I did a 4 month masculine cleanse at the beginning of 2023.

Masculine cleanse in this instance meant: no sex or physical intimacy, no flirting, no dating, no dating apps, no texting with anyone of romantic interest, no creating or perpetuating intrigue with men.

My mentor recommends this cleanse when people find themselves in repetitive patterns with the opposite sex, especially when we notice we’re really hooked into needing validation from men/women to feel okay about ourselves.

Sound familiar?

I was very resistant. I didn’t think I needed it.

But the visceral nausea I felt when I contemplated doing it made me realize that whatever my excuses may be, there was something there for me.

I found this cute (and cringe) note I wrote going in.

Mostly I just love feeling my innocence when I read this. But also you can see the impact that toxic feminine wealth influencers were having.

You know what is magnetic? Not being desperate.

My list of projections going into this experience were not what happened.

I’ll share more in depth on this in Becoming the Muse but let me try to summarize the experience with these 5 golden nuggets:

1. You’re lonely for yourself.

You think finding the right man will finally cure your heartache. That if someone good chooses you, the ache will go away. I have news… it won’t. No amount of love from out there will fill the void if you keep rejecting and abandoning yourself.
Let yourself be held by you. Let the earth hold you. Let God/a higher power hold you. But stop waiting for someone else to rescue you from your own disconnection.

2. The yearning never ends.

Learn to love your longing. Learn to let it crack you open. It’s incredibly magnetic when you can feel it without urgency or desperation. The more you’re willing to feel it, the less time and energy you’ll waste on trying to numb it or avoid it by chasing the perfect body, a certain income, marriage, recognition of your talents. The feminine heart will forever yearn. That’s not the problem. The problem is avoiding it.

3. Insecurity is a liability.

I went from feeling dependent on men to feel good about myself, to feeling unfazed by male flattery. The cleanse was a detox from an easy drug (male attention), that was preventing me from doing the inner work to actually befriend myself and build better self-esteem. When you are susceptible to flattery, you are susceptible to manipulation. It’s not that you shouldn’t enjoy a compliment, but when you’re starving for it, you can’t see when it has hooks in it. Now, I can enjoy being seen without needing it, and that has changed the way I date entirely.

4. Wait longer to sleep together.

Attachment isn’t love. You need to know the difference. Once you start being sexually intimate or even spending a lot of time cuddling and kissing, the oxytocin you create is going to bond you whether you like it or not. Once you’re in that chemical fog, you will not be able to discern as easily whether someone is good for you. Go slow. The MDMA-like high is fun, but that’s not love babe. And the come down? Rarely worth it.

5. 10/10 chemistry is not a green light.

Full disclosure this one didn’t land until about 6 months after the cleanse (ya’ll remember Brad the river guide?). But here’s the takeaway: We chase that intense chemistry because obsession feels like certainty–and we crave certainty.
But that kind of high? It’s a red flag dressed up as a soulmate. We get hooked on the fantasy and miss the yield signs. When you trust yourself to be okay alone, you can finally hold the truth: Relationships are inherently uncertain—even if you marry, even if you have kids.

When you accept that truth, you can begin to soften your hypervigilance about whether the chemistry is fading, and become available for real intimacy–not trauma-bonding disguised as passion. You also stop using your sexuality to hook someone into staying. Because getting chosen feels empty if you never asked yourself whether you even wanted to stay.

To wrap it all up:

You are choosing men who can’t meet you because you’re not fully meeting yourself.

You’re stuck in transactional dynamics, making their behavior a reflection of how worthy or lovable you are, instead of asking, “Is this actually the relationship I want?”

A good reality check:
If there was no romantic or sexual chemistry…would you still want to spend a lot of time with this person?

Or, you’re like I was, and you’re choosing good men who just aren’t capable of meeting you in the ways you really need. You’re picking boys who have a lot of growing up to do, or lost men who are going to make you their entire purpose.

You know how those end?

You’re both miserable because you can’t fully trust them and they feel inadequate.

Let’s do it differently. This is what I teach inside Becoming the Muse. 

School of hard knocks,
Caite