I’ve just finished a Yin teacher training in Mallorca with the wonderful Yoga Marisol that has taught me so much. Yang and Yin are Masculine and Feminine energies. They are both sacred and many of us struggle to find balance between the two. The Western world is typically a world biased toward masculine qualities and pursuits.
Yin as whole is feminine energy, the moon, the dark, it is nurturing, soft, grounded with strong boundaries and strong intuition.
Yang, or masculine energy, is the sun, light, being present, logical, and focused and brings out the desire to protect and build.
Whether you identify as male, female or non-binary, we all have yang and yin within us and we need them both to be balanced, to create our harmonious YinYang.
Yang can often get a bit of a bad reputation because of ‘toxic masculinity’ and misogyny towards women. This, however, isn’t Yang in its purest form. This is unbalanced Yang energy.
Examples of Divine masculine or balanced Yang:
- Being present and alert. Engaged in the task at hand.
- Taking initiative, being a good leader.
- Promoting positive changes.
- Feeling confident and secure in oneself.
- Disciplined and managing things well.
- Being bold and courageous.
- Movement.
So as you can see, even if you’re a woman you can still have these Yang qualities.
Examples of Divine feminine or balanced Yin:
- Nurturing and gentle.
- Very intuitive and in tune with physical body and emotions.
- Willingness to receive and give love without conditions.
- Being non-judgmental.
- Being a good listener.
- Able to surrender.
- Stillness.
A lot of the time in this western world, Yang energy takes over. We’re constantly on the go, busy working, trying to get some exercise in, having a social life, seeing friends and family, looking after children if you have them and putting their needs before yours. We rarely have the chance to slow down. Even in our yoga practice a lot of the time we’ll go to a dynamic class and feel like we need to sweat and burn calories but actually, what we all need is more Yin.
Before this teacher training, I saw Yin as a way to relax and be lazy. But it’s so much more than that and can be really powerful and promote physical and mental changes and shifts in us. I’ll share a post on the importance of Yin yoga soon so keep your eyes peeled!
Of course Yang has it’s place. If we were only made up of Yin energy we would lack motivation or drive or the desire to get going. We need both in equal measures. What we all really need, is balance.