The deep nourishing waters of yin
Drop out of destination and sink
Jeannie guides participants to soften open and abide in the simple moment. She talks about the dark, deep, downward pull of yin and how it is often feared or loathed because of the imbalance in us and in our culture, the glorifying of yang and the vilifying of yin. She talks about the resulting mirror in our psyches of an aversion to the dark soulful aspects of our beings. She talks about the beauty and magic of yin, the dark womb, the rich soil and the necessity to our wholeness to get to know the pulls to this in ourselves. She talks about balanced yang that rises effortlessly from the ground of reclaimed yin, and imbalanced yang that dominates and is harsh and driving.
Exchanges
Exchange 1 - Participant asks how she can protect yin and not appear as a bitch. Participant feels she responds to pokes with either fury or collapsing. Jeannie talks about emotion and hurt as central to reclaiming yin, and how the reactions of others are outside of our control. That we can use every slight to mine the places where we hurt and heal. And at the same time, addressing the relationship needs to happen as well to create friendly spaces for ourselves. She talks about safety and grounding and the threads that go into keeping us in this very young, unsturdy place. She talks about anger and power. She delineates the devaluing of yin and the overvaluing of yang that is embodied at every turn, and how to step into valuing our yin response.
Exchange 2 - Participant has ongoing anxiety. Jeannie talks about using it to notice helplessness and enter into "I don't know how." This lets us move out of the panic of doing into just being with it and opening. If there's trauma, being with helplessness can not be useful, and Jeannie talks about trauma resolution work and resourcing as an avenue for healing this kind of ongoing anxiety. She talks about fear and the necessity to pull the fear off of objects and meet it as a felt experience, given that we have built a solid enough foundation through resourcing to meet it.
Exchange 3 - Participant asks why yin equals female and yang equals male. Jeannie talks about yin and yang as the principles that rule the way energy moves as it comes into the earthly plane, and talks about the nature of each. These energies run through the organic nature of life within and without us. Jeannie talks about how evolution has assigned yin functions to women and yang functions to men, but that both forces move within us. Jeannie talks about the promise of the integration of yin and yang in the human being to fulfill the promise of our beauty as embodiments of Holy Love.
Exchange 4 - Participant is trying to sort out her love and concern for her mother, her responsibility as well as her need to take care of herself. Jeannie encourages her to meet the heartbreak and be with it. Jeannie encourages her to play with two things: 1) moving from "I'm not going to take care of her, and that means..." and meeting what rises and 2) and then "I'm going to take care of my mom, and this means..." and feel what rises there.
Exchange 5 - Participant is embarrassed that she keeps asking the same questions and can't seem to move forward. Jeannie asks her to notice what's present. In the destruction of her life, she's not sure what resting means -- sometimes it feels like laziness, sometimes it feels like giving up, but neither feels wholesome. Jeannie sums up her questions over time as "What is going on? Is this ok? When will it stop?" Jeannie talks about the responsibility we all have for getting to the bottom of our suffering, grappling with the elements from health, to mental health, to development, to spirituality. Jeannie also talks about personal will and Holy Will.
Exchange 6 - Participant feels the call to rest, has some PTSD and keeps feeling pulled out by the demands of the workplace. which exhaust her and make her have to quit. How to support self? Even the question activates her. She'd like to be at home doing things that make her home beautiful. Jeannie names it deep wisdom and helps her inquire into that impulse and to play in a vision of work that's nourishing and nurturing and feed her body with the feelings that rise as she envisions. She talks about discovering one's calling versus making money to live.
Exchange 7 - Participant says that this yin orientation is a whole different way to orient. Jeannie talks about one's calling and following that versus the conditioned yang approach to accomplish, which is fueled by urgency versus love. Urgency is from the survival impulse and drives conditioning.