Questions for the reader. Recall your favorite heroes, the episodes of their lives that you love. How do you see them in terms of the accentuation of the archetypes of yin and yang: are they active, engaged in action, or do you simply observe them as they are, as you have come to love them? Do you carefully read in your favorite books the descriptions of the characters’ clothing, the descriptions of nature, the descriptions of their inner states? Does the phrase from a novel make sense: “His soul was capable of holding much.” Who do you think the profession of lawmaker suits more—a man or a woman?
Talent and creativity
Yin’s view of talent lies in the idea that it is something given to a person by God or from birth, and in no way depends on them. Talent can, of course, be developed, exploited, or ignored, but all this is only a quantitative, not a qualitative action. Moreover, little depends here on the person’s will. If a person finds themselves in an environment conducive to their talent, it flourishes; if the environment does not favor its development, the talent withers, but trying to force the situation through sheer will is absolutely futile and brings no positive results.
In other words, the yin view of talent presents it as a rare, amazing, wonderfully beautiful flower that suddenly sprouts in your garden, brought by winds unknown, and blooms, flowers, and smells if the climatic conditions are favorable—but directly influencing it is a hopeless endeavor, as it is destined to be.
The yin view of the relationship between talent and the rest of a person’s life usually lies in the fact that life is perceived as something subject to the influence of talent and must yield to it. That is, a person’s life is seen as the soil from which talent grows, and if the soil suits it, it grows better; if the care from life’s conditions is inadequate or absent, no fruits will appear, and the talent will wither. However, this does not mean that the person intends to take any active steps to organize their life; on the contrary, they believe that their talent, as it flourishes, should itself shape the other circumstances of their life that accompany the flowering of the talent, and their task is only to adapt and accept such a course of events.
Yang’s view of talent is largely the opposite of the yin view. The yang archetype suggests to a person that where it is needed, there will be talent, that the gods do not burn pots, and that the realization of any program is the result of a sufficiently energetic and concentrated intention that must be implemented, which may require time and consistency in overcoming obstacles, but in the end, everything will be as the person planned. In general, the yang view is completely alien to the idea that there can be a known talent. For it, talent is no more than expressed abilities, luck that accompanies it, but this is not the main thing; the main thing is their purposefulness, technical skill, and the correctness of choosing an approach to work. In general, the phrase “I have talent” under the yin archetype sounds much more self-satisfied, vain, and self-confident than under the yang archetype. A person guided by the yang archetype will say “I have talent” in approximately the same intonation as they would say “I have a good knife that cuts bread very conveniently.” If they do not have this talent, that is, this good, sharpened knife, they will manage with a dull one; the result will be achieved in any case if they have set this as their goal. If this person sets the goal of improving and developing their talent, that is, considers their talent as an object of influence, they can greatly harm it by treating it too roughly. This is the fate of many mid-level athletes who were unable to find their own precise style and approach to their physical body and placed the main emphasis on purposefulness and methodicalness in standard training, which suits some people but is contraindicated for others.
In general, talent does not like a standardized attitude toward itself: it is always very individual, and both in terms of initial data and in terms of development laws, a person with a yin accentuation understands this much better. On the other hand, a person with a yang accentuation can work on their talent much more and is more inclined to realize it, that is, to embody it in life. In particular, possessing not specific professional but general humanitarian talents—charm, kindness, understanding, sociability—a person with a yang accentuation strives to use them in their direct activity, choosing it so that these character traits are needed every day and even every hour; otherwise, the presence of untapped potential will bother them.
The yin approach differs from the yang approach in that the person is not so interested in realizing their talents; for them, it is important that they have them and, in principle, can realize them under certain circumstances. If circumstances arise in which they have no opportunity to realize their talents, they will calmly wait for such circumstances, making no effort, and if situations favorable for revealing their abilities do not materialize, they will not be overly upset. For them, what matters is that they are, not what they have done.
Now let’s turn to the topic of creativity.
The yang view of creativity lies in the idea of the originality, surprise, and non-standard nature of the solutions found. That is, for a person living under the yang archetype, creativity is a kind of adornment, a pleasant addition to the work they are doing. A witty unexpected response, an effective turn of the topic that no one had thought of before—all this is welcome, but it can be dispensed with. The fact is that the energy of the yang archetype itself is already the basis of the creative act, because creativity is nothing more than the process of materializing the subtle plane in the dense. Therefore, the topic of creativity in the narrow sense does not greatly concern a yang-type person.
