Yin and Yang: Basics – Part 1/5: The concept

Yin and Yang is a concept from the Taoism although the traditional Chinese medicine borrowed some of its philosophy at a later time. The main concept is that each human being has several energy currents flowing inside them. If these currents flow in equilibrium to each other, the individual is physically and/or mentally healthy. If they however come into an imbalance, the same person develops a physical and/or mental immune weakness or even illness. There is no universal equilibrium, as for instance “a value between number 1 and number 2 constitutes healthy blood” in Eurocentric/Western medicine. Instead, each person possesses an individual equilibrium, like a fingerprint, which is why the same energy current of the same strength can improve the health of one person, but create an illness in a different person. What is more, the individual equilibrium changes over the course of human life, and is also dependent upon one’s living circumstances. A popular saying is that being open-minded and ready to learn new things does keep one young – the reason is that a person who is continuously adapting their own lifestyle to their energy currents when needed will more likely stay physically and mentally healthy which slows down the ageing process.

Yin and Yang are two of these energy currents whose influence on each other is so strong that they are usually dealt with and mentioned simultaneously. Each human being possesses both the current Yin and the current Yang whereby their interaction drives all needs, desires and behaviours concerning sexuality. As a consequence, Yin and Yang are also crucial to the topics which stand on top of sexuality, such as romantic love and gender identity.