For as long as I can remember I’ve been a pretty driven dude. Pushing to score higher, run faster, rank better, and so on. And while my fiery side has served me well, it’s also been a curse. You see this competitive, yang, or masculine spirit has the unending appetite of a growing teenager, always wanting more. For the last couple of months, though, I’ve been purposefully running less for speed and more for enjoyment. While I haven’t “arrived” or anything since making this change, I’ve noticed a significant shift inside me toward being happier with myself as is, a quieter inner critic, feeling more secure, and being more in love with life.

This is living yoga, as one of the things we practice is mixing yang with yin (and vice versa), infusing effort with ease, combining excitement and chill, and so on. By doing so, we journey toward greater wholeness and wellness. While I usually think of balancing our yin and yang energies as a 50-50 type split, my little running experiment, and its ripple effects, has me thinking the real sweet spot could be 100-100. What if a thriving inner landscape, a healthy relational dynamic, an optimal work experience, and an all-around wondrous life came not from using a masculine OR feminine approach, or adopting a fiery OR softer spirit, but from intertwining yin AND yang? Perhaps letting our driven self inform our calm self, our lunar side fuel our solar side, and our masculine energy dance with our feminine energy would make individuals, communities, and the world happier and more unified. I think it would. How about you

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