I Yin, You Yang: Interpreting Relationships the Chinese Way

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Why an Interpreter Can Be Helpful!

‘Good morning!’ crows the rooster – and by opening our eyes we are not just facing a new day but also the huge network of relationships our lives are embedded in. As human beings we are in a relationship with something in each and every moment of our existence, no matter whether we are aware of this or not. No matter whether you are single, a passionate lover or the parent of seven children. No matter whether you are the managing director of a big company, a person of leisure or unemployed. No matter whether you are 85 and contentedly resting on your pension-pillow or 17 and trying to unhinge the planet. Relationships determine our lives. We are in a relationship with ourselves, with our fellow human beings, our job, our flat, our computer (I hope it is an Apple), our car, our diet, our bank account, we are in a relationship with music, television, sport, sex, books, tooth brushes, underwear, stamp collections, condoms, dishwashers, jelly babies, hair restorers, the internet – we are in a relationship with the past, the present and the future.

The crucial question about this whole relationship palaver is as follows: Do the relationships we cultivate have a positive and inspiring effect on our lives? Do they give us strength, energy and motivation? Or do they slowly but surely drain us? Do they crush and restrain us? Do they turn the blossoming tree that could be our full potential into a puny little bonsai, only the shape of which resembles what we actually could be?

Of course we are trying very hard. Of course we leave nothing undone. We follow lifestyle trends and dietary advice. We do Nordic walking and Brazilian dancing. We get Japanese massage and eat Indian food. We seek our dream partner through online dating services and in our heads we are seeking our dream job. After all, all we want is to be as happy, content, full of vitality, and in as a good shape as the commercials promise us and reality denies us. While we are striving to optimise the network of our relationships we have to realise that this is not an easy job, and its rules often quite elusive.

Why does your neighbour lose ten pounds with the same diet, which has your scales showing the same weight as two months ago and with a persistence worthy of Mahatma Gandhi? Why does your neighbour succeed in regularly motivating himself for a morning run while you regularly fail in your attempts to crawl out of bed before eight o’clock? Why does one person feel as happy as Larry in a challenging 17-hour job while someone else thrives on calmly and sedately doing data entry less than five hours a day? Why can you relax listening to classical music while your neighbour needs full-blast punk rock in order to feel well? Why does Mr X constantly need to have people around him in his free time while Miss Y is happy when she can lock the front door after work and switch off her mobile? Why are you content with a partner who is constantly going nineteen to the dozen while your neighbour definitely needs a person by her side who flows through life more calmly than the river the Buddha observed just before gaining enlightenment?

It would be presumptuous to claim that this book can provide answers to all these questions. It’s not even trying. All it wants to do is to be an interpreter who attempts to translate the incomprehensible, the Chinese whispers, in our network of relationships. It wants to encourage us to view from a different perspective the relationships we cultivate with our environment. A perspective that can help us to understand why we are the way we are and why some relationships – regardless whether it is the relationship with our partner, our job, our diet or our leisure time – are more beneficial for our general wellbeing than others. The book attempts to do this by drawing on an ancient wealth of empirical experience - Traditional Chinese Medicine, and in particular the system of the five elements, also referred to as the system of the five phases.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on an intense process of observation. The ancient Chinese assumed that all life-governing processes occur according to certain patterns and rhythms. And that these patterns and rhythms can be systematically organised. Both, the system of Yin and Yang and the system of the five elements have their origin in these observations. Since the ancient Chinese understood the basic principles underpinning these processes these systems allow us to understand and depict life processes not only in nature and human beings, but also in economy and politics. How about an example? Spring, and you certainly don’t need the wisdom of the ancient Chinese to understand this, is the season when nature unfolds most dynamically. At the beginning of their life cycle young plants develop and grow most intensely and quickly. During childhood, which one could refer to as the spring of the human life cycle, little people behave just like plants: they grow incredibly intensely and quickly. In case you have just fallen in love then you will be able to confirm that the time of a budding relationship is also its most intense. The ancient Chinese assigned spring, childhood and the first phase of a relationship to the wood element as the inherent dynamic of all these processes is similar. With all these processes it is important to consider that, if you want spring, children, and your relationship to flourish, you need sufficient light and water to prevent growth from stagnating. Plants need light and water to thrive. Children and a developing relationship need love and affection to blossom.

