dms, and that concludes our mini series for the dark half of the year. Thank you a million times, Ava, for joining us on this podcast episode. You can support the show by giving us a follow on any podcast platform you're listening to this on. If you already follow us, then thank you so much and maybe share this episode. If you think of someone, someone comes to mind where you think they'd really benefit from listening to this. This is one way that we like to spread the love with our friends, is sharing podcasts or playlist. So let them know that we are thinking about them. So just send it on to them with a few words about why they might enjoy it. And if you'd like to check out any of our in-person events or retreats or our online offerings, head over to our website, www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk. We'll see you in the next episode.