Principles of Yin & Yang in Healing

I haven't written much about health on this blog, not because it doesn't interest me, but mainly because of my background: low self-esteem and health challenges during my teen years led to an obsession with being healthy, which manifested as a mild eating disorder (I say 'mild' because it never threatened my life, but it did give me a totally warped and unhealthy relationship with food), and then the pendulum swung the other way and I became anti-anything that sounded like a diet, and adopted the non-judgemental attitude of "Who am I to tell anyone else what's healthy". I still loathe the diet police and think most mainstream nutritional advice is pretty skewed, but just recently I've become drawn to the macrobiotic philosophy, which is usually thought of as just "a diet" but it actually arises out of the broader, more universal concepts of Yin & Yang energy. Interpreted correctly, this knowledge leads to empowerment, not to prescriptive diet rules. I'm just getting to grips with it so by writing this I'll help myself and hopefully others too.

Despite my hostility for diet dogma, I've been a nutrition geek for years, reading up on everything from Weston Price to Ray Peat to raw vegan gurus to Jan Kwasniewski (all of whom have interesting and valid ideas by the way). Generally though, most nutritional information you will come across is based solely on the physical aspects of food and human biology, and excludes the spiritual dimension. If you study nutrition from a physical perspective only, you will probably end up thoroughly confused (as I did) about what constitutes the ideal human diet; there are so many conflicting ideas and half-truths in the realm of nutrition that it boggles the mind. Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health does an admirable job of sorting the wheat from the chaff in that regard.

But what if nutrition and health are not just physical matters? Getting back to macrobiotic philosophy - it assesses foods according to the balance of Yin & Yang energies contained therein. The idea of Yin & Yang originates from Oriental philosophy, where they are seen as complementary interacting forces that make up the universe (note: they are NOT analogous to 'good & evil'). Yin is passive, expansive, feminine, and cool; Yang is active, contracted, masculine, warm. Applied to nutrition, this knowledge can help us choose foods that will balance us according to our constitution, health condition, climate, and our physical, mental & spiritual requirements. Examples of predominately yin foods would be watery and potassium-rich fruit, raw foods, sugar, and alcohol - as a rule, foods that grow in warm (yang) climates. Foods predominant in yang energy are more dense and salty, like meat, fish, eggs, and cheese. For those living in a temperate climate, the most balanced foods are locally-grown, properly cooked grains and vegetables. None of this is supposed to be diet dogma though, it just serves as a guideline and a means of understanding the effects of different foods on our bodies. This philosophy helps to explain, for example, why the Inuit people can thrive on an extreme diet of nearly all animal products (the yang diet balances the extremely yin climate in which they live), and why strict vegetarians can become ungrounded (too yin) thanks to their yin diet. It also explains certain phenomena that I've observed: people who've gorged on a rich, meat-heavy yang diet all their lives can find that miracles happen when they go on a cleansing raw vegan diet, but for someone who's already done a lot of detoxing and tends towards being yin, such a diet can leave them feeling ungrounded and ill - but because of misinformation, they'll persist with a diet like that because it's seen as the ultimate healthy thing to do.

In my own case, being naturally very yin in my constitution (i.e. introverted, passive, melancholic, and I admit, sometimes ungrounded ;) ) for some reason I'm attracted to yin foods as well, and would rather have a vegetarian meal - or worse, a sugar binge - than meat, any day. But I need dense protein foods to ground me and give me the strength I need to function on this earth and not float away into the clouds as I am inclined to do. The past year or two I've also felt that it was necessary for my overall healing to 'yang up my life' and socialise more, in order to overcome the extreme yin introversion that was characteristic of my temperament before. It's all been part of the journey of stepping out of my comfort zone and experiencing newfound growth and healing along the way.

Actually, that's been a big theme for me recently: opposites, specifically, doing the opposite of my natural tendency. If my inclination is to stay in and be alone - I go out and meet people. If my instinct in a situation is to feel embarrassed or hurt, I try to feel confident and strong instead. If my instinct towards someone is to dislike or find fault with them, I love them and focus on their positive qualities. Obviously I can't do this all the time, and sometimes it wouldn't be right to do it anyway, as my intuition might tell me not to do something for my own good - and I'm not going to ignore my intuition. But in many cases, conditioning and/or habit are the only forces that drive you to act or react in a certain way, and it can be good for your development to overcome those forces by doing the exact opposite of what they dictate.

And on that slightly tangential note, I conclude my introduction to Yin & Yang. Next time, I'll try and tie all this in with the concepts of Christ, Ahriman and Lucifer - my latest fascination. For now, if you're interested in macrobiotic philosophy for healing, then I recommend:

Yin & Yang Healing and Modified Macrobiotics by Dr Lawrence Wilson

Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

Macrobiotics at Wholesome Balance