What Feminine Energy Really Is - And what it has to do with submission

 

Most conversations about “feminine energy” are upside down. They talk about tone of voice, smiling more, slowing your walk, curating softness. That is performance. Performance is not femininity.

 

At its core, feminine energy is receptivity. Not passivity. Receptivity. It is the way you take life in first, let it move you, then give from what you’ve actually received. When that is your natural lead, we call it feminine expression. When you force yourself to act first in order to get something back, you are in inversion. Inversion exhausts you. It makes your body tighten, your mind spin, and your life feel like management rather than aliveness.

 

This post unpacks the real thing. If you read closely and try the practices at the end, you will feel the difference in your nervous system today.

 

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Feminine vs. Masculine: Clean Definitions

 

 

Let’s clean up the language.

 

• Feminine energy: receptivity. Taking life in. Feeling first.

• Masculine energy: outwardness. Giving, directing, initiating.

 

 

Everyone has both. This is not “women are feminine, men are masculine.” It is about what you lead with. Many women have a feminine core. Many men have a masculine core. Healthy relationships allow both energies to be present and to complement each other.

 

Feminine expression is not a costume. It is a way of living where you receive first, then give from fullness. Masculine expression does first, then receives the reward of that doing. Neither is better. They are different movements of life.

 

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The Exhaustion You’re Feeling Has a Name: Inverted Polarity

 

 

Inversion happens when a woman with a feminine core lives as if she must act, manage, and control in order to be safe. I call this the doing to get loop.

 

Markers of inversion:

 

• Constant low-level anxiety or vigilance

• Resentment and depletion

• Numbness or loss of libido

• A tight relationship with time, food, body, or perfection

• A compulsion to manage your partner, your children, your calendar, your emotions

 

 

The cost is not just emotional. Inversion trains your nervous system to live in fight, flight, or freeze. It narrows your range of feeling and makes joy feel like work.

 

Why does this happen? Because from early life most girls are taught to perform to be loved. Good grades to earn approval. Good behavior to avoid rejection. “Never rely on a man.” “Take care of yourself.” Add cultural distrust of the masculine, religious and institutional harm, and a career world built for relentless output. Walls go up. Receptivity goes down. You survive by doing.

 

It makes sense. It just isn’t freedom.

 

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Performance Isn’t Femininity

 

 

You can light candles, slow your speech, and say “radiance” a lot. If you are still acting first to manage an outcome, you are performing. Real feminine expression includes the full range of feeling. That means softness and laughter. It also means grief, anger, rage, and holy no.

 

If what you’re receiving from life is painful or out of integrity, your body will tell the truth before your mind does. Receptivity allows that truth to move you. Performance hides it.

 

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Receiving to Give vs. Doing to Get

 

 

Two simple postures:

 

• Receiving to give: I let life in. I feel. From the fullness or friction I receive, I respond. My giving is overflow or honest movement.

• Doing to get: I act first to control. I manage my partner, my schedule, my body, my image, to secure a result that will finally let me relax.

 

 

One opens you. One hardens you.

 

A woman in feminine expression can absolutely lead teams, build companies, and crush projects. The difference is where she is moving from. A feminine-led woman still initiates. She just doesn’t abandon receptivity to do it.

 

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Feminine Expression and Submission: Why They Belong Together

 

 

Submission inside a D/s dynamic is the act of letting go of control and giving yourself over to be led. You cannot be controlling and truly surrendered at the same time. When a woman is rooted in receptivity, she is already practicing surrender to life. Submission to a trusted partner then becomes a natural extension of that state. Obedience isn’t appeasement. It’s an expression of freedom, desire, and trust.

 

This is where many burn out on “being a good sub.” If the submission is still a strategy to get love, attention, or stability, it is performance. It will drain you. Submission from feminine fullness enlivens you.

 

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Safety Without Walls: Discernment + Voice

 

 

When you stop over-managing, you must not drop your standards. Your two safety mechanisms:

 

1. Discernment: Where and from whom do you receive? Does this person, space, or content feel good in your body? Not “will it get me what I want” but “does it feel clean, alive, and true right now.”

2. Voice: Use your voice early and directly. Not to control. To name what is true. Your no is part of your receptivity. Without it, your yes is meaningless.

 

 

Discernment plus voice lets the walls come down while you remain deeply safe.

