#223: Masculine and Feminine Lawyering

Masculine and Feminine Lawyering

Hello, how are you? We're gonna be talking about masculine and feminine lawyering today. And I never thought I would ever do a podcast on this, but here I am. And it is something that has shown up throughout my life, right? Not just in lawyering, this differentiation between masculine and feminine and the joining of it.

It has shown up throughout my life, but I wanna talk to you specifically about the masculine and the feminine when it comes to lawyering.

What Inspired This Episode

This episode is inspired by a conversation that I had with another lawyer on LinkedIn. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes, but what she had to say, really let me know that I have a lot to say about this. I have a lot to say, and it is something that has taken me some time to understand how this was showing up in my life. And yes, it is very clear, especially I think nowadays that we undervalue the feminine. It is very clear, we undervalue it. I think more people's attention is on how we overvalue masculine qualities.

Overvaluing the Masculine and Undervaluing the Feminine

We say things like man up, we connote positive attributes to the male anatomy. While we have derogatory inferences with the female anatomy we call any skills that aren't doing things right.

Instead like these interpersonal skills, we call them “soft skills” as if we're undervaluing them. They are very much associated with the feminine. And what I wanna share is that our society has, in the words of my coach — I love this — over indexed in the masculine really has overvalued the masculine to the detriment of our society <Laugh> and I wanna share that it is not. And I think that you know this, but I want to help lawyers who see this, but don't know how to bring in the balance.

Balancing the Masculine and Feminine

This is what I have been working towards my whole life. I'm seeing how it shows up easier and easier in my life as I practice what I'm gonna share with you because I'm gonna share with you how it's showing up in your practice right now, how it is causing a problem and how you can begin to shift into a balance.

I'm gonna give you some practical instances, things that, that have shown up in my life, things that have shown up in my client's lives so that you can understand that this balance is necessary. And when we're over indexing in the masculine, when we are overworking, when we are striving, when we are doing all of the things that a very masculine culture has told us are the right things to do.

We hurt ourselves and we don't just hurt ourselves. We hurt the people, our loved ones around us. And we hurt the society we live in. And so to balance, these is essential and it takes practice and it doesn't feel comfortable because we're not used to it.

We're so habituated to how right it is to work all the time and to stay late, to impress our bosses. And we still live in a culture where the masculine is highly valued and it is very predominant in law firms where the masculine is highly valued and as women, and I know it's not all women, women listening, stay with me guys <laugh> but as women like we've really come into the legal profession and we have over indexed for the masculine because in order for us to fit in, that's what we had to do, right?

Why We Tend to Overvalue the Masculine in Their Law Practice

I'm not even saying it's what we thought we had to do. It's actually, I believe what we did have to do in order to be accepted by our colleagues who were male.

And now that there is more of a knowledge that this balance exists in the world. And maybe you haven't really thought about this, but I'm hoping that this brings this awareness to you. Now that we know about this and have this awareness, we can start to practice what it means to put ourselves into balance. And I do this with my, with my coaching clients all the time. I mean, that's the work that they're doing. If you wanna look at it in an energy standpoint, it's masculine and feminine energy being balanced so that they can live more productive, more fulfilling, more balanced lives, right? They feel better day to day because they are more connected with what it really means to have power.

What it means to have this balance of the masculine and the feminine

So what is the, the masculine energy?

How do you know it's masculine? Well, masculine is really the output, right? Like the work that we do. And so when you go into the office and you sit down and you've got a pile of papers, the masculine energy, you really shows up as you just like, okay, let's get to work, let's do this. Let's go right. Lots of value in that we want that energy. We wanna be able to, you know, let's get focused, let's prioritize, let's get, let's get the job done. There's a deadline, let's meet it. Right.

We, we might have some goals and we notice that we're not taking action on our goals. So we say, okay, well we're procrastinating. So how do we not procrastinate? Well, let's get into action.

What does that look like?

We do the things that's masculine energy and it's freaking awesome. It has served us really well — serves me really well.

And there's a feminine energy. Okay. And the feminine energy is very much, how do we relate to people, right? That's one, but also how do we relate to ourselves? Are we asking ourselves what we want? Because a lot of times we'll ask ourselves what we want and it is in direct opposition to what the masculine energy we've been over indexing for tells us we should be doing <laugh> we like, okay, I'm gonna give you the perfect example yesterday.