These analogies can be used to explain all aspects of life. There are people who carry within them much of the energy of spring. In Traditional Chinese Medicine we refer to such people as wood types. Wood types live their lives just like spring and have an intense and dynamic approach to life. They want to grow and need much freedom. They need much light and water so that their growth does not stagnate. In order to be happy and content wood types need a different diet, a different partner and different hobbies compared to, for example, earth types, who tend to be marooned in their comfort zones…

Based on insights of Traditional Chinese Medicine this book has humbly set itself the following aims: it would like to offer itself as an interpreter so that you can clearly understand the basic principles that are the driving force underpinning the network of your relationships, allowing you to use these principles positively and constructively for your personal growth. The book would like to invite you to go on a journey of discovery. It would like you to discover which element is most strongly expressed in your personality and how this element has subconsciously influenced your relationships – with yourself, your partner, your job, your leisure time. It would further like you to discover how you can express this element to its full potential; to discover which of your relationships are of benefit to you, and which you should perhaps avoid…

I should mention two things: Traditional Chinese Medicine has an empirical approach, in other words: the tips and advice you will find in this volume have been proven useful for every day living over thousands of years. But the system described here lacks a scientific base and is therefore no substitute for the competencies of either modern conventional medicine or psychology and psychotherapy. It simply wants to complement them and offer you tools so that you can playfully, yet effectively, optimise your everyday life and your relationships.

And: this book certainly does not see its role in being an accomplice for finding new pigeon-holes and templates for yourself and your life. Of course, there will be traits of a wood type in and among us. But every human being is a unique individual and represents a highly complex life form – and putting on the hat of the wood type as a way of finding a new definition of yourself is certainly not the intention of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This book will help you recognise tendencies within yourself and those around you, and to work with those tendencies. However, it is the intention of neither the author nor the ancient Chinese to reduce the complex tapestry of our being to five elements. Take from the book what you find helpful, have fun with it but make sure you don’t take this whole matter, or yourself, too seriously.

A good portion of humour, some self-irony and the willingness to experiment a little bit with yourself and your relationships will guarantee that this interpreter will be an enjoyable and entertaining travel companion.

A Little Story About Yin and Yang

The Way gave birth to the One;

The One gave birth to the Two;

The Two gave birth to the Three;

And the Three gave birth to the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things

carry Yin on their backs

and wrap their arms around Yang.

Through the blending of the breath

they arrive at a state of harmony.

TAO TE CHING

Once upon a time. Once upon a time in ancient China there was a hill. There was a hill and the sun was shining onto it. One side of the hill was facing the sun. The other side was facing away from it. One side of the hill was enjoying light and warmth, the other side darkness and a cool atmosphere. The ancient Chinese were very astute in their observations and they noticed that life on the sunny side of the hill developed differently from that on the shady side, and therefore each side of the hill had its own qualities. That plants growing in the sun were different to those growing in the shade. And that it had an effect on the disposition of people whether they settled on the sunny or shady side of the hill. This roused the interest of the ancient Chinese. It appeared there was a connection between light and how people lived. Between warmth and way of life. Between cold and darkness and way of life.

This potential connection was fascinating, especially since figuring out life was a favourite hobby of the ancient Chinese. So they crossed their legs and sat down in the lotus position, contemplated their impressions, observed a little bit more, waited, analysed, took a break now and then to stretch their legs, and did some more reflecting. Days turned into nights and nights into days. The seasons came and went. And then, suddenly, there was a loud ‘bang’. The wise men retreated and behind closed doors they entered all the results into their computer – and out came the concept of Yin and Yang: a comprehensive theory aiming to explain the connections between, and processes of, nature and life. This theory was based on the idea that the universe is subject to constant change. This change, however, is not dependent on a creator or some specific cause. It is the result of an inner dynamic that occurs according to certain patterns.

This inner dynamic is determined by fundamental forces; fundamental forces such as day and night, summer and winter, warmth and cold, rain and dryness. These fundamental forces behave in a particular way not because they depend on external impulses or influences but because their position in the universe endowed them with particular traits which determine their behaviour. Based on their analyses, the ancient Chinese were able to demonstrate that the fundamental forces showed certain analogies. That night, being dark, cold and still, had an affinity with winter. That day, being light, was more like summer. The sun also seemed to fit to the coupled pair of day and summer – just like dryness and warmth. Since most people tend to be more active when it is light and pleasantly warm, activity was added to the list already containing day, summer, warmth, dryness and sun. Activity entails movement. A further study brought new insights: during day and summer energetic movement is more from the inside toward the outside. During the warm season, plants are striving from the earth towards heaven. The sap of the trees is drawn from the roots towards the periphery, where it nourishes leaves, flowers and fruits. On a warm summer’s day we humans find it easier to leave our houses than in deepest winter. The list, which had started with day and summer, was extended to include outward movement and orientation.