 

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The Masculine-Led Container Question

 

 

“Shouldn’t a woman teach women about femininity?” Sometimes, yes. And there is a clean reason a man can be the right person to lead this work: leading a container is an initiatory role. It is, by definition, a masculine act. A woman can teach from feminine wisdom while holding a masculine frame, but she must step out of her receiving state to do so. That tradeoff matters. My vantage point comes from seven years of leading Dawn back into her natural feminine expression while staying deeply surrendered to feeling her. That intimacy with her body, emotions, and truth is what I’m teaching from.

 

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How To Begin Unwinding Inversion

 

 

This is simple but not easy. You’re replacing survival patterns with a truer way of being. Expect tenderness. Expect relief.

 

 

1) Slow down

 

 

You cannot feel if you do not slow down. Start with a ruthless inventory of energy leaks.

 

• Reduce optional commitments for 30 days

• Shorten your to-do list to three musts per day

• Create unscheduled white space daily

• Replace 30 minutes of scrolling with 30 minutes of sensation: breath, bath, walk, dance

 

 

 

2) Close the drain

 

 

Imagine a bathtub. Water can leave by the drain or spill over the rim when full.

 

• Drain open: over-giving, appeasing, volunteering from guilt, managing everyone’s feelings, saying yes when your body says no

• Overflow: giving because you are full, moved, turned on by life

 

 

Your job is to close the drain. Stop giving from emptiness. Choose one weekly commitment to pause. Notice what feelings rush in when you stop appeasing. That is the work.

 

 

3) Practice receiving first

 

 

Micro-practice: before you answer a request, breathe and ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Then answer from what you feel. Not from what you fear.

 

Additional practices:

 

• Eat one meal a day slowly with no screens

• Let your partner hold you for 10 minutes while you say nothing and feel everything

• Allow anger or grief to move through your body without making it a problem

 

 

 

4) Upgrade your inputs

 

 

Your nervous system is porous. Be discerning with what you let in.

 

• Unfollow accounts that dysregulate you

• Limit news to a single check-in window

• Curate music, movement, and environments that soften your body and widen your breath

 

 

 

5) Devotion to self

 

 

Devotion to self is not independence. It is a clear commitment: I will not abandon myself for belonging, image, or approval. This makes your no clean and your yes trustworthy. From that devotion, letting go of control becomes sane. You no longer need walls to be safe.

 

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For Men Who Want To Lead

 

 

If you want to lead a feminine partner into surrender, do not ask her to perform. Build conditions where her body can let go.

 

• Lead with presence, consistency, and follow-through

• Give clear structure that reduces her mental load

• Invite feeling rather than demand behavior

• Reward honesty over compliance

• Earn trust by making good use of what she reveals

 

 

Your leadership should make it easier for her to receive. If she is getting tighter, you are adding pressure rather than offering direction.

 

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Checks and Self-Inquiry

 

 

Use these prompts as a weekly audit.

 

• Where today did I act first to secure safety or an outcome?

• Where today did I receive first, then respond from what I felt?

• What am I consuming that tightens my body? What opens it?

• Which relationship asks for more discernment, not more effort?

• If I closed one drain this week, which would create the most relief?

 

 

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Common Misconceptions

 

 

“If I slow down, nothing will get done.” 

Things still get done. They just get done cleaner, with less resentment, because you are moving from alignment instead of panic.

 

“Feminine expression means I never lead.” 

False. You can initiate from receptivity. You feel first, then direct.

 

“Submission will make me small.” 

Performance makes you small. True submission expands you because you are no longer pretending to be in control. You become more honest, more alive, and more vocal.

 

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A Final Word

 

 

If feminine expression is your natural state, you do not have to build it. You unlearn what keeps you from it. That means less managing. More feeling. Less performance. More honesty. It will likely include tears. It will almost certainly include anger that finally gets to move. It will definitely include relief.

 

Give yourself time. Give yourself devotion. Let your life begin to fill you again, then give from what spills over.

 

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Communion: A Six-Month Return to Your Feminine Core

 

 

On October 1, 2025, enrollment opens for the next round of Communion. This is my six-month container for women who are ready to dismantle inversion and live from feminine expression. It is part teaching, part daily practice, and entirely experiential. You will not be asked to perform. You will be guided to feel, to receive, to speak, and to live from fullness. If you show up for the work, you will come out changed.

 

Questions or interest: visit https://infinitedevotion.com/communion2025 if you'd like more information on Communion. If this post resonated, Communion is the space to make it your life.

 

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Episode 102 of Dom Sub Devotion goes even deeper into this topic. Click here to listen, or click here to watch on YouTube!