Three P's and a B: Working on my Yin

i left work feeling good. i'm getting settled into the new job, adjusting expectations, being forced to grow, and coming back into my power. i left the girls knowing i had really pushed them hard and far in group. tears, hugs, depth, bonding, good... the program is coming together.

it's the end of my work week. sa-weet. 3 days a week is what i've been working for. i wanted to work out again but didn't want to push my luck. i've been stiff since yesterday's run. haven't worked out 2 days in a row for over 8 months.


it was either weights or yoga. strengthening, not cardio. but instead, the class they were offering was.... the scary P-word: pilates. i've seen those contraptions and quite frankly the idea of working out my core seemed like a bad, bad, painful idea. but i need to take it easy and build strength so pilates it is.


the instructor was a 60 year-old women with a really thick accent. she didn't seem too visually impressive but this woman could do things, chatting away meanwhile, i'm trembling, slipping, sliding, and cursing.


"smile ladies. you get j-lo booty."


nevermind looking like a movie star. i just want to survive. and guns like madonna if beggars can be choosers. so i imagined madonna in that buff as crap video and smile/strained away.

it was amazing how the slightest of movements required so much strength, control, and grace. all these years it has been push-push force. and tonight was the silent, gentle strength that crept up on you. it was beautiful.

i imagined this is what feminine energy is all about. slow movement with forethought, intention, and control. nothing was easy about it and yet it was refreshing.

years ago, an intuitive gave me a massage and while doing body work, would tell me what she was reading in my energy.

"you have no yin. you need to evolve your feminine energy." yep, that was pretty true but i had no idea how to go about that or what it would look like. i wasn't interested in holding babies and worshipping boobies to enhance my womanhood.

The Yang energy is masculine in nature and is described as light, dry, directed, focused, logical, and action oriented. Yin energy is feminine and described as dark, moist, diffuse, vague, intuitive, and receptive. In regard to psychological functioning, men are predominately yang but contain a yin aspect. Women, while predominately yin, contain an element of yang. Thus human beings are psychologicallyandrogynous with latent inner masculine and feminine energies awaiting development. In the first half of life a differentiation of the primary sexual identity and corresponding energy takes place but in later life a call to integrate the opposite energy, the anima or the animus, arises. This is a move towards wholeness.


At the most basic and simplistic level what happens is that men begin to develop their capacity for relationship and must come to terms with emotions, vulnerability, and needs while women begin to become more decision and action oriented and in the process claim their independence, courage, power and wisdom. At midlife women are called to decide and do while men are called to nurture.

turns out getting sick has slowed me down. forced me to have a light hand. i've been dude-energy all these years and as i age, i'm doing the swap-over... becoming more yin.

and so to celebrate the evolution of my dark, moist, diffuse, vague, intuitive, and reception energy....

i went to pinkberry.

this power legged and madonna-gunned goddess needed celebrate her femininity by chowing down a huge fro-yo heaven.

goddess said "eat pinkberry." and so i did. and it was good.

which brings me to my final P that is actually a B.... Pleasure in Bali.

I have a chance to go to Bali, a place i've always wanted to go. My friend is going and let me know about her upcoming journey:

I'm going to Bali. It's time to breath. I will go about skinning a snake and drinking its blood and genitals (good for circulation). Dancing in rice patties barefoot with a painted face. Showering nude on the side of the road like the locals – apparently – when you get naked in public they consider themselves invisible (amazing, right?) I am going to wake up to roosters at 4am and meditate until the sun rises.

I couldn't resist. So I'm campaigning for air miles from people who have 'em and don't need or use them. I'm ready for a break. Take my emerging feminine energy, mixed it with a lil naked dancing on rice patties and folks... I have arrived. 

Namaste.