Examples of Balancing with Feminine Energy in Your Business and Practice

Yesterday I was, I have my calendar and I love my calendar. I'm gonna talk more about that in a little bit about how that can help us balance out the masculine and the feminine energy.

But I have a calendar I'm very much a let's get it going. Like, let's do this 1, 2, 3, 4, go, go, go. But yesterday I looked at my calendar and I was like, no. And later on, I realized that it was because the day before that I had spent all day on the computer, I had been back-to-back coaching calls and on Tuesday, I was like, “No, I do not wanna be in front of the computer anymore.”

And I noticed this and usually I would get into, okay, this is like, interesting. Like, why am I not doing this? And maybe I would like journal to do that. And that's a great practice. I highly recommend that to you. But I've been doing this for many, many years now. And so I've been balancing out these energies for a while. And so for me, I'm practicing now, like asking myself in that moment.

All right. “So you don't wanna do the podcast that's okay. What is it that you want?” Right. “What is it that you want?” Cause the podcast was what was on my calendar yesterday and I asked myself and I was like, you know what? “I need to sit on the porch and just have breakfast, I need to take a bubble bath, I need to go in the garden and pull weeds, I need to just sit here quietly. Then maybe do a few posts. That's what I wanna do.”

And I am not even kidding you. It was such a productive day because when I did that, I was more creative in the spaces where I did devote my energy, which was posting. I had a consult book, I had a client share some things that I had posted, and it was the energy that I was in, created the results that I wanted to create.

I didn't need to overwork myself — I needed to ask myself what I needed. That is a distinctly feminine energy. Now I'm not saying you go out and do that right now because you're probably not at the point. At least I wouldn't have been <laugh>.

A few years ago I would not have been in a place to do that. I would've been in a place where I would be judging myself for not doing the work that was on my calendar, and I would be mean to myself.

I would tell myself, “Just do it,” then I would push myself through it. And then maybe I wouldn't be as excited about doing it or the work product that was finalized. I wouldn't have been happy with it. And so I'm not suggesting that you go straight there, but this is the practice that I've been doing over the years to find this balance.

Balancing Feminine Energy Can Feel Uncomfortable

And it is still uncomfortable for me. I will share that with you too. It is uncomfortable because our nervous systems are acclimated to over-indexing in this masculine energy of doing, doing, doing we value, getting things done. And I value it too. But if we value that above ourselves, above the balance that we can have in our lives, then we are not as powerful because we cannot fuel the results that we want.

When we are only half of a person, we cannot fuel what, what it is we wanna create in the world when we're denying half of our creative energies.

Using a Calendar to Balance Masculine and Feminine Lawyering

So if you are looking at this in your perspective and the same thing, I am, right, like looking at a calendar and saying, okay, I put on this calendar, I wanted to get X, Y, Z done.

The very first step I will share with you is to go back when you're creating that calendar and ask yourself what you think about that calendar.

I mean, it all comes back to mind. It all comes back to how we think about what it is that we're doing. And if you are looking at a calendar and you're hating the calendar and it's gonna be a grind, that's the tip off to say, oh, I'm, over-indexing in my masculine energy, right? Like I am working harder than I need to. And I'm not asking myself what I need.

I need to ask myself what I need. And I'm gonna walk you step by step through some practices to help you with this and how they've helped me in my law practice as well as my business. Okay. Again, this is a practice. Okay. We fear the loss of control. And we think that if we do more, that we have more control over the result. But as I just shared with you in that last example, that is not the case.

Like I'm building my business and I'm taking care of myself. It blows my mind to think about it this way, too. It really blows my mind that I'm in a position where I can think like that. And I was doing it in my law practice too.

Balancing Masculine and Feminine Lawyering While in Trial

So let me share what that might look like if you have a trial practice. So towards the latter part of my career, I was working a homicide case and it was at the same time when I was balancing a settlement conference caseload of like a thousand cases. And it was my first homicide case. It, you know, homicide cases, aren't that much different than an assault case, right? People put a lot of weight on, on these cases, but the way you think about them can simplify them. The first step is simplify, whatever kinds of cases that you are working on so that you understand, like at base level, these are things that you have skills for, that you have been doing all along.