As for yin, here the topic of creativity is understood and interpreted quite differently. For a person living under the yin archetype, a state of waiting for a creative insight is characteristic. They divide their life into two parts. One is gray, boring, uninteresting, consisting of their ordinary existence, and the second is life illuminated by the creative principle, a great flame or, at the very least, small sparks that completely transform and transfigure their life. It would be wrong to think that the yin principle is completely devoid of creativity; every particle of the manifested world is endowed with creativity, but this creativity for yin matter is, as it were, routine, ordinary, not something that takes it beyond the usual, everyday existence. The influx of spirit is the true deep creative act for matter, which it eagerly awaits, to which it is sometimes ready, sometimes not very ready, which can burn it but is the brightest moment of its existence. It cannot be said that in its absence it is bored. It feeds on the energetic quantum it once received; under its influence, it transforms and changes, but this is already a different life. This is life under the light of the moon, and when the creative process intensifies, it is like the sunrise after a long polar night.
Questions for the reader. How interesting is it for you to communicate with acquaintances—asking or answering questions? Do you consider mystical insight an indispensable attribute of the creative process? Can you predict your boss’s reactions? Can you always predict your own reactions to unpleasant situations? Are there situations or circumstances that sharply enhance your creative principle or sharply weaken it? Is the practical realization of your abilities important to you? Do you understand the expression “a bearer of culture”? Do you consider the reception of visitors by an official a creative activity or at least a possible creative activity? Do you consider the professions of judge, film critic, shoemaker, or hunter to be creative? Can one meet one’s death creatively?
Thinking
There are many different types of thinking, and each person thinks differently depending on which archetypes are active in them at the moment. At the same time, the ease, weightiness, effectiveness, and many other characteristics of thinking depend on how successfully the modalities of this thinking are included. This means that a person should be able to think only in favorable combinations of modalities for them. Conversely, the habit and skill of thinking in modalities that are difficult for them sometimes lead to unusual results.
The yin type of thinking can be characterized as adaptive, accommodating. In their thinking, this person is receptive to others’ thoughts and ways of thinking. They are an ideal conversationalist if their partner wants to make them think in the same way as they do. However, this alignment is temporary. Having accepted another’s manner and assimilated it, the person can stay in it for some time, but then they may assimilate another manner, and the old way of thinking ceases to be used.
Under the influence of the yin archetype, a person tends not so much to deny as to adapt this thesis, even if it does not appeal to them and contradicts their worldview (or a given fragment of the world), to their vision of the situation, or rather, to change their vision of the situation in accordance with the thought transmitted to them by their partner. For yin thinking, a kind of right-hemispheric quality is characteristic—various associations, images, metaphors that develop, complement, and modify a person’s thought. This is a self-governing flow of the mental process, and the person does not consider that they must control it, and their thinking, when expressed outwardly, can be called thinking aloud. This is typical of women who do not mean that what they say is the final product of their thinking or a reason for their partner’s actions. They seem to be reasoning to themselves, adapting the new thought that has come to them from within or from outside to their mental worldview.
If you try to catch some logic or purpose in this kind of monologue, you are unlikely to succeed, or you will get a false impression of the goals and thoughts of your interlocutor.
Yang thinking is always more organized than yin thinking, but it has a certain goal directed outward, that is, toward some external object relative to the thinking itself, and this thinking strives for regulation, whether of itself or of the external object. Logic that derives one thing from another and has a quite definite goal, which usually becomes clear at the end of the unfolding of yang thought and for the sake of which this thought unfolded, is characteristic of it. As for yin thinking, this goal is absent both at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of this thinking; it only creates some environment. Yang thinking, on the contrary, implies a certain goal and leads either the person or their partner, interlocutor, or opponent to it.
Questions for the reader. When you reason, are you inclined to lose the goal of your reasoning, to forget it? Do your interlocutors understand you well when you try to convey your thought to them? Can you speak concisely? When perceiving another person’s thought, do you primarily strive to understand the image of this thought, or is it absolutely necessary for you to know what it tends toward, and without this you do not perceive it? Try to find an image from the plant kingdom that best corresponds to your close friends and relatives, that is, find a vegetable, fruit, bush, or tree that they most resemble. Is it difficult for you to complete this task? Did you gain any additional knowledge about the people you were looking for images for in the process?
