Why and How We Need to Address Our Historical Gender Imbalance

Chinese Taoism has a very powerful paradigm that explains the dynamics of effective living.  In my opinion, this paradigm is becoming increasingly significant in order to chart an effective way forward in the 21st century. Yin-Yang Paradigm

It's called the Yin and the Yang.  Yin-Yang is used to describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces are in fact interconnected and interdependent and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (instead of opposing) forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light).  That's why you notice, in the symbol for Yin-Yang, that each part has the other (small dot) within it.

Describing Yin and Yang

"Yang is the white side with the black dot on it, and yin is the black side with the white dot on it. The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and a valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the 'sunny place' or 'south slope') is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed."  (Wikipedia)

Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cool and refreshing, wet, and reflective; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity and nighttime.

Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

Yin-Yang Implications for the 21st Century

So how does this fit in with my last blog post about the Athena Doctrine?

One, The authors, in their extensive global research*, have found that more and more people in our 21st century are being drawn to a different-than-usual way of living and working and being in the world.  They're realizing for our world to achieve its potential for wholeness and transformation, both Yin and Yang need to be expressed, validated, and incorporated.

Two, for much of history, there has been a Yang path forward--predominantly masculine, where aggression, power, win-lose, dominance have ruled the day.  The Yin, more feminine part of life, has been devalued and considered "too soft" to be effective at the forefront of and in the halls of influence in a world filled with conflict, enemies, survival and growth.

Three, and yet, as the authors of The Athena Doctrine are pointing out from their extensive research, the majority of people (66%) representing countries around the world are saying that for the world to achieve its full potential, the Yin side--more feminine qualities--needs to be brought to the forefront.

Four, the powerful piece to this is that people aren't saying it's an "either/or" proposition--throw out all the men and bring in all the women.  Rather, it's a "both/and" necessity.

A World of Complementarity Instead of Opposition

Here's the way the authors describe it:

"People seek a more expressive style of leader who shares feelings more openly and honestly as well as patience and reason to break gridlock.  We also want long term thinkers who can dig in and plan for the future.  The more masculine qualities like decisiveness and resilience are important, but so is being flexible in order to build consensus and get things done.  Also, in the new economy winning is becoming a group construct:  masculine traits like aggression and independent trail the feminine values of collaboration and sharing credit.  And being loyal (which is feminine) is more valued than being proud (which is masculine), which point to being devoted to the cause rather than one's self.  And that we want our leaders to be more intuitive--(also feminine)--speaks to the lack of many leaders to have the capacity to relate to ordinary people and their points of view."

The central facet of Yin-Yang is the emphasis on the interconnectedness of life, one cannot exist without the other, both are complementary to each other rather than opposing forces, interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the parts.  For this to occur, both sides have to be equally valued in the shifting seasons and shadows of life.

The Necessity of Addressing a Historical Imbalance

There has been a sad imbalance of this equation for much of history.  And the tragic results of this are evident everywhere:  violence, gridlock, greed for power-status-wealth, economic injustice, aggression, win-lose, lack of compassion, us again them mentality, being right is more important than being in relationship.

This has to change if we are going to experience a world where everyone has an equal place at the table with equal opportunities, and where we steward our natural resources in sustainable ways, all built upon a foundation of mutual honor, respect, worth, and empathy.

It's time to place inordinate value upon the feminine characteristics and ways of thinking and being as central to our path forward.  It's time to place more women and men who think like them at positions of influence in charting our path forward.  It's time to shape a global rather than tribal world based upon the value of interconnectedness and dynamic complementarity in navigating our path forward.  It's time to honor both Yin and Yang together and empower both to work interdependently in building an effective path forward.

The future and quality of our world depend upon it.

____________________________

*The Athena Doctrine:  How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the World, John Gerzema & MichaeL D’Antonio

Four Ways to Exercise Your Truth Muscle (and why it's important)

My wife and I recently watched the Oscar-nominated movie Flight.  It's an incredibly powerful and even disturbing story about an airline pilot (played in an Oscar-worthy performance by Denzel Washington) who is forced to come face to face with his own truth--something he's been avoiding his whole life.  Spoiler Alert:  The powerful irony of the movie is illustrated in the final scene where he sits in his prison AA group and remarks that he's never felt this free in his whole life. There is something very liberating that comes from standing in your truth, embracing who you are, owning your strengths and weaknesses, your successes and failures, and being willing to look past your performance to the more foundational issue of core identity.  Where does your true value and worth come from:  the roles you play every day?  The quality of your behavior every day?  Or is there something more grounded and centered and fundamental?

Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) gets those two realities confused.  He's clear on his performance as an airline pilot--he's one of the best in the industry and the story's crisis reveals that truth.  But he has placed his identity exclusively in that role to the exclusion of admitting another truth:  his alcoholism.  And as long as he refuses to stand in that truth, his denial continues placing people, including himself, in painful harm's way.

