Discovering My Yang in My Yin

How I aligned my life by studying my energy chart.

What I Thought I Knew About The Meaning Of The Yin Yang

The Yin Yang is a widely recognizable symbol whose well known definition is straight forward, I thought. It represents the balance between good and evil; infers that within the good there is bad and within the bad there is good? You can’t have one without the other — the two are interchangeable.

That was the definition I knew. The meaning I gave to my Pisces symbol. But 30 years later I realized that I had it all wrong. What do 15-year old’s know about life anyway? My 15-year old self knew very little though she thought she knew it all.

And still, on this day, as I searched for the meaning of the Yin Yang for this post, I learned that I still didn’t know the true meaning behind the Yin Yang. What? The Yin is the black half and the Yang is the white half? Really? I thought it was the other way around.

What I Learned About The Meaning Of The Yin Yang

Perplexed, I looked up Wikipedia’s definition for Yin Yang, as follows:

“In Ancient Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (/jɪn/ and /jɑːŋ, jæŋ/; Chinese: 陰陽 yīnyáng, lit. “dark-bright”, “negative-positive”) is a concept of dualism, describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.”

So it is said that the Yin or the dark side is associated with everything hard, negative, cold, wet, and feminine; and the Yang or the light side is associated with all things soft, positive, warm, dry, and masculine. What? Soft vs Hard? How exactly are men softer than women?

Well, women can certainly be more resilient to life’s challenges than men. Women are often martyrs for their children and their families. They often have a higher threshold for suffering. They are amongst the hardest workers around, particularly working moms. They also have to work much harder than men to rise up the corporate or leadership ladder.

In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of Yin and Yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and Yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference, e.g., the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both women and men as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order).

The Yin Yang’s consistent theme is the idea of balance and alignment. When things are in balance, there is harmony. When there is too much of one polarity over the other, things are in disarray and chaos ensues.

In Astrology, each sign is associated with a feminine or masculine energy; keep in mind these energies are not gender-based. But we are not just one sign (something I didn’t know until 2016). Our birth charts are filled with planets and houses in different signs — 10 placements in all.

It is said that in order to balance your astrological chart, one must first identify the how many planets are in fire, earth, air or water signs; how many planets are in yin vs. yang signs; and how many of your planets are in cardinal, fixed or mutable signs.

The masculine signs are ruled by the sun and the feminine energies are ruled by the moon. In order to balance your astrological chart, one must first identify how many planets are in fire, earth, air or water signs; how many planets are in yin vs. yang signs; and how many of your planets are in cardinal, fixed or mutable signs.

What I Learned About Myself In My Energy Chart

I have six masculine energies and four feminine energies that comprise my energy chart. Clearly I am masculine heavy but as a woman I have never felt unfeminine. Or have I?

I read that when one’s chart is skewed too heavily in any one direction, one may feel lopsided until one consciously introduces the other energies into one’s life.

Throughout my 17+ years marriage, I was the one that worked, paid all the bills, managed all the household affairs, built all of my son’s Lego kits, assembled bookcases and toys, packed all the moving boxes year and after every other year, etc. I had to do it all.

Just the thought of this has me feeling energetically drained.

Though I was the breadwinner in the house, I was also the mom boss, housekeeper, laundry washer, grocery shopper, etc. to three children and one grown alpha male.

I was also their homework tutor, school advisor, and therapy case manager. I was the busy bee taking care of everyone else, my work, and my studies.

But who was taking care of me?

No man or woman has ever taken care of me other than my parents and grandparents — to whom I am so grateful for all their enduring support even when I didn’t deserve it.

With my chart so masculine heavy, I can see how I had become energetically drained by my life’s reality — the reality I had created for myself because of my choices. I needed to find a way to realign my energies.

How I Aligned My Energies

My spiritual journey began when I learned about these Yin Yang polarities in my birth chart. My realignment efforts started with simple self-care.

I signed up for yoga classes at my work gym. I cut off my long, lifeless hair and covered my frizzy greys with highlights. I began treating myself to regular manicures and pedicures. I started taking ballet classes again. I stopped bringing my lunch to work everyday. I began to explore my daily surroundings instead. I reconnected with my friends. I created my first social media account. I went to a concert for the first time in fifteen years.

Doing all these things that I love to do made me feel alive again.

And then, I left the one thing I came to realize made me feel the exact opposite; I left my toxic life with my karmic partner.

The actions I took which I perceived to have been feminine in nature may have in fact been actions that helped me to live more appropriately in my Yang or masculine energy. hmm.

I became more ambitious. I began dreaming again. I became stronger emotionally and physically. I became less fearful. I became more confident. I became even more grateful. I saw all my cups as half full rather than half empty.

Perhaps the goal is, not to achieve equal balance, but to live in a manner that is more aligned with your energetic framework which in itself is interconnected?

In my efforts to be more “feminine,” if you will, I in fact had stepped into my full “masculine” power and I vibrated myself right into alignment or realignment.

Through this process of balancing my energies, I developed my wings.

We are not just the Yin or the Yang. There is a Yin (negative) and Yang (positive) in everything. The Yin can never exist without the Yang no matter how your energy chart looks.

The Yin with the Yang represents the whole being or existence. We are both the Yin and Yang.

Alignment involves us being conscious and aware of the self-restrictions we place on ourselves and their detrimental consequential deficient realities.