What Is Feminine Nourishment — And 4 Ways Men Can Fully Receive It
For men, the ability to truly receive feminine nourishment is a learned skill.
GaudiLab/ Shutterstock Growing up, I experienced a lot of wounding with the feminine.
Bullying, break ups, being emotionally decimated at my most vulnerable…
At the age of 20, I felt like I’d had enough.
I didn’t want to be vulnerable with women anymore.
I wanted to armor up. Shut them out. Punish them for how they’d hurt me.
I studied hundreds of books on pick-up, psychology, neuro-linguistic programming, mentalism… and anything else that would give me the upper hand in my relationships with women. I even made teaching men how to pick up (and emotionally shut down) my job for a few years.
Even though I actively dated through my 20s, I spent the majority of the decade keeping women at an emotional arms distance.
The thing that stands out the most to me from this time is the fact that I dated two women during my mid-20s for a year each, and even though we had a regular and satisfying sex life (as satisfying as I could experience at that time), once we were finished having sex, I would never lay my head on their chests.
Even if they put their hand on the back of my head to gently guide me down to rest, while verbally asking me to do so, I simply wouldn’t do it.
In my armored-up mind, to do so would be to give up my power. It would be aiding and abetting the enemy. Giving her more to hurt me with in the future.
Every bit of softness I showed… every vulnerable piece I let slip out, would simply be ammunition to be used against me at a later date. Without hyperbole, this is how I experienced it.
I was also hyper-sexual during these years. Which makes total sense to me. Why would that be the case? Well, you can’t get enough of that which doesn’t satisfy you.
No matter how sweet, loving, and kind my partner’s intentions were, my mind would find ways to doubt or fear them, so their love wasn’t really getting past my walls.
It wasn’t until I entered my 30s that it really started to dawn on me how much I had been pushing women away for the previous decade.
While I’ve gotten a lot better at receiving the love, affection, and nourishment of my partner, it is still an ongoing growth edge.
What is feminine nourishment?
There are still times when I’ll be cuddling with Demetra for longer than ten minutes and I’ll check in one too many times to make sure that she isn’t bored or frustrated with me for wanting to cuddle so much.
Or, for another example, several months ago one of my mentors recommended that Demetra and I do a cradling exercise (in which Demetra holds/cradles me like a young infant in her lap). And even though this was first recommended to us at least four or five months ago, I still haven’t done it.
I generally identify as a good student that takes action quickly — and yet, I still have resistance to this simple act. The concept of letting my partner (who literally moved countries to live with me, and has shown a deep commitment to me in many ways) hold me tenderly still makes me tear up.
I’m in touch with the underlying reason why I have such resistance to this (my unloved inner child craves/fears it), and yet, I still haven’t done it or scheduled it.
So this resistance can run deep.
Today, things look very different than they did in my 20s…
I often lay my head on Demetra’s chest, without hesitation. We regularly cuddle for hours at a time and I take it in fully. Not only this, but the majority of my teachers and mentors are currently women, and I trust and accept their insights with ease.
All of this to say, I receive from women in a variety of ways, and it’s never been easier for me than it is today — so progress is absolutely possible.
The importance of letting feminine nourishment land in your body:
For men, the ability to truly receive feminine nourishment is a skill.
I mean, I don’t think it was a skill when you were first born. Your body inherently knew how to receive touch, love, and affection.
But over time, as the world stomped on your sensitivity and told you to swallow your feelings, letting love all the way in became more difficult.
In a healthy, dynamic, reciprocal intimate relationship, both partners love and nourish each other in significant ways, every single day.
But if one partner starts to withhold their nourishment, or the other partner starts to block their openness and reception, then this energetic block can run relationships into the ground — and fast.
In this article, I will be primarily speaking to my straight, male followers — since that’s who I feel this message most applies to. But anyone can read it and get value from it.
Opening to love and nourishment is a universal skill that we all have to continue to cultivate throughout our lives.
The two root causes of non-reception:
There are two main reasons that a man would be unable to deeply receive the nourishment of his feminine partner:
- His body is blocking it — because there isn’t enough flow in his body
- His mind is blocking it — because of his distorted beliefs
Now, before I lose you for having used the word "flow" (which could be too "woo woo" for some of you)… let me explain what I mean.
Most men have a very limited amount of energy that they can hold in their bodies.
When they orgasm, they orgasm intensely for a few seconds and then it’s done.
When they breathe, day to day, they take very shallow breaths that don’t truly fill them up.
When they listen to their partner talking about their day, they listen for a few minutes, and then their attention drifts and they start to check out.
Conversely, a man who has done the work of increasing his capacity to hold energy can easily:
- Have an orgasm that lasts for over a full minute (or even multiple non-ejaculatory orgasms within the same hour)
- Make (and hold on to) large sums of money without having to spill it out (by compulsively spending it or finding ways to get rid of it)
- Take a hundred deep, consecutive belly breaths and do not max out or back off from the depth or pace
Now, some men can hold a decent amount of energy in their bodies, but their beliefs get in the way of truly allowing it all the way in.
