FEMININE STRENGTH FEMALE - The Four Types - The Bingo Theory - Mimi Ikonn

The Bingo Theory: A revolutionary guide to love, life, and relationships - Mimi Ikonn (2016)

Part II. The Four Types

IN THE NEXT four chapters I will tell you more about my four friends. Lily and Chris are Feminine Strength People, while Chloe and Andrew are Masculine Strength People.

They have shared openly with me their strengths and struggles - I am sure you will relate to them.

Instead of just looking at masculine and feminine energy, I look at the way both energies manifest in both the sexes because the energies sometimes manifest differently depending on the sex of the person.

A great way to see the different way the energies manifest is by looking at people’s sex drive.

The Masculine Strength Male has a very strong sex drive. He is always ready and open for action in the bedroom, or elsewhere!

This is not the case with a Masculine Strength Female. She’s too busy getting stuff done to keep jumping into bed. She’s got no time for that! Sure she likes sex as a release every now and then, but she has other priorities.

On the other hand, the Feminine Strength Female has a high sex drive. She would happily spend the weekend in bed—ideally with wine and chocolate delivered. To her sex is a vital part of a relationship - and of life. It’s the time when she expresses her love and, indeed, herself.

The Feminine Strength Male prioritizes intimacy and connection over sex. He is happy with a kiss and a cuddle on the sofa and is usually comfortable to admit that he does not have a very strong sex drive. Well…not as strong as Masculine Strength males that is.

Another way to see the differences is by looking at their physical form. The Feminine Strength Male tends to be slender while the Feminine Strength Female is generally curvy, for example.

You probably want to read your type first if you haven’t already. But when you’ve done that I suggest that you read through all the profiles.

Remember that we are all a mixture of masculine and feminine energy. Therefore, you might recognize yourself in some of the other profiles as well. More importantly, they will help you better relate to strengths and struggles that other people in your life have. They might also help you understand why your best friend has more highs and lows than a roller coaster, for example. Or why your father is unable to say more to you than -“How is work?”

To begin with, I will describe what these types are like when they’re single. Later in the book we’ll see how they operate in relationships. Even if you are in a relationship, please read the first chapters. They are the core chapters that will help you to understand your strengths and your challenges. They’ll explain your approach to relationships, work, and the world in general. I promise you it’s an eye-opener! A lot of things will become clear.

Lastly, I should warn you that not everything will be a perfect fit. But if you feel connected to one of the personality types, trust your instincts. Don’t think about it too much. Just take what works for you and leave the rest.

So, are you ready?

Chapter 4. FEMININE STRENGTH FEMALE

LET’S START with the Feminine Strength Female.

In many ways, she is the embodiment of what society thinks women should be like. She’s kind, caring, loving and sensitive. She is more interested in being a nice person than a successful person. She puts others before herself.

These are all wonderful qualities. But being nice isn’t easy in a world that encourages competition, ambition, pushing harder and faster. It’s very easy for the Feminine Strength Female to have her good nature taken advantage of and she often finds it hard to take control of her life - and her finances.

Let me tell you about my friend, Lovely Lily.

Lily enjoys her work writing for an interior design magazine. She gets to look at pretty things, talk to interesting people and write, which she has always loved.

She’s been in the same position for five years and she knows she should be climbing the ladder but she doesn’t want the extra responsibility of a bigger job.

Sometimes this makes her feel like a loser - most of her friends from college are doing so well in their careers. She knows she isn’t built like them. It’s not that she’s not intelligent enough - far from it. In school she was a diligent, straight A student. But career-wise she isn’t that ambitious. She doesn’t see the point in spending life climbing up a ladder. We’re all going to die, so who cares whether you’ve got letters after your name or if you ran a company?

Lily was never competitive. Even at school, when it came to sports she hated that someone had to lose. Why can’t we all win? Why does it matter who comes first or last? Or who earns the most?

Lily just wants to get along with everyone - and she does. She has always found it easy to make friends and is one of those people that everybody likes. She is also one of those lucky souls who can walk into a party and strike up a conversation with anyone.

But while she can be a social butterfly, Lily is also a home bird who loves her apartment. Her favorite thing to do on the planet is to lay in the bath or lounge on the sofa. She’s also happy to sit in a coffee shop watching the world. She’s not one of those people who finds it hard to relax. Hard to get going, yes, but hard to relax, no. Her friends joke that Lily could spend days just looking out a window.