Even if I had never done a homicide case before I knew going in, I'd done a ton of assault cases, I've done a lot of other cases. And it's just like, okay, look, it's not that much different than the cases I've done before. They have an expert witness. There's other witnesses, there's exhibits, right. Is there's nothing that's really different. Maybe the law is a little bit different, right? You add, add a couple elements there, but like it is at base the same.

Simplify How You Think About Your Case

And think about that in your practice, whatever kind of law that you're practicing, whether it's litigations, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, whatever it is, there is app base, a simplification that you can get to that's step one, step two is using the tools that are available to you. So for me, the tools that were available to me was my ability to manage my time, my ability to ask for what I want my ability to ask people for help my ability to ask people for resources.

Ask Yourself What You Need

Okay. And that was necessary the whole time through. The biggest thing that helped me with that was knowing that I controlled my time, that I was able to control my time. When you control your time, you control your energy. Okay. When you are aware of what's going on in your life, when you have that awareness of time, you have awareness of how you're spending your energy. Let me give you an example of that.

How I wanted to manage my time was to make sure I was taking care of my needs. I needed to make sure I was taking care of me eating. Cause that's a big deal, right? I don't know. You know, if you're in litigation, you probably do this too. But I used to like grab a Snickers or something during lunch. Well, I could not do that.

I knew I could not function. I'd have a sugar crash — I wouldn't feel at my best. And I knew ahead of time that I needed to plan for that. So I went to Trader Joe's and I bought a ton of meals for the week. And I didn't have to think about food all week. And then I knew that I was gonna need some physical activity. I planned my yoga every day after work, I would say, okay, I'm leaving the office at four and I am going to do yoga, come hell or high water. That was my plan. I followed through on it. Then I needed to look back and I say, okay, what else do I need to fill myself up for this week? I've got food, I've got nutrients. I need, I need I've got exercise and now I need some sleep.

I know I need eight hours of sleep to be at my best. So I made sure that I was gonna cut off the TV or whatever it was and just go to sleep. And then I would wake up really early in the morning, even earlier than I'm used to waking up and get ready and then go straight to the office. It was, I think I was at the office at like four in the morning.

I could prep my day. I had time to prep witnesses, and then I would just go in and it was fine. Right? I had already communicated ahead of time with people who were handling my settlement conferences. This is what's going on with this case, this case, this case put notes on the important cases, continued everything else. So that way I would have time to focus on my trial and this is what I helped my clients with because oftentimes they're gonna go into a litigation experience and they, like, I had this happen recently and they are thinking about all the things that could go wrong instead of thinking about like how they have control over that.

And so this is where the balance of masculine and feminine energy is fantastic, right? If we are asking ourselves what we need, we take care of ourselves.

That's some feminine energy happening. If we are asking what we can do in order to make our lives easier, we can also use that masculine energy to implement, right? It's a balance, but we've gotta be asking ourselves what we want. We've gotta value what we want. We've gotta value how we feel in order for us to engage in the world in a balanced way. And then when it comes to what people label soft skills, our communication skills, our negotiation skills, men are doing this all the time. Now we see it kind of in a, in a funny light on TV. And you've probably seen this experience too, where you have men who are and women too, right?

Masculine Heavy Lawyering

I've been in that position too, especially early on in my career when I didn't, I, I was over indexing in the masculine for sure, because I was insecure about my abilities to stand for what I wanted in a case, I was insecure about my abilities to negotiate for what I wanted and rather than balance that out and just be certain of myself that I knew exactly what I wanted and that was what I was gonna get. Right. And, and, or at least like I was gonna make every argument that I could, and I didn't have to be a jerk about it. I didn't have to have, I didn't have to have an attitude about it.

It was just me saying, yeah, “This is what we want. This is why we want it. And this is why it's important that you rule in my favor,” versus what we might see on TV or what we might see from old school attorneys where they get upset when a, a judge may not rule in their favor or they get upset when an attorney disagrees with them or they don't see eye to eye.