Some of these nourishment-blocking beliefs could sound like this:
- "If I let her hold me, she’ll think less of me/she’ll think I’m weak"
- "If I put my head on her chest, she’ll start to see me as a little boy instead of her lover and her sexual attraction to me will die off"
- "If I let her see me being this soft then she will lose respect for me as a man"
- "If she knows how much this does for me, then she’ll use it to manipulate me/know to take it away from me as a punishment"
These sentiments are all things I’ve heard directly from the mouths of my male clients.
If there are even fragments of any of these beliefs in a man’s mind, then they will block the nourishment from truly landing in his body.
In a relationship where this is the case, no matter how much physical affection is being provided, it won’t truly fill the man up if he is not able to truly receive it.
So, without further ado, here are a handful of ways to increase your capacity for letting feminine nourishment truly land in you.
Here are 4 ways for men to fully receive feminine nourishment:
1. Breathe
If you feel like passing over this one, know that it is a through-line that underlines every other point on this list.
Breath is life. When we resist really breathing, that is us resisting our aliveness.
When your partner is holding you… running her fingers through your hair… taking your hand in theirs… whatever the case may be, you must breathe it in.
The fastest way to block the flow of energy in your body (aka your ability to receive feminine nourishment) is to make your breath shallow and your major muscle groups tense.
Conversely, the fastest way to let the feminine nourishment all the way in is to increase the flow of breath through your lungs and to relax and soften your body.
This doesn’t have to be done comically or in an over-the-top way.
Simply take deep breaths. Let it fill your belly. Then let it fill your belly and your chest. Fill yourself with breath and you’ll send the message to your body that you are safe and you are allowed to receive.
2. Tend to your body
Our relationship to our body is our relationship to the feminine.
The majority of people (men and women) are completely disconnected from their bodies. This is just the way our world is currently set up.
If you can’t feel much below your neckline, then it may have been the case (at some point in your past) that you have chronically ignored your body’s messages to you.
Maybe your body asked for nutritional food for energy and you gave it junk food. Maybe your body asked for rest and you gave it caffeine. There is a myriad of ways that we neglect our bodies.
When you really start to wake up to the number of ways that you’ve neglected yourself (through lack of sleep, food, touch, air, light, rest, etc.), you’re then in a place where you can take responsibility for giving it what it needs.
You can switch from self-abandonment to self-nourishment.
When you get in the habit of consistently showing up for your body’s needs, and your body starts to trust you more, it will become that much easier for you to truly receive the feminine nourishment that your partner gifts you.
3. Feel her when you aren’t with her
Just as I recommend men practice being with their full sexual arousal when they aren’t being sexual with a partner in order to build up their stamina, I similarly recommend that you practice receiving feminine nourishment when you are alone.
If your body feels heavy and tired, there is a good chance that you have not been drinking in feminine nourishment. If your mind feels weary and full, there’s a good chance you’ve allowed the mind (aka the ego) to take over and drive the majority of your decisions.
The antidote? Come back to witnessing the present moment, and take her in fully.
Try out this practice. Whether you are reading this from your bed or your couch… or you’re on public transportation… or in the gym… it doesn’t matter.
Imagine, an intoxicatingly beautiful woman’s bare torso is pressed up against your bare torso. Belly to belly. You can feel her breasts gently pressed into your chest. Her scent fills your lungs. Her tender, nourishing, flowing softness seeps into you.
Can you open to the present moment as if this is happening? Can you feel her?
She is always around you. The world is constantly in motion. She is always trying to gift you with her aliveness. Not just when you are physically with a woman. Now, at this very moment.
She is always sending you her love. And it is your choice, in every moment — including this one, to soften, receive and feel her fully.
The point here isn’t to get lost in fantasy and leave your body. It is merely to awaken to the fact that your body is always being gently nudged around by the ocean of existence.
The feminine is everywhere — it surrounds you. And you will only lose touch with this when you get lost in the stream of your thoughts, and you leave the present moment.
Didn’t think we’d get into a mindfulness meditation practice that involved envisioning breasts, did you? Well, here we are.
4. Soften, relax, and consciously let it all the way in
Ultimately, this is a moment-to-moment practice. There is no perfect endpoint.
Just like there are no windshield wipers in the world that are so effective that they can wipe a windshield once and then never need to wipe again… this is ongoing work.
But the practice is always… "How fully am I letting this in? Can I deepen my breath? Can I soften into this further? Can I receive this into every cell of my body?"
Do this, with consistency, and many things will change.
You will be less irritable in life.
When tough times arise in your relationship (as they inevitably do, because life is life-y) you will be able to get through periods of less physical contact with grace and ease, because the touch you do receive will actually remain in your body for longer.
You won’t be as easily pushed around by life because you’ll have a nourishing inner place that you can always attend to that is not dependent on others.
In other words, you will be more open to life. And what else are we here for, really, other than to be cracked open to experience everything life has to offer?
Speaking of which, I should talk to Demetra about scheduling that cradling session.
Jordan Gray is a five-time #1 Amazon best-selling author, public speaker, and relationship coach with more than a decade of practice behind him. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and more.