Lily likes the finer things in life - beautiful clothes, lovely furniture, dinners out. She has a bit of a shopping habit.

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There are a lot of great things in Lily’s life, but underneath it all the cracks are showing.

She tells herself that life is too short to worry about money and that it’s important to look her best - something her glamorous mother instilled in her. But she frequently runs out of money before payday and her credit card bills are mounting.

Lily should ask for a raise at work but she hates such conversations. She’s not very good at standing up for herself - either in her work or in her private life. She finds it hard to say no and often ends up going along with what other people want to do.

Lily often has the feeling that she doesn’t know what she’s doing in life. It’s like she’s waiting for something to happen, which she is. The truth is, she’d really like to get married and have children. She knows it’s not acceptable to say it these days, but she’d like to be a full-time mom.

Although Lily dates a lot, she hasn’t met the right guy yet. She sees the best in people but friends say she is a poor judge of character. Her last boyfriend consistently cheated on her but she didn’t break up with him for months. He kept begging for forgiveness and she kept thinking he would change. She hated herself for being such a cliché. Finally, she broke up with him but she hasn’t met anyone better since. She doesn’t know why but she keeps attracting the kind of men who are only after one thing.

If you met Lily socially, you would probably think she’s one of those blessed people who has it all. She’s pretty, well-dressed, popular and easy-going. She goes through life with a smile on her face. But what’s going on inside her is a different matter. Lily has real anxiety. She feels lost and overwhelmed. And she doubts herself and her abilities because she knows that she can be too trusting of other people, especially men.

Here are some of the traits of the Feminine Strength Female:

Empathetic

The greatest gift of the Feminine Strength Female is her ability to love, connect, nurture and build relationships. When Lily walks into a room, pretty much everyone in it will like her. Making friends is something that comes so easily to her that she doesn’t realize how much other people struggle with it.

The Feminine Strength Female cares deeply about people—so much so that she tends to put other people’s needs before their own. She is also hugely empathetic and nurturing. She has an innate ability to read people’s feelings and respond appropriately. She can relate to others on a very deep, human level. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, her priority is relationships - not work.

Free-spirited

The Feminine Strength Female doesn’t define herself by her job. She’s more of a free-spirit. Lily is conscientious and works hard, but she keeps passing up promotions even though she needs the money. Why? She doesn’t want the extra responsibility and neither the status nor the impressive job title mean anything to her. As for office politics? Forget it. Life’s too short. She wants to enjoy life, not spend it stressed out.

Emotional

The Feminine Strength Female lives in a world of feelings and introspection. She’s the kind of person whose eyes well up when she sees an old lady cross the road. She loves nothing more than going through a whole box of tissues during a weepie movie. She is very sensitive to trauma. She still hasn’t got over the horror movie she watched with her ex-boyfriend. “Why on earth do you like this?” she asked him. “It’s not real,” he laughed. But everything is real to the Feminine Strength Female, who feels everything deeply. She has the emotional capacity of a roller coaster - she can be high as a kite one minute and in the depths of despair the next.

Expressive

The Feminine Strength Female has no problems sharing her feelings - there is no bottling up for her. That’s what her Masculine Strength Friends do. She feels no shame about crying in public and will express herself to friends at length. She loves long phone calls and can endlessly analyze life with her friends over cups of tea and glasses of wine. If you ask a Feminine Strength Female how her day is, she’ll still be talking about it an hour later.

Relaxed

The Feminine Strength Female lives in a gentle way. While her Masculine Strength friends run around, striving and hustling, she sits still and lives in the moment. She doesn’t need to do anything… she is happy just to be. She can spend the whole weekend on the sofa and hours in the bath—sensual pleasures are important to her. Her Masculine Strength friends are baffled by her, ability to do nothing. “Aren’t you bored?!” they want to know. Well, no. The Feminine Strength Female rarely gets bored. And while she loves people’s company, she also relishes time on her own. She doesn’t need outside distraction to make her feel OK.

Creative

The Feminine Strength Female—and the Feminine Strength Male, for that matter—has a keen sense of beauty and enjoys the finer things in life. Art, design and interior decor are all important to her. So too is fashion. She sees it as a form of self-expression. She has confidence in her outfits and loves to make a statement. She’s the kind of woman who can put on a crazy outfit from a vintage store and make it look fabulous.

