Yin Yang Of Life – Don’t Be So Scared Of This!

 

Let’s chat about the B Word and more specifically the yin and yang of life.

So just a heads up – we will be going deeper into how life works in this episode today so be prepared to have everything you think is quite black and white in life to be shaken at its core.

So you are probably wondering – what is this B word I am speaking about? Well it refers to the song I was listening to yesterday on the way home from wheelchair soccer by Meredith Brooks called Bitch.

Depending on how old you are, you may or may not be familiar with this 1997 song so if you haven’t heard it before I encourage you to go out and listen to it today.

But it really perfectly encapsulates the duality of life and the duality of our personalities as human beings living in this world.

Humans who are flawed yet perfectly formed, humans who are good and then have some not-so-great parts about us.

Humans who sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. Humans who are brave and scared at the same time, who have faith and also doubt, who step outside their comfort zone and then love their comfort zone at the same time.

 

YIN YANG OF LIFE

So I just wanted to share with you some of the lyrics here and this is how they go:

 

I hate the world today
You’re so good to me
I know but I can’t change
Tried to tell you
But you look at me like maybe
I’m an angel underneath
Innocent and sweet
Yesterday I cried
You must have been relieved
To see the softer side
I can understand how you’d be so confused
I don’t envy you
I’m a little bit of everything
All rolled into one

I’m a bitch
I’m a lover
I’m a child
I’m a mother
I’m a sinner
I’m a saint

And I do not feel ashamed
I’m your hell
I’m your dream
I’m nothing in between
You know you wouldn’t want it any other way

Rest assured that when I start to make you nervous
And I’m going to extremes
Tomorrow I will change
And today won’t mean a thing

Just when you think you’ve got me figured out
The season’s already changin’
I think it’s cool you do what you do
And don’t try to save me

I’m your hell
I’m your dream
I’m nothing in between
You know you wouldn’t want it any other way
I’m a bitch
I’m a tease
I’m a goddess on my knees
When you hurt
When you suffer
I’m your angel undercover
I’ve been numb
I’m revived
Can’t say I’m not alive
You know I wouldn’t want it any other way

 

So why am I mentioning this potentially long forgotten song today?

 

Because seriously this is what we are all like. We are combined of all the stuff, all the flip-sides of the same coin, we are messy in the same ways we are organised, we are as deep as we can be shallow, we are driven as much as we are lazy, we are motivated as much as we are motivated.

 

YIN YANG OF LIFE

 

And I know as a Gemini this is something I recognised in myself many years ago. I know everyone used to joke that Geminis have something like a split, two-faced personality but the way that I always felt that this star sign fit me to a tee is because I knew deep down I was everything and anything all at the same time. I had the potential to be both things at once, I could flitter from one extreme to the other.

I was as introverted as I was extroverted, as quiet as I was loud, as studious as I was a procrastinator, as deep as I was shallow, like Meredith Brooks said in her amazing song…I’m a little bit of everything all rolled into one.

This is where I step in to say…it is totally okay to be this same…a little bit of everything all rolled into one. And I wanted to demonstrate to you today that everything in life is exactly the same. There are positive and negative qualities to everything that surrounds us.

 

 

YIN YANG OF LIFE

Let’s use my dogs as an example.

 

We have two lovely dogs called Scooter our King Charles Cavalier and Sabre our doberman. If you were to ask me about all the things I don’t love about our dogs I would have a little list ready and waiting for you. Like I dislike it when we have our carpets cleaned and then they trod back into the house with their muddy little pawprints everywhere.

I don’t love that now that we have two dogs we can’t take off on vacations and long holidays like we used to…I have to give some thought to who can care for them, and since getting Sabre our bigger dog sometimes it’s easier to just say no.

When it was just Scooter it was easier to have my in-laws mind our cute little dog so that we could go off on holidays for months or weeks at a stretch but now that we have Sabre who requires two long one hour walks a day, it isn’t as easy now to pass her onto something else to mind.

These dogs always want to be with me and I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been one podcast episode that I’ve recorded that you haven’t caught a glimpse of Scooter snoring heavily in the background. And even though I just listed a few things that are annoying about having two dogs, could I live life without them? Absolutely not.

YIN YANG OF LIFE

 

The flipside of the coin is their love and devotion to me and my family, the warmth of their bodies as they snuggle next to me whenever I’m working or reading or doing anything that allows them the opportunity to pretty much glue themselves to the sides of my body.

I miss them when I’m not with them and I know that even if we did go away without them I would be thinking about them all the time and missing them like crazy.

Even though I work from home I’m never alone, they are two beautiful souls with beating hearts who make our life feel complete.

 

I used a very simple example here everything in life is the same.

 

There are good bits and not-so-lovely bits about being married, about being single, about working from home and working outside in an office, about being a mom and being childless.

You can find examples of where this is true for everything in life. This is what people refer to when they speak about the yin and yang of things. Yin and yang (or yin-yang) is a complex relational concept in Chinese culture that has developed over thousands of years.

The yin yang symbol represents the interconnectedness of the world and how there can be no positive without a negative, no open without closed, no light without shadow. Yin and Yang cannot exist without the other.

 

Some examples of things that cannot exist without the other include:

 

  • Life and death
  • Light and dark
  • Day and night
  • Summer and winter
  • Feminine and masculine
  • White and black
  • Passive and active
  • Stillness and motion
  • Wet and dry
  • Soft and hard
  • Heavy and light
  • Water and fire
  • Heat and cold
  • Positive and negative
  • Hollow and solid
  • Back and front
  • Sun and moon
  • Fast and slow
  • Expressive and introspective
  • Thoughts and feelings
  • Upward and downward
  • Active and calm
  • Rising and sinking
  • Using energy and storing energy
  • Rigid and flexible
  • Large and small
  • Upper and lower
  • South and North
  • East and West
  • Water and air
  • Simple and detailed
  • Awake and asleep
  • Aggressive and meek
  • Chaos and order
  • The unknown and the known
  • Bad and good
  • Imperfect and perfect
  • Consuming and producing

 

Now I could go on and on here with examples because they exist everywhere around you, in everything and in you too.

 

Because you are both…you aren’t rigidly fixed at one point in the spectrum. You have it all within you and so too does everyone and everything in this world. I share this with you so that you don’t think there is something wrong with you if you are being a little bitchy as the song goes because we all have a little bit of bitchiness inside of us.

Some may try harder to shove it into the dark recesses of their soul but it’s all there inside all of us. And the sooner we openly embrace the duality of life in ourselves and others, the more free we will feel because nothing has gone wrong here if you are having a terrible moment.

Nothing has gone wrong if you are showing up in life more hellish and less dreamish on some days, if you sometimes love everything about parenting and hate everything about parenting, if you sometimes want to run away from it all and other days hold onto everyone so tightly you feel as if you can’t breathe.

 

YIN YANG OF LIFE

 

This is what being a complex human being looks like in life and we are all the one and the same. This is the yin and yang of life – the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, this is all normal and exactly the way it was always supposed to be.

So I know that this has been a deeper lesson than usual that I’m sharing with you today but I share it with you because I know that if you truly let this message sink into the core of your heart and soul it has the power to set you free.

As always, much love from me and take care.

Much love,

Frances Vidakovic 

 

 

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