Will and initiative
In the yang modality, willpower appears much more vividly and makes a stronger impression, so it may seem that in the yin modality it simply does not exist. However, this is not the case at all. Yang willpower is directed toward realization, toward the implementation of a plan, project, toward action directed outward. Yin willpower, on the other hand, is directed toward maintaining the state of an object and assimilating external influences by this object. You should not think that this willpower is less responsible and less relevant than yang willpower. A typical example. When a group wants to get rid of one of its members, it exerts considerable willpower to push them out. However, no less willpower is required from the group to accept a new person, give them an adequate place and duties. This transformation of the group under the influence of a newcomer will only succeed if it is accompanied by the appropriate willpower, that is, if the group wants to adapt itself to the new situation, in this case the single life with a new face.
Sometimes yin willpower is perceived as the suppression of aggression, but this is not the case. Suppressing one’s own aggression requires yang willpower, since aggression in this case is perceived as something external to the person’s will. Yin willpower of an object is its will directed at itself, at its certain transformation and modification. A typical example of yin willpower is will directed toward relaxation, toward calming down when, for example, a person in a “wound-up” state wants to calm down. In this case, harsh orders given in the yang modality usually do not work, and the person begins to gently persuade and balance themselves. This is a manifestation of yin willpower. The same applies to physical relaxation. Yin willpower should not be confused with yang willpower, which is involved in the psychological aspect of contact and is masked by yin initiatives in the social plane.
Masking clear yang willpower with yin social cover is typical of manipulators who want to achieve a certain behavior from their partner but do not want to express their intentions clearly. They seem to lead the person to the appropriate decision, trying to create the impression that they arrived at it themselves. Thus, an old-fashioned young lady, having a clear intention to receive a marriage proposal from a young man, innocently demonstrates her knees and albums with childhood photographs to him on a social level.
Yin initiative does not impose anything. It offers the object various options, ways of behavior, in no way violating its integrity or directly influencing its will. So a hospitable host invites a guest: “Please come in, make yourself comfortable; you can sit in the armchair, on the sofa, or on the rug on the floor—feel at home.” This initiative seems to envelop its object in a soft fluffy cloud, which, however, sometimes limits the possibilities of breathing and movement but does not imply direct regulation of their behavior, does not deprive them of the ability to choose—instead, it expands these possibilities.
Yang initiative is like the blow of an axe splitting a log in two. It is directed at significant changes in the object, which in relation to the person are perceived as external.
Questions for the reader. How do you prefer to be guided: directly or indirectly, by giving orders or creating certain conditions? Do you like to impose your will on a situation that resists this? Is it easy for you to accept another’s opinion if it differs greatly from yours? Do you like to learn, or do you prefer to teach? Do you consider the modern youth’s forms of clothing and dancing unacceptable? Who do you think has a better chance of capturing a man’s heart in our time—a woman who puts on pants, approaches him, and says, “Let’s go with me,” or a woman who, wearing a short skirt, parades in front of him without saying anything directly?
Development
The yin view of development lies in the idea that it happens by itself, that it is a natural, self-organizing process that can be helped by carefully studying its patterns, but this help should be indirect, that is, consist in creating conditions rather than direct intervention. In other words, caring for the growth of a sapling, a follower of the yin principle will water it, carefully loosen the soil around the roots, put supports under the branches when they bend under the weight of the fruit, and, in extreme cases, slightly trim the crown. Regarding the situation in which a person finds themselves, they will seek ways to regulate its development through their own inner reserves or the reserves of the situation itself, believing that if external help of a fundamental nature is needed, it will come by itself.
The yang view of development is largely the opposite. A person guided by the yang archetype believes that development must be managed and, moreover, that the ideas of future development must be defined, and in accordance with these ideas, they try to direct the life of the object. Being dissatisfied with the root system, they can dig up the soil and cut half the roots; if they are dissatisfied with how the tree is growing, they can prune half of its branches and graft new ones, or bend the trunk with a rope and leave it in this state so that it grows in another direction. In general, the yang approach believes more in direct influence than in changing the environment and indirect influence, considering the latter ineffective.
