Yin and Yang - Balance

I have long been fascinated by the Yin and Yang Chinese symbol. This symbol represents the complementary yet opposite nature of the masculine (Yang) and female (Yin) energies. The shape of the yin and yang sections of the symbol, actually gives you a sense of the continual movement of these two energies, yin to yang and yang to yin.

The shapes are not completely black or white. They have a "seed" of the other color within them as a reminder that things in life are not completely black or white. Everything is inter-connected.

The Chinese refer to the sky as yang and the earth as yin. Yang is active and yin is restful. Thus, as activity culminates in rest which in turn culminates in activity, yang becomes yin as yin becomes yang. These two elements are inseparable since they imply each other.

Yin
Yin energy is female, shady, dark, cold, water, night, space, rounded, nurturing and soft. Even personalities can be yin. Those who express themselves with thoughts more than action are said to possess yin personalities.

Yang
The attributes of yang energy are male, sunny, light, warm, fire, day, time, sharp, movement and expansion. Yang personalities are concentrated, active and projecting. These types express themselves through actions.

If personalities can be predominantly Yin or Yang, could jobs, every day chores and leisure activities have a Yin or Yang quality?

We could say that jobs in teaching, sales, policing, business, and even government depend on Yang energy. They involve a lot of interactions with other people and demand that you project your energy outward.

On the other hand, computer programmers, researchers, librarians, artists like painters or pottery makers, for example, have jobs that could be characterized as Yin jobs because they spend most of their time on their own thinking and creating. Their energy is focused inward.

What about every day chores?

Yin chores: folding the laundry, ironing clothes, dusting furniture, and depending on your mindset, vacuuming, washing dishes, cooking, raking the leaves outside, etc.

Yang chores: helping your kids with homework, taxiing the kids to and from hockey games or dance lessons, grocery shopping, running errands to the dry cleaners, pharmacy, etc.

Assessing if daily chores are Yin or Yang is tricky because a lot of it depends on the mindset you have as you do the chores. For example, I have a friend who loves ironing clothes because she finds that the back and forth motion with the iron is soothing. Ironing gives her some precious "down" time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I have another friend who likes vacuuming for the same reason, she finds the admittedly much noisier back and forth motion comforting because she is alone with her thoughts and feels an immediate sense of accomplishment seeing clean carpets. The activities can be deemed Yin if they help you tune out and be alone with your thoughts. If you are expending a lot of energy getting things done quickly and with gusto, the activities have a more Yang quality.

What about leisure activities?

Team sports like hockey, volleyball, basketball, soccer, etc are definitely Yang activities.

Yoga, meditation, gardening, and even running are leisure activities that allow you to go inward and spend time with yourself.

Do you have a balanced life?

For me, the symbol Yin and Yang reminds me of the importance of balance. Is your energy usually expended outward or focused inward. Are you doing more than you are being?

Most of us spend the majority of our day expending our energy outside of ourselves. As a manager, you need to get the job done while attending to the people who count on you for guidance. As a homeowner there is an endless list of chores to do around the house to keep things going. As a parent, your kids' needs often (if not always) take precedence over your own. As a member of a sport team or the Parent Teacher Association or the church choir, you have responsibilities to fulfill because others have expectations of you.

I would venture that most of us have lives that are heavily weighted on the Yang side of the equation. How can we regain a sense of balance? How can we incorporate more Yin like activities in our lives?

How do you feel about spending time on my own? A friend admitted to me recently that she did not know how to spend time by herself. She is actually afraid of those solitary times so she fills her calendar to the brim. And when she is alone, she throws herself into activities like reorganizing the storage space in her closets, redecorating a room or doing strenuous yard work. Does that describe you too? Or have you developed the personal discipline required to stop the merry-go-round regularly so you can replenish your energy.

Using the descriptions above as a guideline, evaluate if your life is in balance or out of balance.

As for me, they say you teach what you need to learn... I still have a long way to go to incorporate more Yin time in my life. I would love to hear how you do it. Can you teach me a few tricks?