The Hawaiians might have called it “dis” or “dat”, the Caucasians may have called it “this ” or “that”, but the Chinese called it “yin” or “yang”. You may have seen the “taichi” symbol that stands for the yin and yang: it’s shaped like the symbol for Safeway groceries, a circle with an “S” dividing it. In the taichi symbol, one half of the circle is dark and the other half is light. This light and dark polarity stands for the two complimentary forces of the universe, the “taichi” or Great Ultimate. These two forces shape all that goes on in the world. No matter what it is, the yin and the yang are at work.
Yin and yang are labels that we put on things to help with achieving balance better. They are universal concepts so that they cut through all categories of things. They indicate the relative degree of a particular quality that you are looking at. Let’s consider body types. A spectrum of body types would go from the thin to the obese. Without knowing about yin and yang, we can create a spectrum of body types going from thin to obese. People would than be either more “thin” or more “obese”. On the other hand, we could equally as well have designated the polarities at “this” or “that” as long as we knew what “this” or “that” stood for. With this in mind, is being thin more yin or yang?
The answer is complicated when we look at weight, but is easier when we use the quality of being more grounded on the earth as your reference. A heavier person would certainly be more weighted on the ground and a thin person less so. The Chinese consider yin to be more feminine and yang to be more masculine. Without intending any sexual slurs, women might be considered to be more fragile while men tend to be more solid. Yin has a more upward (from the earth), expansive tendency and yang has a more downward, contractive tendency. More groundedness can thereby be considered more yang while yin is associated with more lightness.
The beauty of knowing yin or yang is its connection with other facets of life. Applying yin and yang to balance life can be helpful in adjusting factors that will make a difference in the result you get. When talking about groundedness, certain kinds of food make us more grounded and others less so; some foods are more yin and others are more yang. Certain kinds of activity are also more yin and others more yang. We then have ready solutions to handle any problems with groundedness.
I have a client who gets emotionally upset where he cries a lot. I suggested that if he didn’t want to cry so much, that he should not drink so much water. He was drinking the water because he was detoxifying himself and had been told to drink large volumes. The key here is that a so-called balance is different for different people and for different situations. From the yin/yang perspective, women are considered more emotional and have a more watery nature, suggesting more water in them. When we drink more fluids then, we make ourselves more emotional. Water is yin, and being emotional is yin. Of course, this is relative because other factors in your life, like vigorous exercise, could balance to make you more yang. The important point is that knowing yin and yang can give us quick clues as to how to adjust our balance.