The Chinese further discovered that the fundamental forces dominating everyday life and natural rhythms could be reduced to two opposing, but mutually connected categories. One category tends towards sun and light, the other towards darkness and shade. The next step was to determine which of the two categories the phenomena of this world had an affinity with. No matter what – fire or water, chaos or order, love or hatred, flexible or rigid, man or woman, birth or death, rich or poor – everything found its place on one of two big lists. One list was white like the light, the other dark like the night. As homage to the hill, which had triggered all these profound thought processes the lists were headed ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’ respectively. The Chinese character for Yin contains a hill in shade or under clouds. The Chinese character for Yang comprises diagonal rays of the sun or a flag fluttering in the wind.

But please don’t believe for one minute that compiling these lists was simply an act of mental masturbation. The observations made by the ancient Chinese had to stand the test of practical application. Here’s an example. The human head is on the list containing day, summer and warmth because it is the most active part of the human body. The eyes and the brain never rest and move faster than the heart, the lungs or the legs, which, in comparison, are quite sluggish, regardless how many miles they have just carried us. The legs were therefore added to the list with night, darkness and cold. In comparison to the legs the head is Yang. In comparison to the head the legs are Yin. The head, therefore, tends toward Yang symptoms while the feet tend toward Yin symptoms. The ancient Chinese certainly were right with this. How many people do you know who suffer from cold feet and a hot head? Exactly! And, of course, there is always the exception to prove the rule. However, life is too complex than to try comprehending it according to rigid laws. And even warm feet can be explained by means of the Yin/Yang principle. People with a greater affinity towards day, summer, warmth and activity will suffer from cold feet less frequently than someone dominated by the qualities of night, darkness and cold.

Thanks to the theory of Yin and Yang the ancient Chinese were able to establish the requirements of the human organism for a balanced existence. For example: in Traditional Chinese Medicine digestive problems can be caused by heat as well as by cold. While modern medicine tends to look at symptoms in a ‘one size fits all’ kind of way, Traditional Chinese Medicine always tries to look at a symptom in conjunction with a person’s individual idionsyncrasies. Thus some people will find their symptoms relieved by warmth and movement, while others need rest and cooling foods.

For millennia, Traditional Chinese Medicine has managed to support the health of the general populace with this simple approach and without having to resort to in-depth technical know-how and complicated apparatus. This view is also expressed in an ancient Chinese proverb ‘Looking after your health when you are already ill is like digging a well when you are already thirsty.’ In ancient China it was the physician’s task to support health rather than to cure illness. In some cases physicians were paid only as long as patients stayed healthy, since illness was a sign that the physicians had failed in their job. There was remuneration for health – but not for illness.

As basic as the concept of Yin and Yang may appear, its enormous empirical wisdom is proven by its efficacy and practical applicability. As long as Yin and Yang are in balance the human body is able to regenerate and is strong enough to ward off illness. However, once the balance tilts to one side or the other, weak points and areas open to attack start appearing. Let’s assume you are standing on the sunny side of the hill. You are active, fiery, and enjoy moving about. You are Yang. As long as you make sure you are getting enough sleep, rest and holidays you won’t have any problems with all your activities. Only if Yang becomes too dominant in your life will your body’s inherent harmony start ailing. In that case you will begin to become more and more active. Working late into the night. Foregoing the weekend. Holidays? Well, yes, that’s this weird place from where your colleagues are sending you postcards. Your body is screaming for a break but coffee, cigarettes and your strong will are driving you on. This hyperactivity starts giving you headaches. Next are palpitations and sleepless nights. You have forgotten about the Yin in your life. Your body and your spirit resemble a dried-out desert where it is all about survival. With all that stress you eventually lose the ground beneath your feet, stumble about and are caught by the gentle hands of a burn-out syndrome. The body is reclaiming its Yin phase. Had you gone to a Chinese medicine practitioner or a Shiatsu therapist, they would have tried to re-establish the balance of your system. They would have addressed the Yin areas of your body with needles or their hands, recommended foods with a Yin tendency and would have taught you calming body exercises as homework.

This example demonstrates that the Yin/Yang principle is not some exotic and incomprehensible philosophy. The Yin/Yang principle describes life processes that occur in Asia in exactly the same way as in Europe or America. If you don’t sleep enough you’ll get tired. Period. End of. If you are cold, warm yourself up. These are not oriental adages. This is life. The system of Yin and Yang is an invaluable tool to describe and highlight these connections – and to recognize them in ever finer nuances.

