What feminine energy has to do with your productivity (aka how to "do nothing" but still get stuff done)

Co-create essay #1: An unconventional guide to something called egg wisdom vs. sperm wisdom, aka, learning how to actually understand and embody feminine energy in your productivity

Happy Sunday, Soothers. Today we kick off Co-create, my teaching series on how to reclaim your focus and do meaningful work in the burnout economy by applying spiritual, energetic, and nature principles to your creativity and productivity. Read the promises and outline of Co-create here.

I’d like to pause here and acknowledge the skeptics and/or non-spiritual readers here, too, and encourage you to keep reading, with this missive:

Yes, I am essentially encouraging you use mysticism as a productivity tool.

And why not?

You probably have tried every pomodoro trick, every time-blocking approach, every habit-stacking structure, every last app-blocker on the market.

You try everything else. Why not this?

What do you have to lose?

Nothing. That’s right. At the worst nothing will work out and you’ll feel a little silly but still be in the same place you started.

That’s how I came to spirituality. I saw a feng shui tip here, a Tarot card guidance there, and as a total atheist who was deeply blocked, stuck, sad, and struggling at the time, I sighed, rolled my eyes, shrugged, said, “Sounds fun, why not?” and then watched in astonishment as the weird spiritual stuff worked.

I think skeptics/non-spiritual folks, at least some of them, think there is a feebleness of mind to spiritual people, that somehow, we have been brainwashed or taken advantage of by ill-intended others.

Of course, that does exist in the spiritual world. But it exists everywhere. There are bad actors in every sector, from banking to dentistry to new age groups and beyond. And there are gullible people everywhere as well, who unfortunately do get taken advantage of.

However, I encourage you to know this, about my path to spirituality:

I tried out some stuff for fun when I was struggling. I watched, in astonishment, as it worked. (Feng shui tips for love led me to dating my now-husband; guidance from Tarot told me it was safe to leave my corporate job and start this business; calling on my ancestors for assistance has helped with everything from medical procedures to taxes.)

Stuff worked. When I realized this, I was a mix of excited, absolutely terrified, and mind-blown. I kept trying, it kept giving me results (though not always what I thought or expected! But that’s the magic).

I changed my mind and opened myself up to the possibility that the universe is alive in ways none of us, including me, fully understand, but it wants to co-create with us and support us.

So.

If you’ve already listened to or read every piece of productivity advice by every last white dude with a wife out there…(no offense to Cal Newport and Monk Mode, but come on…)

If some of those tips have helped but they feel incomplete, or something larger and deeper feels just out of grasp of your hands about how to make your work flow…

If you’re tired, and feeling alone and stuck, and you WANT to believe that something grander than you wants to help, but you’re a little scared, or skeptical…

Why not try some of the things I’m going to suggest in this series?

What do you have to lose?

Nothing. That’s what.

You don’t have to tell any of your family or friends you’re trying out what I’ll recommend in Co-create over the next several weeks.

I’m here for your support.

Let’s just keep it close to the vest, experiment, and have a bit of fun, shall we?

So let’s go.

Today we get deep into one of the most important principles that has to do with creating the work you’re meant to do without utterly burning out along the way:

The principles of feminine and masculine energy.

Now, please, I beg of you: don’t barf.

I used to roll my eyes at terms like masculine and feminine energy and maybe you are, too, but I urge you to read through this essay that details this concept as I describe it before turning away, because when I started applying it, it made huge differences in my productivity and ability to do meaningful work, which is what we’re all about here in Co-create.

Think about it this way: The VERY BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE ITSELF rely on a combo of feminine energy and masculine energy, and if it’s good enough to create an entire human out of basically nothing, it can be good enough for us to create our book, our art, our soul-led service, a freaking Substack essay, too, right?

So let’s understand this dynamic a bit, and apply it in our own work.

I teach the principles of feminine and masculine energy through something that most of us learned about in 8th grade health class:

The concept of the sperm and the egg.

We have to first ask ourselves: Why are so many of us addicted to productivity and doing? Feeling like we have to do ALL THE THINGS?! Control everything, be the one who gets it all done?

In my opinion, it's because we live in a culture that’s been over conditioned to use "sperm energy," aka our masculine energy and tactics, and it's far past time we shift into "egg wisdom" and our feminine energy as a way of being and doing.

We live in a hyper-masculinized society, when it comes to how we work and attempt to be productive. We assume we have to effort, do, control, go fast, take action.

Regrettably for us, we’ve been taught to either ignore or mock the wisdom of feminine energetic principles, which are actually incredibly powerful and magnetic. These include rest, pleasure, trust, surrender, self-care, boundaries, saying no, alignment, faith.

We may call these lazy, or not understand how they are deeply connected to achieving outcomes, because they can observably look like “doing nothing” or being indulgent.

But if we can understand the wisdom of the egg, how it complements the wisdom of the sperm, and how those two pair, we can then have a framework for better understanding how we can invite more feminine energy into our work, achievement, productivity.

I first learned about the concept of egg wisdom from Kate Northrup. You get the basics of how it works: Once a month, a mature egg leaves the ovary and travels towards the fallopian tube towards the uterus. If there are any sperm around, they can join the egg and fertilization occurs.

The very building blocks of life depend on sperm energy (movement, action, going fast, competition) combined with egg wisdom (boundaries, moving slowly, taking good self-care, nourishing itself, not moving fast but sending out signals it's ready, selectively choosing the sperm).

It doesn't need to move fast, or compete against others. There's no hustling. It takes good care of itself, trusts the timing, trusts that it's in the right place at the right time, and through this process, it can create what it desires:

Life.

