This is part of my series about the Seven Hermetic Principles and the 12 Universal Laws. Visit my post Diving into the Universal Laws and Hermetic Principles to find the links to all of the Laws and Principles.
The Law of Gender. The Law of Gender vexed me for a long time, because like most of us, I’ve only ever thought about gender as male and female and something that we identified with at a personal level. With the identities of genders shifting in our society, I think it’s been easy for people to lean into that fear of the unknown, but I think that is completely going in the wrong direction and we need to lean into the shift and fluidity.
What do I mean by that? Here is a quote from The Emerald Tablet of Hermes & The Kybalion:
“The great Seventh Hermetic Principle- the Principle of Gender- embodies the truth that there is Gender manifested in everything-that the Masculine and Feminine principles are ever present and active in all phases of phenomena, on each and every plane of life. At this point we think it well to call your attention to the fact that Gender, in its Hermetic sense, and Sex in the ordinary accepted use of the term, are not the same.”
In short, we all have two sides or energetic flavors that live inside of us, one that is “masculine” one that is “feminine.” Now, personally I don’t really love those words, for me they have had too much stigma and other negative ideas associated with them. For this post, I’ll use the terms “yin” for the traditional feminine aspects and “yang” for the masculine, but even those have a lot of energy attached to them.
How do we determine what is yin and what is yang? I’ve taken a lot of classes on this subject, and read many thoughts, but in a nutshell here is what I’ll tell you: yin is when you are in the flow of life, leaning into your intuition and how you feel about things. Yang is considered the mental aspect of yourself and is led by your brain and is more associated with action. For example, when you are forming a plan and coming up with the idea of what to do, that is leaning into your yin side, when you decide to get up and take action, that is yang energy.
When it’s broken down in that way, you can see that it is very obvious that we all have both yin and yang, or masculine and feminine energy, flowing through us. The combination of the energies are like a roadmap of what we want to do with our life. When we lean into what our hearts say, we are mapping out our plan, executing it is what helps us create our world.
The Law of Gender seems overly complicated, but it’s not. If anything it’s just a tool for us to use and play with to manifest what we want. The problem is that a lot of people in modern society, tend to lean into the yang side of life. We feel the need to do something, to create something and “take charge” of our destiny. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you remove the yin portion, things don’t flow as easily and you tend to have to work harder for what you want. The goal is to let these energies flow in harmony so that we are working with the Universal Laws instead of swimming against the natural flow of things.
How do you know if you are using the yin and yang flows to your advantage? If you are used to listening to your intuition, then you already have one leg up! My husband is an expert at just feeling his way through a situation. He listens to his gut and does whatever it tells him, it’s a skill he learned early on in life and has honed over the years. I, on the other hand, constantly question my thoughts and actions, tend to second guess myself and used to end up having anxiety attacks over the simplest decisions. Part of the reason I did this was because I was a people pleaser and was constantly worrying about other people’s thoughts or feelings about me. People pleasing shut my intuitive side down and I’ve been on a journey to unlock it for quite some time. I’m getting there, but the road is tough because I’m not only reprogramming my brain to let things go, but I’m also trying to listen to my gut and figure out what is really right for me. In short, I’ve been letting my yang side lead my life for too long!
Here are a few tips that I personally have found helpful when trying to lean into the yin energy, if you have others I’d love to hear them in the comments.
1. Shut up, listen and trust! Sorry, I don’t mean to yell but this one is really important. Listening to what your heart and body is trying to tell you at any given moment is imperative. Do what you need to do to disconnect and just be alone with your thoughts. Take a walk, meditate, journal, just stop and listen.
I’ve recently found that when I have a question about something, I can draw an oracle card after asking the question and I will get some kind of answer that will get me thinking in a completely different way, which usually gets me to an answer. Then, you need to trust that the answer you get from whatever avenue you get it from is the right one. Sometimes that is hard, but it gets easier the more you do it. Start with smalll things and work your way up. What I mean is, if you are connecting to yourself for the first time and get the urge to call a friend, then do that. On the opposite side if you are connecting for the first time and are asking whether or not to buy that house then you may be in for some anxiety later on. Make sense?
2. Disconnect…from everything. I listened to a podcast from the Manifestation Babe where she was interviewing the Royal Shaman (episode 174), and one thing she does often is have a day where she does nothing. When she said that, it sounded lovely! However, when she said nothing, she meant nothing. No reading, no television, no phone, no talking to people, no cooking or cleaning, nothing. I haven’t had a chance to do this for a whole day, just an hour or two and let me tell you, it’s tougher than you think. We are so used to distracting ourselves that we have no time to integrate in what we’ve learned or heard and process that information into our bodies, disconnecting gives you a chance to reconnect to yourself and process. Just try it for an hour and see what you get out of it.
3. Look around you and observe. This particular law is fascinating because you can almost see it in everyone around you. The ebb and flow of the yin and yang energies is something that can be felt and, if you are perceptive enough, observed. So often people get caught up in talking, answering emails, hoping on Facebook or are just lost in their own thoughts that are full of judgement, but there is magic happening all around us if we just stop and observe from a completely neutral place.
I’m not going to lie, I still don’t like the term Law/Principle of Gender, it just feels too heavy to wrap my head around. Maybe I’ll start calling it the Law of Divine Union or something. I think it’s easier to digest when you put it in energetic terms and can imagine the great ways it can work in your life if you just allow it to. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or via email.