No, if you're bringing in that balance and you feel very certain of yourself in that balance, then a person can disagree with you all day long. And you're just like, “okay, well, that's fine. We can disagree, but I'm just telling you my position.” And they can keep coming at you with the same position that they have and you don't get upset. You're just like, “I hear you. I disagree with you.” And that's the balance that comes in.

Feminine Lawyering Isn't a Soft Skill

It's not a soft skill. It is a tactic. And here is why it is so important to master. Because if you were before a judge or a mediator, they are going to side with guess who the side that seems reasonable. And the side that seems reasonable is the side that is balanced. So if you are unbalanced in the way that you argue, then you are not going to be the person who comes across as the most reasonable makes sense.

Right. Okay. So there was one instance while we're on this topic where I certainly was over indexing in the masculine energy, it was probably one of my very first court appearances. I think it was, it must have been my very first year. And I had been told by my bosses, like argue for this position. We don't wanna continue this case. The family's gonna be in the audience, like make sure that you are arguing your point. But I took that based on my upbringing. Right? <laugh> based on my societal upbringing, that that meant I needed to be tough and tough meant being, not just firm, but being almost argumentative.

No, I think I was argumentative. Let's just put it that way. And so when I did that, it was not helpful. <Laugh> no one saw me as more reasonable. I did not win my point. And I, I got to show, you know, I got to put on a show, but that show was not a show that if looking back on it, like I'm not ashamed in any way of that because I was learning.

But looking back on it, that's not how I would've behaved later on in my career. Right. That's not how I would index energetically if you wanna put it that way. Right. I knew that it just came from insecurity and not really knowing how to argue my point without being in that argumentative masculine energy. And that made a lot of sense.

And, and the more I've been thinking about this in terms of balancing the masculine and the feminine. Now I am more aware because I think that awareness, that inner knowing that connection to ourselves is feminine.

It's it's that, that balance of the masculine and the feminine, I don't even wanna call it simply feminine, right? It is something that we need to do in order to come across as, and be reasonable in order to think through a point and negotiate something and get what we want to be able to show up in the way that we are proud of in a way that's in integrity with who we want to be.

And that requires balance.

Practices to Balance Masculine and Feminine Lawyering

So one of the, there's a few practices that I've been working on with my clients that I'd never really thought of it in these terms before, but they are distinctly masculine, feminine, balanced. Okay.

Use Your Calendar

So for instance, if you think about a calendar, a calendar is full of doings, right? Everything you want to get done during the week and that's all masculine, right? We wanna get this done. We have it. Let's go. It's a plan. Let's move forward.

The practice of sitting down once a week, even once a day, right. And sitting down and asking ourselves, how do I want this week to play out? What do I want to feel during this week? Those are practices that are feminine. When I look at my week and I look at the calendar with all the doings on it, I can look at it and say, that does not look good to me.

Why? Oh, because I'm not giving myself any breaks. I'm not making time for yoga. I'm not allowing time for lunch or going into the garden or whatever it is I wanna include in my calendar. Right. You think about what you wanna include in your calendar, but I can make it a point every single week to check in with myself and say, okay, this doesn't look like I want it to look, how do I want it to look? How do I want it to feel? Okay. I have back to back meetings on this day. How do I want my next day to play out? And instead of thinking like, oh, I just need to get it all done right now, because then I'm gonna get ahead — I don't do that. I think, “No, this is gonna all get done. I know it's all gonna get done.”

Check in with How You Feel

How do I want my week to feel? And so now I have an awareness that sometimes on Tuesdays, when I have back to back meetings on a Monday, I'm not gonna feel like doing my podcast. And maybe I do. I don't know, but I just have to check in with myself and let it be okay that I don't want to do the podcast. It's not that I'm just like procrastinating on it. Like it's not a procrastination.

There's a difference between procrastination and checking in and realizing that your body needs something like rest that's so often when we get sick, it's because our body is telling us we need rest. So I very rarely get sick. And I don't think it's a coincidence that it's because I take care of myself. I don't think it's a coincidence that I am watching out for my needs and my energy levels and giving myself what I need.

So keep that in mind, if you tend to get sick a lot, just kind of like have that in your awareness. So that's one thing that can help you balance out this feminine and masculine energy in your CA is using your calendar, right? Checking in with yourself. How do you wanna feel today this week.

