Yin or Yang? Which Concealed Energy Is Driving You?
Do you often wonder what kind of energy or vibe do you give away when you first meet someone?
I get particularly self-conscious thinking about what kind of impression I am creating on people, not just when I am meeting for the first time, but during other meetups too. We are all acquainted with the concept of impression. An impression is the kind of idea or feeling formed in people’s minds about someone. Impression can be a result of the innate energy of the person about whom the impression is being created. Energy is the workforce within us, it manifests as our aura or our vibe.
As energy can not be seen but felt, the energy of a person can simply be perceived as positive or negative energy. We are surrounded by both kinds of people. Certainly, you can remember one or two persons about whom you have an instant good feeling- you are feeling the positive energy of that person here. Reversely, often we interact with someone where we begin to feel something is off or we kind of get a bad vibe about them- we are feeling the negative energy of that person. Both positive and negative energy has an enormous impact on our lives. How we come across to people or who we are drawn to depend on our innate energy.
Positive energy can boost the feelings of well-being, dissolving anxiety, fear, and improving communication. We tend to feel intuitively safe & comfortable around people who radiate their beautiful positive energy. Generosity, kindness, empathy, calm, optimism, enthusiasm, etc. are valuable aspects of positive energy. But, when we circulate negative energy, not only we limit our potential to become something great and live content, fulfilling life; also we tend to advance towards toxic and unhealthy relationships; our social life will be in jeopardy because we can not expect to attract positive-minded people while giving off loads of negative vibes. Restlessness, constantly complaining, anxiety, nervousness, confusion, stress, etc. are the few attributes of negative energy.
Although it’s not possible to avoid the full spectrum of negative feelings, positive and negative thoughts will always coexist; we can certainly try to focus on the positive things and work on our inner strengths to control our energy. We don’t have to turn our life upside down, we can start with something small and gradually forward with improvements. As the author Rainbow Rowell said-
“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”
Now, let’s dive into a deeper concept. Have we ever thought about the binary elements of our life which are totally opposite but each has an essential and fundamental impact on the existence of the other, such as day and night, inhale and exhale, the sun and the moon? We are a blending of two such universal energies- masculine and feminine energies. When we are exploring human energies, masculine and feminine energies do not refer to only the gender of a person. Generally, in our society, some attributes are designated as inherently masculine (i.e., assertive, dominant) or feminine (i.e., caring, sacrificing); but this paradigm is shifted through the understanding that we can be the combination of both of these polarities.
According to eastern tantric philosophy,
“Universe is created by and made up of masculine (Shiva) and feminine (Shakti) energies that infuse all things. Both energies exist within each of us in varying amounts. Learning how to engage both fully is what ends up making a person psychologically, emotionally, and physically well.”
The ancient Chinese philosophy aligns with the tantric philosophy using their thousand years old concept of dualism- yin and yang. According to this theory-
“The universe is governed by cosmic duality, sets of two opposing and complementing principles or cosmic energies that can be observed in nature. The universe is simply the composition of competing and complementary forces of dark & night, sun & moon, male & female.”
Each of our soul is the combination of our yin and yang- yin refers to the feminine energies in life, and yang refers to the masculine energies in life. We feel harmonious when we find a balance of both energies. It sounds simple but oddly difficult to achieve. Probably no one has a perfect balance of yin and yang within themselves, individually we possess varieties of combinations of yin and yang, dominating one over another.
Do you know which force is driving your personality more than the other? During writing this article, I realized I am more driven by my inner yin than yang energy. There are several combinations of these two spirits like greater yin, lesser yin, lesser yang, and greater yang. Most of my traits match with greater yin but my detrimental or imbalanced qualities resonate more with the lesser yin characteristics. While I am proud of my yin traits like sensitivity, curiosity, intuitions, and authenticity, I would love to have a heightened percentage of some yang traits like assertiveness, adventure, goal-orientation, vision within myself.
Although it looks quite impossible to achieve a perfect harmony of yin and yang within one soul, it certainly doesn’t hurt to try to balance between the energies, focusing on the traits that you want to acquire while attempting to negate the flawed attributes which are refraining you from attaining a physically, mentally, economically and spiritually content, fulfilling, happy life.