If we are talking about a social or life situation, the yang approach lies in the fact that the past must be reviewed and reassessed, and the future must be carefully planned, investing energy and actively implementing it, since nothing will fall into our laps by itself. If certain development options seem undesirable to a person, they will advise resisting them actively, taking premeditated and prepared measures.
The yin approach, when discussing the possibilities of an unpleasant future, often boils down to the person saying, “Oh, how I’m afraid of this!”—but does not intend to do anything in accordance with these fears. Conversely, the yang approach, after the words “I’m afraid,” automatically implies certain actions that they will take to reduce the chances of an unfavorable course of events.
In general, yang emphasizes the future, while yin emphasizes the past. Yin relies on the past, believing that the future naturally grows out of it. Yang, on the other hand, is directed toward the future, often considering the past an insignificant addition to it. Probably, this circumstance is closely connected with the well-known maxim that states that in a woman the past is interesting, and in a man—his future.
Questions for the reader. You see a tree that is growing poorly. What will attract your attention first: the soil on which it grows or its branches and leaves? In what do you tend to see development problems— in a misunderstanding of development trends or in the difficult past of the developing object? Do you believe that childhood experience largely determines a person’s entire subsequent fate in all essential respects? Do you believe that a person can completely re-educate and remake themselves, starting this work in adulthood? Do you believe that the future has a stronger influence on a person than the past, or do you hold the opposite view? It is known that if a bee queen dies, the bees take the first bee they come across, place it in the queen’s place, feed it in a special way, and after some time it grows in size and turns into a real bee queen. Do you consider this fact an archetype for life or a biological curiosity that has no philosophical significance?
Energy
At first glance, energy itself has a yang tint. However, this does not correspond to reality; it is simply that yang energy is more noticeable, it actively interferes, it breaks or builds, but in such a way that the person doing this is visible, the idea is visible, and a certain artificiality of what is happening is visible to a certain extent—a violation of the established order of things, energetic intervention is visible. Yin energy, on the other hand, often seems, at first glance, to be something self-evident. The energy of adaptation, the energy of transformation of an object, necessary for it to assimilate one action or another, often turns out to be unnoticed by a person’s consciousness. As if what is happening lies in the nature of things, but this does not mean that nature in such an understanding does not expend significant energy on such transformations.
The energy of patience, the energy that a listener expends in perceiving a message or any information coming from the environment, the energy that a person expends in order to, having accepted someone else’s point of view, assimilate it into their inner space, that is, include it in their inner world, the energy that a fetus expends inside it—all these are examples of energy clearly accented by the yin archetype. If an object lacks yin energy, from the point of view of an outside observer, it looks completely sluggish, passive, and attracts no attention at all, and if any influence is exerted on it, it responds with complete inertia. People like this are described by the proverb: “Even a stake on their head would not bother them.” Conversely, an excess of yin energy gives the object a certain aura, that is, a subtle radiation going into space and as if inviting external energy; this object seems to be waiting for a certain influence. Having received this influence, the object reacts to it sometimes even very violently and, having assimilated it, significantly transforms as a result. So a spring field waits for seeds, so a girl waits for her beloved, so a reader waits for the release of a new book by their favorite author.
Questions for the reader. Where do you feel more energy: in a loaded gun or in a bullet that has just flown out of it after a shot? Which partners do you prefer: mysterious and full of potential internal content and meaning, still unrevealed, or energetic in their direct actions, impulses, and conversations? Which part of a book is more interesting to you: the beginning, where the plot is just unfolding and future peripeteia are only outlined, or the climax of events, the direct dramatic action? Which scenes in films attract your attention more: those charged with psychological tension or those of direct dynamic action? Do you believe that experience brings strength to a person?
Anchors
Anchors in psychology are experiences that have particularly stuck in a person’s consciousness or subconscious and serve as magnets for various current states and associations, that is, experiences to which they return again and again. Yin anchors are certain states of a person that, for one reason or another, have stuck in their memory and serve, in a sense, as models for many of their life states; that is, a person largely measures their life by these anchor states. A typical example is a depressive state that once visited a person, and since then any bad mood, any strong resentment somehow unconsciously or consciously pushes them back into this once-experienced depression. The latter, thus, colors many of their difficult psychological states that are not directly related to the primary anchor experience.