Captain Whitaker doesn't experience true freedom until he finally embraces the whole truth.

So here are FOUR WAYS TO EXERCISE YOUR TRUTH MUSCLE:

Embrace the whole truth about yourself.

We all have a shadow side--that place that is trying to get heard in order to make sense of life--which often manifests itself in unhealthy, unhelpful ways.

For example, we lash out at and fight with our partners, not because we want to be jerks, but because we want to be heard, we want greater intimacy.  Unfortunately, we've chosen an approach that goes counter to the very thing we're longing for and instead creates greater distance.  We maintain some addictions, not because we want to imprison ourselves in unbreakable chains and create terrible chaos and pain and suffering in our lives and everyone else's, but because we're hungry for belonging, a sense of worth and value, and we desire deeper, more lasting pleasure and intimacy.  Unfortunately, we've chosen an approach that goes counter to the very thing we're longing for and instead creates greater distance and suffering.  We get hooked on unhealthy ways to compensate for our lack--it's quicker, sometimes easier, but far more deeply painful.

But the whole truth is also that we have a light side in us.  We love others with good motives.  We serve others for their own good not just ours.  We develop healthy intimacy with ourselves and others.  We give with unselfish compassion and caring.  We choose delayed gratification at times for the right reasons, in the right places, in the right ways.  We show honor and respect to people, including ourselves.  We affirm and appreciate others, including ourselves.

As the great wisdom traditions describes, we are this mix of yin and yang, shadow and light, healthy and unhealthy motives, ego and soul.  Both sides are a part of us which make up the whole truth.  To deny one for the sake of the other is to cripple the whole.

Honor your Shadow side.

Our shadow side must be acknowledged and honored for what it contributes to us--the understanding of what is trying to be heard from deep within ourselves.  My cry for intimacy, or for wanting to be seen and heard and honored, or for wanting to feel the depths of life and joy and happiness, or for wanting to feel significant is a deeply human hunger and need.  We have to address these desires.  To deny them is to deny our humanness and short-circuit the goal of being fully alive as God intended.  Our goal is to learn how to dig deeper for the most basic ache inside ourselves and then to choose the most effective, healthy ways to satisfy it.

Genuine satisfaction can not be experienced until the deepest, most true hunger is identified.

How would you describe your shadow side?  How does it manifest itself?  What is your shadow saying about what's most important to you?

By being willing to embrace your shadow and listen to it, your honoring it will facilitate your experience of your whole truth.

Learn from your Hungers.

Hungers are not bad.  Even Jesus affirmed and blessed hunger when he said in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."  (Matthew 5:6)

Having hungers is not bad.  Acknowledging them is a part of wisdom.  Understanding them leads to wholeness.

The hunger that has the most satisfaction and fulfillment, says Jesus, is the hunger for what is right, true, noble, pure, just, helpful, loving, compassionate, hopeful.  Hunger, which is the deepest, truest form of desire and want, is what must be honored and embraced.

So what do you learn about yourself from your hungers and desires?  What values do your hungers reveal are most important to you?  How do your hungers correspond to the above list of what Jesus calls the most satisfying?  What is it that you really, really, really want and how does that specific truth inform you about your whole truth?

Practice.

One of the powerful paradigms in the 12 Step Recovery program is the insistence on standing in your truth, the whole truth, and practicing it relentlessly.  That means refusing to deny the addiction and what it means to you; refusing to live in dishonesty; agreeing to name your shadow daily.  And it also means working hard to embrace the other side of your truth--learning how to feed the light side, live in it more completely and honestly, stepping into regular practices and behaviors that reinforce that part of the truth.

What are the practices you've developed that reinforce and solidify your experience of your truth?  Do you have daily mantras and inspirational readings that reinforce your truth?  Do you pray and meditate on it?  Do you finds creative ways to serve and give to others from a place of unselfish compassion?  Do you engage in self affirmations about who you really are, your true identity as a deeply loved and fully accepted human being by God?

In the end, as Jesus once observed, it is only the truth that sets us free.  Captain Whip Whitaker experienced that in a very dramatic way.  You and I can experience it in our own ways.  The nature of truth is that when it is honestly embraced, it is the most truly liberating and empowering experience on earth.

Encountering God in the Dark Zones

I have to admit I don't especially enjoy the unknown, uncertainty.  I'd rather have a clear picture of where I am and where I'm going.  My strengths of vision and strategy tend to compel me to always want to be moving toward clarity and purpose.  Looking through blurred lenses doesn't appeal to me.  In fact, when I wore eye glasses, I was always cleaning the lenses as the day progressed (kind of like I do with my iPhone).  I just happen to like to see things clearly.  I'd prefer not being in dark zones where I can't see very well. And then I read the following profound statement from the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield.  It challenged me and immediately brought to mind some powerful scriptures that reinforce this truth.

