Many of us absorbed the rules for being male or female from our families and the culture in which we grew to adulthood. We formed beliefs about a man's role and a woman's role based on what we observed and experienced; mostly, those beliefs had to do with what men and woman did rather than who they were. Our ideas about what constitutes "masculine" and "feminine," by now outdated and inadequate, have led to a precarious imbalance both in our inner lives and in our external lives of relating to men and women. The result? A gender war.In Joining Forces, Jeanie Miley explains that our deeply ingrained gender expectations have created an imbalance in our emotional and spiritual lives and have kept us from becoming our most authentic selves. Joining Forces will help readers discover the masculine and feminine characteristics that connect, unite, and restore us-traits that men and women alike can and do express. By joining our masculine and feminine strengths, we restore our own souls, our creative energies, and our own true, essential natures.