Curvaceous

Lily has been told she has the body of a pin-up, and that’s typical of the Feminine Strength Female. Estrogen, the female hormone, causes weight to distribute to the buttocks and hips, creating the classic hourglass shape. (Testosterone, the male hormone that is likely higher in Masculine Strength Females, encourages fat to form around the waist, creating a more up- and- down figure). Estrogen also reduces the size of the nose and chin, increases the size of the eyes and the thickness of the lips; It also creates plump cheeks.

Lacking Direction

So what are Lily’s struggles? One of the biggest issues for the Feminine Strength Female is a lack of direction. This makes it possible for her to go with the flow and be spontaneous, but it can also make her feel lost at times. She finds it hard to make decisions and to structure her time, to plan, or to move towards goals. Everywhere she goes she see options. She get swayed in a million directions. She can feel aimless and out of control a lot of the time - especially when it comes to her finances.

Struggles With Money Management

The Feminine Strength Female is the kind of person who puts unopened bank statements in her drawer. She sees her credit card limits as a target to hit—rather than a place you should never get to. Nobody who lives for the moment, as she does, worries about savings. How boring!

Although the Feminine Strength Female is talented and creative she does not monetize her talents well. This could be because she does not value herself enough. It could also be because she does not like talking about money. Like Lily, she is unlikely to ask for pay rises. If she runs her own business she won’t charge as much as she should. She pretends that money doesn't matter but she certainly likes the finer things in life. Underlying her apparently carefree attitude is a fear of facing up to financial realities and taking control (taking control is very much part of the masculine energy). Deep down she may be waiting for someone to come and rescue her.

Hates Confrontation

The Feminine Strength Female is by nature, a people pleaser, a diplomat, and she will do anything to avoid confrontation. She’ll never just say directly what she thinks or needs. She won’t use blunt language such as No or Stop it. Instead, she’ll say things like “Would you mind…err…please, not doing that…?” Or she’ll say nothing at all. She’ll almost always put other people’s needs before her own.

Picks The Wrong Guys

We’ll talk about this more in later chapters, but one of the downsides of the Feminine Strength Female’s open-heart and trusting nature is that she gets sucked in by the wrong guys. As a result of her good looks and fun personality she has no problem getting men. But because she does not stand up for herself, she often gets treated like a doormat or ends up being just another notch in the bedpost.

Can You Relate?

Do you recognize any of Lily’s traits in yourself? Do you find it easy to make friends? Do you love to live in the moment and enjoy the beauty in everything? Do you see yourself run around to please others without the courage to please yourself? Do you find it hard to organize your life and plan ahead? Are you very sensitive? Do you lack career ambition?

If you’re a Feminine Strength Female you might read this now and feel angry: Isn’t talk about not valuing your career just sexist nonsense? Is Mimi suggesting we all go back to the 1950s? No, I’m not suggesting that at all. I am just explaining that different energies have different priorities.

In today’s world we’ve been brain-washed to think that careers are everything. But climbing the corporate ladder is not for everyone. The fact is that not all people want the same things.

There are a lot of Feminine Strength Females (and Males) who feel badly because the world tells them they should be an entrepreneur or a CEO. As a result of this persistent messaging, they think there is something wrong with them because they don’t want that. Well, there isn’t. The world needs all kinds of people.

Career, status and success are important to Masculine Strength People. But they are not as important to Feminine Strength People, who prioritize other values like family, health and relationships.

There are, of course, many exceptions. If you are a Feminine Strength Female that has been brought up in a family where career was important, that attitude may have rubbed off on you.

Not all Feminine Strength Females are the same. Also, there is a spectrum of femininity - just as there is a spectrum of masculinity. Because of this, you might fall on the extreme end—as Lily does—or you may be more balanced, with more masculine energy in you.

It’s important to understand that we all have both masculine and feminine energy in us. You don’t just have one or the other energy - you have both. It’s just that for most of us one of these energies will be more developed - whether through nature or conditioning. I will keep repeating this throughout the book because it’s very important that you understand this.

The purpose of this book is to balance your masculine and feminine energies so that you can draw on both energies equally and thus lead a full and balanced life.