Hello, beautiful friends.

It’s been a while since I shared an update on my personal journey, so I thought I would share today! I recently experienced a really beautiful ‘ah-ha’ moment, and I am so excited to share it with you all.

This post is all about the energies that flow within us-primarily the Masculine/Feminine duality. In Chinese medicine and other ancient healing techniques, this energy is known as the Yin/Yang. Yin represents the feminine energy of life, and Yang represents the masculine.

When applied to humanity, the general idea is that each person resonates most strongly with either Yin or Yang energy in the majority of their being. But no being is fully Yin or fully Yang; as the traditional depiction shows, there is always Yin within the Yang and vice versa.

This is why Masculine (Yang) energy humans still have the ability to be gentle, subtle, and flowing. Similarly, Feminine energy humans have the ability to be strong and powerful.

If you have questions about these energies, or want a full blog post dedicated to this topic, let me know! For now, I’ll dive into my own story and how Yin/Yang energy is playing a big role in my life right now.

As I talked about in my mindful eating post, which you can read here, I have a long history with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Even now, on the other side of those struggles, I find myself constantly scrutinizing and trying to change my body. I consciously understand that this is to seek external love and approval. Much of my healing journey has been working on providing myself with that love, instead of seeking it from external sources.

However, the thoughts still creep in, and my story continues.

On my drive home yesterday, I was listening to a podcast about self-love. In this podcast, the host began speaking about how she realized she had suppressed her feminine energies for years, trying to seek external love and approval from a family that only valued masculine energy.

Because the Universe is beautiful in its synchronicities, the podcast sparked a major realization for me. Somewhere along my journey, I developed the subconscious belief that embodying feminine energy makes me vulnerable. Through my life experiences, I picked up the belief that being feminine means I am not safe and that I will be taken advantage of.

Our society as a whole tends to portray females as being at risk or being vulnerable and easily taken advantage of. This perception of mass consciousness, combined with my own personal experiences, lodged deep in my subconscious and taught me that in order to be safe, I could not embody feminine energy.

When you look at the chakras, root chakra is masculine and sacral chakra is feminine. For years, I have had a beautifully strong connection with my root chakra, but my sacral chakra was incredibly suppressed. This led to issues with feminine processes like menstrual cycles, which compounded my body insecurity.

So as I was listening to this podcast, I suddenly realized that for years I have been suppressing my own feminine energy. I have been denying the Divine Feminine that naturally composes the majority of my energetic being.

Suddenly everything clicked into place.

I’m going to share a snippet of my journal entry as I was processing this revelation so you can get a sense of what has been running through my mind:

“Now, I know that my wanting to change my body is for external love and approval- that part I knew. But it just hit me that so much of what I do is shutting down my feminine energy. Like take the rings for example. I’ve created a story that I can’t wear rings because my hands aren’t pretty enough (or feminine enough). It’s like I’m not allowed to be feminine because I don’t have the feminine frame.

But then I realized that way of thinking applies to clothing too- I’m always wearing athletic wear because I don’t feel feminine enough to wear pretty clothes. In fact, when I do, I feel extremely uncomfortable, and out of place. Like I’m faking something I have no right to.

So then I started thinking, where did I get the idea that I can’t be feminine?

And all of a sudden it just clicked. Somewhere in my development, theoretically around age 7 if you look at chakra age theory, but probably starting when I was three, I picked up the belief that being feminine means being weak, and therefore being feminine is not safe.

That if you are feminine you will get taken advantage of, or taken for granted, or be overpowered. So I switched. I decided to suppress that energy and take on the masculine energy. Make myself bigger and stronger so that I couldn’t be hurt again.

I started thinking about what other implications this has- and I realized that’s probably why my body is naturally bigger- to me, masculine energy means bigger, more powerful, more muscular, stronger, more forceful, safer. My perception of feminine energy is slight, weak, incapable, invisible, docile, and submissive.

So, I naturally try to counteract that- that’s why I wear big baggy clothes, why I feel the need to have a nose ring or a tattoo or combat boots- trying to give off the vibe that I have masculine energy and cannot be messed with.

It was like all of a sudden all of these problems that I’ve been facing just clicked. There isn’t anything wrong with me. And while my self-love is true, it does not make room for the feminine energy within. Essentially, I am saying that I love safety more than I love my own inherent energy.

Which is crazy, because being feminine does not mean being unsafe. Our society loves to portray it that way and loves to make it seem that way. But it isn’t true- or at least it doesn’t have to be. You can be strong and beautiful. Safe and slight. Powerful and peaceful. Gentle and present. All those things- the yang within the yin, right?”

This realization catalyzed a profound shift for me.

Recognizing that so many of my personal struggles- many more than I’ve included here- boil down to a chronic imbalance in my Masculine and Feminine energies completely shifted the way I view myself and my life.

I am being called, here and now, to gradually allow the Feminine energy that I have starved for so long to gradually flow back through my body and into my life. As I begin to open to this energy that has been the source of so much fear and pain, I know the journey may not always be easy. But I am beyond grateful that I have been brought to this point of profound realization.

Stepping into my Feminine Energy

As the first step to embodying my Feminine energies, I decided to buy some pretty rings, as a way to express my femininity on a part of my body that I am sometimes self-conscious of. I went online and looked for the prettiest rings I could find. As I looked, I started to feel a little uncomfortable. The voices in my head came back saying, ‘Are you ever really going to wear those? Are your hands actually pretty enough to wear them? Won’t they just look stupid?’ All the things your ego loves to say when it believes you are not safe.

Right when I started thinking about not buying the rings, I looked up to the URL on the top of my screen and saw this big 1111 right in front of me. For those of you who don’t know, one of the main ways I connect with the Divine is through aligned numbers. So, of course I started laughing. I finished buying the ring from the first site, and the total was 17.95. I had seen some rings on another site that I loved but was also hesitating on, and right as I turned over to the page, I saw 111 on another tab. Magical right?

The final kicker was when I went to check out, and you know what the total came to? 17.95. Talk about alignment. I have the feeling this breakthrough is going to catalyze some major and amazing transformations in my life.

Yin energy, here we go.

Love and light,

Izzy

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey! Looking for something to read next?