Can you see that the egg attracts what it needs to create life, without "doing" anything observably?

And so we can trust that we can do the same for our work.

Unfortunately, our entire society and work culture worships at the altar of the sperm. No surprise, as we live in a world whose origins lie at the feet of toxic masculinity and manifest destiny — a society built by and for the patriarchy demands that each of us model the constant hustle and movement that fuels the sperm.

Sperm energy alone, can look like the following:

Racing and going fast
Competing against others
Scarcity in thinking there’s enough for everybody
Believing you are the only one who can succeed
Tons of forward movement
Being super busy and over-loaded
Having to do it all by yourself

This energy, used in isolation, leads to absolute burnout.

Now let’s take a look at the egg and how she operates:

Drops in once a month
Nestles into one place
Does best when she has exquisite self care (low stress, good nutrition)
Emits signals to attract what she’s calling in (essentially attracts, doesn’t chase)
Has really strong boundaries, doesn’t let in just anybody, only those who match her criteria
If the opportunity doesn’t happen that month, she trusts the process, sheds, and tries again on her right next timeline

We've over-relied on "sperm energy" to get stuff done and be productive. It's time to try out "egg wisdom."

If you feel burned out, resentful, exhausted, like you're the only one who can get anything done, like you have to control every situation, like you have no support, like your life is filled with urgency and a hundred to-dos, that no matter how hard you take action or how much effort you put into your creative work you just feel like nothing is paying off:

You're over-dependent on sperm energy.

It's time to invite some egg wisdom into your life.

And btw, it’s not that sperm wisdom (or masculine energy) is “bad.” In fact, nothing can be created in life if we don’t have a pairing of sperm wisdom with egg wisdom, right? That’s the elusive balance: a healthy mix of taking action and movement of the sperm, paired with the attraction, rest, and trust of the egg.

So where do you start embodying more egg wisdom into your life, your creative work, and your productivity?

Here are 10 tips.

1. Slow down so what you desire can find you

Think about it: if the egg were ping-ponging around to a billion places, the sperm would never be able to find it. The egg trusts it's in the right place, at the right time, and goes at its own natural pace, and nestles in.

2. Say no to opportunities that aren't aligned

The egg only lets in sperm it deems the right one for it at the right time. It's not letting in like, 1,000 or even 10 sperm, or just any sperm that comes knocking. It's selective.

3. Take really good care of your environment

When you're in a nourishing, clutter-free, tidy and inviting environment, this positively affects your energy (hello, feng shui), and your energy is what draws in the right opportunities.

4. Choose joy, rest and pleasure more often

This is a hard one for us to trust, but I hope as you can see with egg wisdom, the egg rests and takes good care of herself and through doing that, draws in and attracts what she desires. It can be the same for us.

5. Learn to delegate more to the universe

Trusting that we have support outside of us is critical to egg wisdom. Consider creating a to do list for the universe, and generally delegating more to the universe, asking it for support so you don't have to do it all.

6. Tune into your natural cycles

It's not always a season of fertilization for the egg. In fact, it’s quite a short period of any given month. What are your natural cycles of rest and doing? Trust those.

7. Do things that feel pleasurable for your body

For me, this is walking in nature, baths, massage, naps, eating delicious food. The egg takes really good care of itself, and, well, pleasure is a part of the process of it creating life, right?

8. Practice better boundaries

This is similar to saying no to unaligned opportunities. The egg has a natural boundary and doesn't let in just anybody; neither should you. Boundaries are egg wisdom.

9. Incorporate sperm energy when it feels right to pair with egg wisdom

Sperm energy, when aligned, pairs beautifully with egg wisdom. This looks like inspired action, aligned choices, and authentic efforting that feels good and supportive to your desired outcome. (An example: I received the idea for Co-create via egg wisdom. But I still have to effort in writing and promoting it to the world - that’s sperm energy.)

10. Work with energy, via energy clearing, EFT, flower essences, feng shui adjustments and other energy tools

When you work to clear the energy field of your home or your own energetic field, that’s when the ease and flow of the egg wisdom comes into the picture. By removing energy blocks in your house and your energetic body, it’s like a path that you wanted to use that had been blocked by a pile of rocks suddenly becomes clear. All you have to do is start to take a step forward. And since the path is now cleared, things that you desire are magnetized towards you and can now make their way to you, too.

In a society laden with masculine energy and sperm wisdom, it can feel silly, cheesy, pointless or dumb to attempt to embody egg wisdom in your productivity and work.

What, are you just supposed to tell your boss you need to go take a bath because it will magnetize more opportunities to you, or are you just supposed to blow off a deadline because you don’t have the energy?

Honestly, my dream would be: yes.

But I also am a practical person who bows to reality and the current systems under which we exist, and so it’s more about an integration of small egg wisdom efforts where you can, and a willingness to experiment with balancing this energy in any areas of your life that are over-spermed (heh).

What do you have to lose in trying it?

Burning out isn’t working. You know it, I know it, the billion books on how to stop burnout know it. It doesn’t make us fitter, better, happier OR more productive.

So why not bring some of these feminine energy tips into your work and productivity as an experiment, and see what unfolds?

Below, for paid subscribers, I’ll have a set of journal prompts to help you further explore egg wisdom; a set of assignment ideas you can try to embody more egg wisdom; and a personal anecdote about how I use egg wisdom to be more productive and do my work.

I have a 20% off sale going on for paid Sunday Soother subscriptions until January 31 in honor of this Co-create series, so sign up if it feels right and helpful to you:

Stay tuned for next week’s Co-create essay, where I’ll turn to Tarot, and seeing what the powerful card the Two of Pentacles has to teach us about the two rivers of attention available to us.