It can be assumed that an experience becomes an anchor when the person’s psyche is directly tuned to one or another archetype, and this makes a very strong impression on them. After this, every time this archetype manifests itself in a person’s life, even weakly, conscious or subconscious memories of the moment of direct contact with it arise in their memory.
In particular, a depressive state, apparently, is remembered and becomes an anchor when a person, during their depression, is directly connected with the archetype of Great Despair. Accordingly, an anchor fear arises when the archetype of Destruction enters a person’s life in its harsh form, the one symbolized in Indian mythology by the goddess Kali, who wears a necklace of bloodstained skulls.
Yang anchors are associated with the intense inclusion of the archetype of influence, often in an unfavorable variant, that is, the yang archetype in a lower octave, when the influence was prepared or addressed to matter that was not ready for it. Anchors of this kind create in a person a sense of their inability to constructively and effectively influence, but what is characteristic of them is that this feeling arises in a person not when they are preparing to act—in this moment they are more under the yin archetype—but when they are already acting. Their hands literally drop, energy and precision disappear, and watching their actions, it seems that they are deliberately harming themselves. They may say about themselves that they suddenly had the impression that they would never cope with the goal. This is one of the common negative yang anchors.
Another common negative yang anchor is associated with pronounced rudeness of influence, for example, when a person, instead of politely and accurately expressing their dissatisfaction with their partner, begins to shout, wave their fists, and make general accusations, saying completely the wrong words that have any chance of being heard, and as a result a conflict arises, sometimes even a rupture. Conversely, a positive yang anchor gives a person extraordinary support in action situations. They feel when it is necessary to start an action, direct it accurately, and are attentive to the object of influence. A positive yang anchor of this kind can be found in children who, in their childhood, are not oppressed by their parents but, on the contrary, are encouraged in their independence and creativity in games. A father who always wins against his son in chess has very little chance that when his son grows up, they will achieve anything in their life.
All anchors have a projection onto the physical body. In particular, yin anchors are manifested in muscle clamps, in a certain posture and gait characteristic of a given person, which they find difficult to overcome. Negative yang anchors are marked by a lack of freedom of movement, by the inability of a person to arbitrarily control their body, poor coordination of movements. Conversely, positive yin anchors are manifested in the ability to relax, to take any form in accordance with the position of a person in the environment, similar to a liquid that takes the shape of a vessel. Positive yang anchors are manifested in the ability of a person to transform muscle energy into the energy of movement, to effectively perform various physical exercises.
Questions for the reader. Are there circumstances, states, or events in your life to which you constantly return in your daily life? Try to determine the modality of these circumstances and states. When talking to a person, try to determine which of their references to the past are anchor experiences. Note in which modality they are—yin or yang. Do these memories affect their current behavior? Observe yourself and those around you. Try to find your yin and yang anchors in your physical body. Which parts of your body do you often feel fatigue, dull aching pain, which parts are insensitive? What movements do you find more difficult than others? What is harder for you—to bend or to straighten? To run a short distance with all your might or a long one, but slowly?
Stuck
Psychological stuckness means a state from which a person cannot get out, although the content of what is happening suggests that this should have happened long ago. Stuckness under the yin archetype is a state in which a person clearly needs help and can get out of a certain situation with the help of their own resources, but again and again tries to adapt to the existing situation, not calling for outside intervention and, if it is offered, categorically rejecting it or avoiding it. So, for example, there are people who tend to work a lot on themselves and, in the course of this work, completely immerse themselves in their inner world and close themselves off from it. In some cases, such behavior is useful and even necessary, but it has its limits, and at some point a person needs to go outside and receive some impressions from the outside world and perhaps even do something in it; otherwise, their inner processes are doomed to stagnation. Nevertheless, this person can get stuck in their inner world for many years, having neither the strength nor the desire to get out.
Yin stuckness is manifested in a person’s inability, in certain states, to perform actions or deeds that they have long needed to do but for some reason are completely unable to change yin to yang at the right time and do what they need to do: get out of bed and go to work, get a divorce, stop.