"It is the basic principle of spiritual life that we learn the deepest things in unknown territory. Often it is when we feel most confused inwardly and are in the midst of our greatest difficulties that something new will open. We awaken most easily to the mystery of life through our weakest side. The areas of our greatest strength, where we are the most competent and clearest, tend to keep us away from the mystery."

Jesus and Seeds

Jesus used seed planting as a spiritual metaphor.  And when you unpack it, the similarities of what Kornfield is suggesting are striking.  The seed is planted under ground--it lives in the deep dark place of the unknown--seemingly entombed in a coffin of nothingness and insignificance and apparent defeat.  And right there, in this dark zone, is the essence of life.  The seed has within it the entire and ultimate fulfillment of life.  And in time the seed begins to sprout--new life emerges--and the plant pushes through the dark dirt out of the unseen into the seen and vibrant life above ground.  As Jesus said, unless the seed falls into the ground and "dies," it remains alone, unseen, unfruitful.  (Matthew 13)

Life comes into being in the unknown territory where we are in what appears to be great difficulties and confusions, operating in our weakest side, in what feels often like defeat and despair.  But that's when we encounter the Mystery.

Creation and the Void

In fact, that is the Hebrew picture of the creation story that sets up the earthly paradigm of how God operates.  "And the earth was empty, a formless void and mass cloaked in darkness."  (Genesis 1:2)  Do you ever feel like that's your life--a void, devoid of meaning and purpose and expectant shape--where you wonder where in the world God is?

But as this story of origins continues, it's in this dark nothingness that the Divine Wind (the Spirit/Breath of God) is blowing as it is "hovering over [the void's] surface.  Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."  (Genesis 1:2-3)  And God continues to breathe words into this void so that even in the nothingness--this unknown territory--life is present.  And because of the Sacred Wind, life emerges, takes shape, is formed into the most amazing realities.

God hovers in the middle of the dark, formless voids in our lives, too.  If we can become still enough, and with courage peer into our dark places, we will encounter that hovering Spirit--we will feel the very breath of God blowing Presence and Life there.  We will encounter the Mystery in our unknown territory.

No wonder the Hebrew poet said, "Be still and know that I am God."  (Psalm 46:10)  As it turns out, according to the poem's context, this intentional stilling of one's self occurs in the midst of terrible upheaval, trouble, and dismay.  The poet is reminding us that even in this "darkness" and void, "The LORD Almighty is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress."  (Psalm 46:7, 11)

We encounter God in the middle of what we so often feel are circumstances devoid of the divine presence.  No matter how unknown your territory might seem, God is still there.

Paul's Weakness

Paul says, "When I am weak, then I am strong.  So now I boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me ... Because this Jesus told me, 'My grace is sufficient for you.  My power works best in your weakness.'"  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

In our weaknesses, in our difficulties, in the unknown territory that makes us feel out of control, over our heads, unable to navigate well, even feeling like failures--that's when we encounter the power of God that produces life.  If, as Paul quotes here, God's power works best in our weaknesses, than why are we so quick to get rid of them?  Why do we tend to run from them or even sweep them under the rug?

Encountering God in the Dark Zones

Maybe we shouldn't run so quickly from our weaknesses and difficulties.  Maybe we should learn to stay put in those painful places.  Not because we need to love pain and hardship.  But because we can encounter the Divine there.  We can experience a side of ourselves that God chooses to show up in even when we're trying to deny it.  God brings grace to our places of greatest need.  Strength doesn't need grace.  Need needs grace.  Weakness needs grace.  Uncertainty needs grace.  Anxiousness and lack of clarity need grace.

That's why, if you look at the symbol of the Yin and Yang (in Chinese Taoism), which represents the polarities of life that exist together and come and go in cycles, within each side is a small circle of the opposite.  A piece of darkness always exists in light, and a piece of light always exists in darkness--you cannot have one without the other--or another way of saying it is, you can find one while in the other.  At night you still have the stars in the sky.  During the day, you still have shadows.  And in the transitions between those cycles, both exist in varying degrees.  So in Taoist philosophy, you needn't be afraid of or run from the other.  You learn to embrace the whole cycle and rhythm of life as bringing necessary transformation and depth.

"My power is made perfect in your weakness," Jesus told Paul.  "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the dark, formless void," describes the creation story.  God lives even in the darkest voids of our lives.

So maybe we shouldn't be so quick to try escaping from our dark places lest we miss out on the profound, life producing, strong and empowering presence of divine grace.  God operates in a very counter-intuitive way:  it's in the dark zones God is breathing life and we inhale that Life and we are brought to greater life.