Develop your Inner YIN: A study in Enola Holmes
With Kindness, one can be courageous.
With Simplicity, one can be generous.
With Humbleness, one can be the leader to provide guidance.
Now, if one abandons kindness and yet tries to be courageous,
If one abandons simplicity and yet tries to be generous,
If one abandons humbleness and yet tries to lead as guidance, he is doomed to perish.
– Tao Te Ching describing the effect if your inner YIN
Enola Holmes
Who, you may ask, is Enola Holmes? She is danger, for she is the opposite of the YIN principles espoused in the Tao Te Ching; principles necessary for balance in life. She is the newly imagined younger sister of Sherlock Holmes. You can see her in action on Netflix where she is described as follows: extremely intelligent, observant, and insightful as she defies the social norms for women of her time. Her mother, Eudoria, has taught her everything from chess to jujitsu and encouraged her to be a strong-willed, and independent thinking young woman who goes off on adventures alone with her brother Sherlock hot on her trail. {note: Enola is ALONE spelt backwards} I am sure you are now asking: “Why does Gord think she is dangerous? Isn’t she a perfect role model for young girls today who seek to become like as independent as men?” There lies the rub: differences is what makes the world go ‘round. Tension is the very centre of creativity. Too much YANG [action] without YIN [stillness] and the balance required for truly human, truly civilized behavior is lost. If you don’t think this is an issue, I guess you didn’t watch the most recent televised TV debate of the presidential hopefuls in the USA. If you don’t think this is an issue, you aren’t following the burning in the world’s largest swamp in the Brazil, the Pantanal, due to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, accelerating under a right-wing government that puts economic gain over long term sustainability. Now, back to Enola.
Here is a possible danger from her very entertaining portrayal of a young girl. Is it possible that the subliminal messages that Enola sends actually make girls feel less worthy instead of more? How could that be, you may ask? The indirect messages from the movie include: being normal is bad, being patient is weakness, taking into account others feelings and ideas is irrelevant, staying at home is boring, violence is justified, action is the solution to any problem and adventure [preferably with lots of physical danger] is the essence of living. As the Father of three daughters I too want what is best for “the modern girl” but what I have observed is that my daughters, and most of their female friends, are not like Enola and do not want to be like her. Oh yes, my girls certainly love female role models who are brave – but moral bravery rather than physical bravery is more to their taste. What is wrong with being cautious? What is wrong with thinking about another person’s feelings? What is wrong with staying in your home town? What is wrong with quiet activities like drawing or reading? What is wrong with not wanting to be alone?
He who is brave in being daring but acts recklessly shall be killed.
He who is brave but acts cautiously and kindly shall live.
Of these two, one is beneficial while the other is harmful.
What nature wishes, who may know what the reasons are?
Thus, the saint is aware of the subtlety and profoundness of the Nature’s Way,
So he takes great caution in practicing It. – Tao Te Ching
Now I will backtrack a few steps so you can better understand why I, as a husband and Father, dare ask these questions. Sixteen years ago I was struck down by cardiomyopathy from a virus, leaving me with heart failure. After 3 years I recovered, partially, but now I am on disability with a pacemaker and an afternoon nap every day when I run out of steam. I have experienced, for the first time in my life, profound weakness – both physical and emotional – during this time. I have experienced what it is like to be totally reliant upon another person. Here are two examples to make this state of being real to you. A few months after my initial hospitalization I walked around 20 steps into my back yard. Suddenly, I was dizzy, exhausted and disoriented. I lay down in the grass. It took me 1 hour to get enough energy to hobble back into my home and go to bed. The next year my parents came for a visit. My father, in a manner normal for him and thus something I was used to, yelled with a lot of negative emotion at my Mother. I felt like I had been physically hit by a sledge hammer in my chest. I felt drained of energy and sick. It was so strange, how could an emotion directed at another person do this to me? I had always considered people who reacted like that as having a vivid imagination and that their reaction was not real. Well, it was real. I excused myself and went to bed for several hours to recover. I have reflected often upon these and other experiences I have had since being ill. Now, I no longer think of weakness as a negative quality. Quite the opposite – I consider weakness a reality more truly reflecting the human condition than strength. It is a state of being which makes us more open and aware of everything around us. Being weak felt as if the blinders have been removed and I am no longer blind to the reality that we all need each other and that doing less improves the quality of life. I no longer believe that being reliant upon and being connected with another person is a negative quality – au contraire – being connected to another human being is how we are built. I no longer admire independence, strength even intelligence – if it is “all about me”. We are social animals in every way and everything “I am” is because of all people who have helped create “me”; my friends, teachers, family, culture…. the list is endless. Now, let’s investigate why this all matters in a practical way.