Yang stuckness is typical, for example, of a situation in which a person tries to do something without having the proper potential for it or encountering too much resistance from the material. Instead of changing the nature of their activity and, for example, increasing their potential by including the yin principle for some time and learning something, the person can continue to pound frozen ground with a shovel again and again without making any significant progress. So parents day after day make the same demands or reproaches to their children, but the situation does not change for years, and parental calls to the simplest life virtues—washing hands before eating, being polite to elders, keeping promises—remain a voice crying in the wilderness.
Questions for the reader. Think about where in your life you are stuck. In your home life, in your professional life, in your family relationships, with partners, with your boss, with subordinates? Keep in mind that stuckness as a concept itself is under the yin archetype, so in this case, to determine the modalities of your stuckness, you need to evaluate the submodalities of your behavior, because stuckness in content is adherence to an established stereotype, that is, maintaining a certain state, which means yin. Your task is to determine the submodality of your stuckness. For example, the habit of swearing when it would be better not to has a yang submodality, while the habit of remaining silent has a yin one. Do you often regret your initiative to break up with a person after you have parted ways? When you stop relationships with people, does it usually require special effort from you or does it happen more often by itself? Which death do you consider more natural for a person: slow fading or a quick unexpected end? Is it difficult for you to end a conversation with another person? Pay attention to who takes the initiative when communication stops: you or your partner? Is it difficult for you to give up household habits? If you do, in what style: quickly and energetically or slowly and gradually?
Work
Work, or more broadly, activity, is usually associated with the yang archetype, but in reality, no less, and perhaps no less important, part of work proceeds under the aegis of yin. However, it, like everything connected with this archetype, is less noticeable, less obvious, and makes less of an impression on an inattentive person.
Yang activity is clearly colored: it has the idea of influence, the agent of influence, and the object of influence, that is, the matter that is subject to this influence; at the same time, the maximum emphasis is placed on the actor and the action, much less attention is paid to the object of influence. “I worked a lot today,” a man proudly tells his wife, returning home tired and expecting a reward for his efforts. At the moment, who exactly the work was done on is irrelevant; what matters is the subject, that is, the person, and the very fact of their activity.
From the yin point of view, there is no such division. There is no subject of influence; there is only the object of influence, that is, the object in which a certain work, a certain transformation is taking place. “What are you doing?” “I’m experiencing. I’m experiencing what happened.” From the yang point of view, this is not work at all; from the yin point of view, it is very serious work. For example, the work of grief. It is no coincidence that in almost all cultures, after the death of a husband or wife, the surviving spouse observes mourning, that is, limits their external activity; the implication is that their energy should be directed toward adapting to new living conditions. Of course, part of their energy goes toward helping the soul of the deceased, and this is the yang aspect of grief, but in the psyche of many people it is secondary, and the primary yin aspect is adaptation to a new life without a constant companion to whom they were very accustomed during many years of close joint life.
Similarly, finding themselves in a new situation, a person must for some time master it, acclimate to it; they have not yet performed any work characteristic of their new position, but the load has already fallen on them. This internal load is work under the aegis of the yin archetype.
In our time, a special word “hanging out” has appeared, meaning yin activity in a circle of people not engaged in any specific creative instrumental yang activity. In reality, hanging out is not necessarily a form of idleness; sometimes it is intense life and intense work associated with self-formation of a certain group and adaptation of a person within it. In principle, keeping in mind the balance of yin and yang characteristic of any ecological and natural system, any firm that sets certain goals for itself and organizes its team to achieve these goals, that is, works under the aegis of the yang archetype, must provide for certain measures for balance in which, conversely, a clearly yin tint will be felt. Experienced managers, for this purpose, organize parties, joint hikes, or trips for employees.
Questions for the reader. Are you familiar with the state of internal occupation, when outwardly you are doing nothing, not thinking about anything, but the impressions you have recently experienced are so strong that you must somehow internalize them, and until this happens, you are unable to engage in any constructive actions? Do you understand the crab that moves exclusively sideways? What efforts do you consider more effective: direct or indirect, associated with creating the right environment? What is more important for you to effectively perform work: to accurately formulate its goal and make a plan or to come into a certain mental state, for example, to be inspired? Do you have a habit of waiting for the right moment to take action, or do you believe that the main thing is your firm intention and adequate professional actions?
