What is Yin, Why Do We Focus On It?

We live in a Yang world. It’s true, but what does that mean?

You’ve probably heard about “Yin and Yang,” yeah? They are two opposite ends of a spectrum. They act in relation to one another:

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Where Yang is bright, Yin is dark.

Where Yang is fast, Yin is slow.

Where Yang is summer, Yin is winter.

Where Yang is outward, propulsive force, Yin is inward receptivity and stillness. 

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I could go on all day.

So why do I say we live in a Yang world?

Because in general, and matching the energetic of Yang - everything we do is fast paced and outward oriented. We are expected of so much productivity, discipline, management, and focus. Everything we do must be towards a specific goal. Everything we do must be linear - “up and to the right,” like an upward trending growth curve. And we tend to look outside of ourselves to others and the world around us for direction, approval, and safety.

Slowing down and letting go of disciplined control is only valued insofar as it produces a goal - usually the goal of a brief period of relaxation or zoning out before the hustle and grind begins again.

Our world runs as though it’s the middle of July all year round. We want things moving at top speed, we want the highest level of productivity, we want to be always building and growing and improving and reaching.

We want the days long and the lights bright. Even in the depth of winter, when it’s darkest and the days are shortest, our M.O. is to put Christmas lights up everywhere to make sure it’s as bright as possible.

We have been conditioned to value logic, rationality, ambition, control, and strategy.

What this means is that we have been conditioned to DEVALUE intuition, emotion, contentment, natural chaos, and true presence.

We have been taught to fear going down and in. We have been taught to avoid slowing down enough to notice our irrational intuition or feel our deeper emotions. We’ve been taught that stoicism is strength.

So let’s talk about what real strength is.

Bamboo is known for being one of the strongest and fastest-growing materials for building. Its tensile strength is greater than steel, it’s extremely flexible, and it grows up to 35 inches per day.

Bamboo has a secret to its success - it grows for a period of time, and in between its massive growth - it rests. It rests, but it doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t numb out or turn off. While it rests from its upward expansion, it focuses inwards and creates a “node.” This is where it builds its incredible resilience and where it plans its next move for expansive growth. The nodes are where its strength and flexibility come from, and they also nourish the whole plant by regulating internal water flow.

Bamboo knows that rest and inward attention is just as vital as outward expansion. It’s a great teacher for how we can move through the world too.

We are meant to experience true rest - during the day, while we’re awake. We are meant to slow down, to pause, and to be nourished by receiving the nutrients of our own inner world. Our inner strength, our intuition, our connection to what centers and grounds us. We are meant to pause and retreat from the outside world so that we can tune into the truth inside our own body and psyche.

In the same way that we need both an exhale and an inhale, we are designed to create outwards into the world AND we are designed to receive and perceive inwards into the system of our body.

Taking in water, food, and air isn’t enough. We are meant to be nourished by the restful receiving of our own inner self.

This is the lesson of bamboo. There is strength in slowing down and turning inward.

Real strength is being willing to stop the grind that keeps you up and out of feeling discomfort. Real strength is being strong enough to face what’s true inside yourself.  Real strength is allowing the release of that old, digested pain so that it stops backseat driving your life. Real strength is letting go of the composure, control, emotional detachment, and compartmentalization.

It takes SO MUCH ENERGY to keep your emotions at arms length so you don’t have to feel the intensity of them. This is why you feel exhausted and achy and why your body doesn’t function the way you know it can.

Turning inward, a movement that is inherently Yin, is the only way true health and well-being can be established and maintained. And the fact that our entire society is set up to avoid and prevent this is part of why we have so much chronic illness and disease.

Because our world is so Yang-oriented, we rarely get the message that prioritizing periods of this inward focus is necessary or good. It’s mostly seen as lazy or irresponsible or unproductive or scary. And it’s often not until we get smacked with a devastating diagnosis or a serious and sudden loss that we even think to pause this way.

But it is possible to slow down and cultivate attention to our inner self. In fact, it’s crucial. But it’s also often a challenging task for those of us who have been taught that there is safety or approval in avoiding it.

Why?

Because when we really open up to feel what’s inside, there’s often pain in there.  Old, unacknowledged pain that while very uncomfortable to feel - is actually full of the Truth we’ve been avoiding, self knowledge, and real aligned direction for our next steps.

There are a lot of coping mechanisms that have been built by our own mind that “protect” us from feeling this emotional pain, and “protect” us from evolving and changing. But without tuning in, we are doomed to continue operating from patterns that while familiar, are actually reinforcing imbalance and misalignment.

It’s so common in our Yang world to live a whole life where we almost never touch into the nourishment and realignment that happens naturally when we slow down and tune in.

Most people are locked out of their own inner world, and need guidance to find the doorway in.

This is why I created Yin Medicine.

Yin Medicine is my 6-week acupuncture and transformative coaching container that puts focused attention on your inner world - so that you can receive the natural healing that comes from real self knowledge and aligned direction.

Putting your attention on Yin gives your whole system - body and psyche - a break from the go-go-going and avoidance that creates physical illness to begin with.

Yin Medicine offers a soft and wide landing space for you to open to the undigested emotions that have been living inside pockets of your body, holding those patterns of illness and imbalance in place. I use acupuncture to support your body in the release and digestion of those emotions at the root-level, and to strengthen your body’s physiological function so that symptoms reduce with ease.

Finally you have the chance to start deep re-patterning from the inside out.