Planning Your Vacation

Another thing that I've been working with my clients on is how they approach vacation time. And I did a whole podcast on this called how to take a guilt free vacation. I will link to that in the bio. And we worked out like together what their plan was gonna be so that they could balance things out. So they weren't in the doing in the work while they were on vacation. So they weren't worried about the work. And the reason we worry about work when we're going to bed, when we're going on vacation is because there's a sense of us being out of control.

And it doesn't feel safe to engage the feminine energies. Doesn't feel safe to ask for what we want, because what we think we really need to do is pay attention to all the things are that are getting done or not getting done, because that's all, it feels like we have control. It's not true that we have control, but we like to think that we do. We like to think that we, if we are in the work that we have control, that's all very masculine in the doing.

But when we're in balance, we can let that go and we can create certainty for ourselves that that's all gonna get taken care of. That that's all something that is going to be handled because we're gonna handle it in one way or another. And in the podcast, I talked about how you can plan in advance to make sure those matters are handled, to make sure that your brain is not occupied with work.

This is how you start to balance out yourself. So you're not feeling stressed and overwhelmed is using these kinds of tools to balance yourself out. And I never would have thought of it in this energetic kind of way until recently. And until I'd been experiencing this more and more and more, because when we highly index in the masculine, we are devaluing our feminine.

Value Your Ability to Care for Yourself

We are devaluing everything that it means to take care of ourselves. Right? When you think about a mother, you think about caring, energy about connecting energy, about grounded energy. It's very different from maybe what you're used to when you're sitting down and working in your law practice. Okay. Let's talk about another example growing your book of business, right?

How do you stop over indexing in that masculine and start bringing in the feminine? Well, some of the things you're already doing, right, you're already communicating in a way that feels natural to you, probably in a lot of different instances.

So remind yourself of that. Okay. Remind yourself that a lot of times your instinct is to reach out and say, Hey, how are you doing? And that instinct is going to be from the feminine, like, how are you, what's going on? Like, that's part of that connection building is just reaching out and saying, hello, asking people if they need help. Okay.

We Can Also Over-Index the Feminine

Now this is where we might over index in the feminine <laugh> okay. We think we need to over care for people that we need to ignore our boundaries, that we need to ignore how we feel in favor of helping others. Right. That's where boundaries come in. And that's where we need the masculine to come in, to balance us out. Okay. So it's possible for us to over index in either area. Our goal is to use the tools that we have available to us, like creating a boundary, knowing how to make a healthy boundary and bringing that in so that we are in balance.

Okay. Building, going back to building your book of business, we need to have the masculine to take action, to create a plan. Okay. We need to check in with ourselves and take care of ourselves. When we feel fearful, nervous, anxious about all of those things. And we need to talk to ourselves in a way that lets us build safety so that we can do the hard things. When we have that conversation with ourselves and we are letting ourselves know that we are safe to do uncomfortable things like go to a networking event or, you know, having a difficult conversation with a partner or a client. When we take care of ourselves. In those instances, that's the feminine energy.

Using the Balance of Masculine and Feminine Lawyering to Expand

When we are doing things in our practice, that's the masculine energy, right? There needs to be that balance. Or we cannot expand. We cannot grow. We cannot build our network if we're fearful and not in action.

But if we communicate with ourselves and take care of ourselves and build that safety by letting ourselves know that it is okay, that it is safe, that we promise that we're not going to beat ourselves up. If we're not good at building relationships, if we promise ourselves that we are gonna just keep doing it, even if we're uncomfortable, we're gonna keep doing it. And you're okay, it's all right to do this. Then we're in balance and we can expand our network. This is in every single area. And this puts us more in control of the results that we wanna create in our life. Right?

We connect with ourselves and that helps us create the outcome that we want. That feels better to our nervous system. It doesn't mean that we stop doing things. It doesn't mean that we stop taking action action in the masculine energy.

Use Feminine Energy to Regulate Your Nervous System

We want that, but it's how we regulate our nervous system. When we go after goals or when we have a deadline, that is where this balance is so important. So how can you use this in your legal practice? We already talked about a couple the calendar. So at least once a week asking yourself what it is you want and planning your week in a way that takes care of what you need so that you show up at your best noticing when you're struggling with something. That's another way.