The Five Elements

The world had a beginning,

Which can be considered the mother of the world.

Having attained the mother, in order to understand her children,

If you return and hold on to the mother, till the end of your life

you’ll suffer no harm.

Block up the holes;

Close the doors;

And till the end of your life you’ll not labour.

Open the holes;

Meddle in affairs;

And till the end of your life you’ll not be saved.

To perceive the small is called ‘discernment’.

To hold on to the pliant is called ‘strength’.

If you use the rays to return to the bright light,

You’ll not abandon your life to peril.

This is called Following the Constant.

TAO-TE-CHING

When teaching at the Hara Shiatsu School I am frequently asked about the difference between Yin/Yang and the five elements. This is a superfluous question as the five elements are nothing but a more finely-tuned subdivision of the Yin/Yang principle. They invest these primal polarities with more colour, more form. You can draw a tree with a pencil or with crayons. The tree remains a tree, whether it is monochrome or coloured. Colour has the advantage of showing the tree’s nuances more clearly. Colour allows us to recognize the tree more easily as a tree. Applying the five elements allows us to recognize the primal polarities of every day life more distinctly. This provides us with more leeway for our exploratory journey.

The ancient Chinese referred to winter as Yin and summer as Yang. In summer, Yang reaches its maximum expansion. The sun is at its zenith. We therefore talk about the great Yang. In spring, however, the sun is still on its way towards its peak. Nevertheless, its ascending tendency encourages us to be more active. It drives us out of our houses, it conjures a smile upon our faces. It makes us more open and communicative and inspires us to more movement and new ideas. The increasing strength of the light makes us more active and creative; it makes us Yang. Spring, like summer, has a Yang quality, although the Yang is not as mature. There is still potential for growth. We therefore refer to it as small Yang. It’s a similar scenario with autumn and winter. Before the sun reaches its maximum Yin state, when it will stick weakly and dimly to the horizon, the cool autumn days are a reminder that the warm time of year has handed in its return ticket, leaving us behind. Thus autumn represents small Yin, and winter great Yin.

The qualities of the primal polarities Yin and Yang respectively are simply broken down into more detail. They are subdivided into small Yin, great Yin, small Yang and great Yang. Walking has a greater affinity with small Yang, running with great Yang. Sitting has a greater affinity to small Yin, lying down to great Yin. Being quite partial to figurative speech the ancient Chinese tried to find an umbrella term for the newly established subcategories of Yin and Yang by determining the primary quality of each subcategory. Spring, the time of small Yang, is about growth, about expansion. Invigorated by the warming touch of the sun gardens, nature, and fields are exploding orgasmically. After the long hibernation during winter Yang is looking for a release valve to express itself. This process can be best observed in the rapid growth of plants, and so, without any further dilly-dallying, little Yang, or spring, was simply called ‘wood time’. In summer, under the influence of great Yang, nature seemed to be burning. Much light, much colour, much heat, much movement, much joy. Great Yang became the ‘fire time’. The deteriorating weather conditions of autumn led people to retreat to their houses, iron locks barring the doors. Little Yin became the metal season. In winter the whole country disappeared under a thick blanket of snow, everything was quiet and still like the water. Great Yin was therefore called water time. The hub, the still centre, around which this seasonal merry-go-round kept revolving, was referred to as earth season, belonging neither to Yin nor Yang.

The Yin/Yang principle and the five elements cannot be separated. They represent one system. But because of life’s infinite complexity we find it easier to work with the language of the five elements, as it is more visual and its imagery more easily recognizable in our everyday life. For this reason the five elements were chosen as the focus of this book. However, it is helpful to remember that both concepts are only a means for describing the processes governing our lives. They are not our lives per se. The Yin/Yang principle and the five elements are simply the result of a long process of observation. They clearly and succinctly describe the basic principles underlying the unfolding of all phenomena.

The Five Elements and Personality Types

Everyone is invested with his/her individual nature – just like every plant and every animal. It is impossible to squeeze the unique nature of any living being into just one pigeon hole. When we are talking about personality types in this book it is not about categorizing or putting a stamp on someone‘s forehead. Rather it is about recognizing energetic tendencies as, despite the unique character of every human being, we all share certain likes and dislikes. We are a part of this planet and therefore the driving forces of the primal polarities of Yin and Yang are also reflected in us. Depending on origin, upbringing, social environment,