Yin/Yang, Menopause & Relationships!
Meet the Yin to my Yang, today and on other days… Yang to my Yin. And the same for him.
Don’t you love the Chinese Yin and Yang symbol… it’s like a completed circle. I especially love it in this hotly debated vocabulary tested times. (And it’s so much more than the female/male & sex.).
Qualities of Yin & Yang,
Yin is that love feeling, compassionate force within. It knows the wisdom of surrender and chooses to yield, even when everyone else is getting ahead. For Yin, withdrawing is entering. It’s there that we gestate our dreams, refine our intuition, and have a center from which to interrelate. Yin touches on the great web of timeless time, knowing that the community can only prosper when everyone is considered necessary.”
“Yang is our direction, focus, and backbone. With piercing clarity, Yang chooses a standpoint and sticks to it. It is assertive, analytical, and works independently. It knows how to discriminate and cuts away the excess. It builds systems and takes action when something needs to be done. Yang is the arrow that speeds to its target, turning our dreams into realities.”
As Defined by the writer; Tokopa Turner, author of Belonging
When it comes to Living Agelessly… living both the yin and yang are paramount in living a fully expressed and happy, in my opinion.
And what I’ve learned is that unless you make a conscious effort to develop your other inner-half, you will most likely look to your partner to redeem those undeveloped qualities for you.
So as it tends to happen… it’s in Menopause that we feel more of those life-lived imbalances. It might feel like desires unfulfilled or thinking something’s missing. I find this is an excellent time to look at the balance of how Yin & Yang expressed in your life. My years of being a stressed, pushy boss revealed to me my many years spent in the Yang energy of my life. ( I will pick this up in another blog post.)
So what happens when you’re in a relationship, and you notice you both are changing? You love each other, but things between the 2 of you are different now. Your likes want, and desires have changed. It’s true, hormones at this stage of our lives are definitely at play, but I also believe that our past known lives are seeking balance. It’s what’s the foreseeable future of our bodies, minds, and souls are asking. Taking us back to the Yin & Yang concept of balance.
With hormone change, so do desires change.
Women may find themselves wanting to grow/bloom and create in the world once their homebound creations have been satisfied and left the nest. Menopause can be a “wake-up” moment for this.
While Men may wish to nest/create/build & design more in the home after years of projecting so much energy out into the world. (Less Testosterone)
Creating relationships with undefined “Flow” lets us base our wants on what fills our heart’s needs & the hearts of our partner’s needs. It’s far better for our health and well-being than trying to conform or hang on to old relationship ideas or about gender roles.
Men should have the freedom to learn how to get their sense of power and success from living wholeheartedly (Yin). And not just from what they produce & have as sexual second chakra experiences (Yang).
And women should have the freedom to be compassionate, secure, and decisive in getting what they want (Yang). Without being called a bitzh! Or be softer and more receptive to input (Yin) without giving-up or jumping into “I don’t NEED YOU” expressions of independence & defense. Sometimes overdoing while trying to protecting their financial interests or sexual power. ( I know because I did this for 17 long relationship-less years. )
It’s in the frustration, confusion, fear, and shame we feel when we don’t understand how our relationships are changing. When we mindlessly keep doing the same things, even defending old ideas of how things are supposed to be/act that WILL AGE US & for sure ALIENATE US.
Achieving balance is much easier when respecting the yin & yang in both as we age. We are always changing. As both partners communicate honestly of their needs, changing desires & give up their fears of what these changing dynamics mean…
“To grow our inner opposite (yin & yang),” as Kathleen Noble writes,
– “We must be independent without being Alienating;
-Courageous without being contemptuous of the weak;
– Powerful without dominating or exploiting others;
-Rational without suppressing or abandoning feeling and intuition; autonomous within interconnected, interdependent, and equal relationships; nurturing without denying or sacrificing our own needs.”
XX
Kathy
