Women-peaches and men-coconuts:) — exploring the nature of femininity and masculinity
Not so long ago a friend of mine told me about a funny classification of countries and cultures into peaches and coconuts. People from the “peach” cultures are very friendly with people they meet, they smile a lot, are very helpful but they have a “hard pit” inside and won’t let you beyond the border they’ve set.
Whereas people in “coconut” cultures rarely smile at strangers, do not easily engage in conversations, and may look unfriendly at first but if you manage to break through their hard outer shell, they tend to become close loyal friends who will accept you as family. Poland, Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the Eastern Europe are good examples of the “coconut” countries:).
Wow, I thought, this is a very good comparison which can help us understand the essence of female and male nature better!
A woman is like a peach. Delicate, soft and sensitive but with a “hard pit” inside – her male aspect, her inner vertical, her spirit, her strength and the ability to stand the additional pressure. She has Yin outside, Yang inside. That’s why women usually deal with stressful situations in life better than men and recover faster.
A man is like a coconut. Hard, impenetrable on the outside but inside there is the sweet, delicate and soft centre – the vulnerability of his female aspect. That’s why men often need much more time to recover after big stress. He has Yang outside, Yin inside.
In Ukraine (the country where I come from) it is considered that a woman must be beautiful and a man must be strong. It was a revelation for me to find out that if you look deeper it’s the other way round!
A woman is already beautiful like that sweet, soft and juicy peach, it is important for her to contact with her inner strength, to get to her core, to integrate her male aspect. So that her delicate softness wold not turn into a messy pulp:).
A man is strong already – if you ever tried to open a coconut you know what I mean!:) It is important for him to open the sweetness of his sensitive inside, which is to integrate his female aspect. Not to turn into a hard and empty shell:).
The journey of discovering our femininity and masculinity is fascinating!:)
And in this year of integration of female and male energies we have only fair winds! So full sails!:)