This is a signal that we're, over-indexing in the masculine. We're trying to like grind and do versus taking a step back and asking yourself, how can I make this easier? Is there someone who has the answer that I can, can ask them for help, like committing, to asking for what you need and then getting it like those are parts and parcel of this. You need to have that balance.

Boundaries and Feminine Energy

Another thing that you can do is have boundaries. We talked about that too. You've gotta do what you need to take care of yourself, right? That's part of the, the feminine and not over index in the feminine by giving up what you need. So others can have something that they need gotta have that balance planning.

This goes hand in hand with the calendar, right? So we can plan vacations. We can plan our litigation, we can plan things so that they are easier on our nervous system so that we are in balance, we can create safety for ourselves and another thing. And I'm gonna do a whole podcast on this is how you talk to yourself when we are in hyper-masculine mode. When we are just working, working, working, when we come up against little roadblocks, or when we notice ourselves not doing something that we have on our calendar, it is so easy for us to build, to beat up on ourselves.

And this again is part of us growing up in a culture that overvalues the masculine that overvalues the doing and tells us that being hyper-masculine and doing all of the things means success.

Rethinking Masculine and Feminine Energies

But what I want you to, to rethink here is when you're not doing what you think you should be doing, rather than telling yourself, you're doing it wrong, to check in and ask yourself what's happening here. Like, why am I feeling this way? What do I need right now? Because if you turn it that way and you start turning inwards, that's balancing yourself out with the feminine. Like there's no beating yourself up. It's the kindness, the gentleness that comes in and says, Hey, what do you need right now? And it might need be that you just need to step outside for a couple minutes and take a beat. Okay. But when you notice yourself grinding, anxious, overwhelmed, you're likely over indexing in that masculine energy.

And then it's time to just bring yourself back and say, okay, what do I need right now?

Okay. I hope that this was helpful for you to think of this, the work, the overwhelm, your law practice in terms of this masculine and feminine energy in lawyering.

Increasing Our Awareness

This has been really fun for me to talk to you about. And it has also been incredibly uncomfortable for me to notice when I am over indexing versus checking in with myself and balancing out these, these energies. <Laugh> like, that's the, really the phrase I'm using here. Because when we have an emotion created by a thought, it is a vibration. It is energy in our body that is moving around and it is caused by the thought that we have, that's generating a chemical reaction. And so if it's helpful for you to think of it and that way, we're really looking at the chemicals, we're feeling the chemicals in our body, and we're using them to balance ourselves out.

We're using them to gain awareness about where we might be. Over-indexing in the masculine or over-indexing in the feminine, and we're not coming back to center asking ourselves what we need and getting grounded and calm and certain in ourselves. Because when we do, we make better decisions, it's easier to make decisions. We make decisions faster. And we are not as afraid of making mistakes, because we know that we have our own back. We know that we can check in with ourselves and say, okay, yeah, that might have turned, not have turned out the way that I wanted it to. And I can go back and I can change things. I can make that work.

Masculine and Feminine Lawyering is About Working from Wholeness

So just know that this isn't like a war between over masculine, over feminine or whatever. It is really just about finding the center. It's about working from center, working from wholeness.

And you already have both of these energies. They're already there. It's just a matter of bringing these things into your awareness. So then you can move forward in your life, in your practice to balance these things out.

If you want help implementing these tools that I've talked about, learning how you can balance yourself out, so you're not over-indexing in either area, either energy book, a call with me.

These are the tools. You know, I talked about them all through this podcast. These are some of the tools that I work with my clients with to help them make ease in their practice. They're making peace with themselves. As a lawyer, they're making peace with themselves. As a parent, they're making peace with themselves as a human being who makes mistakes, who is living this life.

If that's something that you want more of, if that's some balance that you need and crave your life, you can book a call with me at https://dinacataldo.com/strategysession.

Then when we start working together, you're going to start gaining the awareness that you need to balance yourself out. And this has taken a lot of practice to get where I'm at, but you don't need a long time to see results. Like my clients don't need a long time to see results. They see them really quickly, and then they keep building on them, right? They get some ease that they need. And then they keep building and growing towards the version of themselves that they wanna create for themselves. That interests you, book a call with me friend.

Alright, my friend. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you soon.