Fact: It is generally accepted that females are more vulnerable to anxiety disorders than males – some studies find that women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders. [3] On the other hand, most violent criminals are male. Is it possible that part of our mental health epidemic is partly due to the well-meaning pressure put on girls/boys today to be more like Enola? Is part of the rampant anxiety, depression, divorce and loneliness now the new “normal’ in Western society caused by an “unhelpful” [ie. destructive] message that we should all be “strong, independent, action based individuals” who no long cry, no longer need another person to be fulfilled and no longer enjoy sitting at home with their pet enjoying a gentle activity? Should we no longer care about what others think about them but just do as we please? {remember, Elona is alone spelt backwards!} Or is the truth that because we are very social primates our sense of self is largely derived from others and our situations within our families and social class? Is the truth that being a happy, non-anxious young girl [or boy] requires that the qualities described in the Tao Te Ching as YIN qualities need affirmation for us all to be happy? Is it possible that in our well-meaning efforts to value girls who are like Enola mean that we are demanding of them more YANG qualities, by demanding that they be more aggressive and independent, in ways that see YIN qualities of less value than YANG qualities?
Words of truth are not pleasing.
Pleasing words are not truthful.
The wise one does not argue.
He who argues is not wise.
– Tao Te Ching, Chapter 81
Here is an example of what I mean. Try looking these two lists of words. Which would you like to be compared to?
Sun moon
Hot cold
Light dark
Strong weak
Aggressive passive
Dominant submissive
Well, if you are like most people, you preferred the list on the left more. That, in essence is the problem. The qualities on the left are YANG [conceptually male] qualities while those on the right are YIN [conceptually female] qualities, in the Tao Te Ching. What I think we should consider for the health of our young people, especially our daughters but for all those struggling with anxiety/depression, is a change of perspective that sees YIN qualities as valuable and as necessary for life as YANG qualities.
Yoga is a wonderful way to seek YIN/YANG balance, I attend a session weekly with my wife
This means enriching our role models to include those people who display YIN characteristics. While Elon Musk is one kind of admirable role model, he is so YANG that he is inaccessible to a YIN person. Can you think of a person who is admired who “weak” when needed and strong when needed, which is really just flexible? How about a famous person who is not always about action and but is passive, which is really code for cautious and reflective? Why are these qualities viewed to negatively? Furthermore, given that leaders cannot exist without followers [as made clear in this video that I strongly recommend,2], why are not good followers valued as much as good leaders? One cannot exist without the other. Luckily we do now have some female leaders of countries and we can objectively observe, if they have a YIN leadership style, whether or not their countries are faring better through the current COVID-19 crisis. The answer? A resounding YES! [4] New Zealand, Germany, Finland and Taiwan, led by women, are doing a far better job of combating Covid than the average and MUCH BETTER than countries led by Macho leaders like Trump in the USA and Bolsonaro in Brazil who have “led” their country to disaster, leading the world in deaths. [5]
Finally, what does this have to do with the environmental ethos of CACOR? Well, I would argue that our hyper YANG value system which only values domination, control, aggression, power, etc. is the real cause of the environmental degradation we see world-wide. So, the solution is not merely a technical “fix”, what is required is a new value system and worldview, one that includes and affirms YIN qualities. In conclusion, I hope that you will reconsider our current social experiment that has, while meaning to help men and women be equal partners, has an unintentional side effect: it has made the YIN qualities that are essential [at least according to the Tao Te Ching] to our survival and sanity, of less value than the aggressive YANG half of our being. May you develop your inner YIN so that is flourishes along with your inner YANG.
To know the strong masculine principle, yet abide by the gentle female principle is like being the valley of the world where all rivers will flow into.
This is alike all virtue which will merge into the subtle Tao.
Being a valley of the world and not depart from the true nature, one can return to original pureness like an infant.
When one knows the white that is splendor, yet holds on to the black that is humble and lowly.
You can be a standard of the world. – Tao Te Ching
- https://genevahistoricalsociety.com/fashion-and-clothing/modesty-where-have-you-gone/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8MwBZl-Vc
- https://www.anxiety.org/girls-more-anxious-than-boys-childhood-anxiety#:~:text=It%20is%20generally%20accepted%20that,in%20women%20than%20in%20men.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/world/coronavirus-women-leaders.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/coronavirus-world-map-which-countries-have-the-most-covid-cases-and-deaths
Leave a Reply