Cultivating Receptivity: Connecting with Yin/the Inner Feminine for Healing, Balance, Nourishment and Integration

The demands of the modern Western lifestyle are highly oriented to productivity, requiring a doing, yang, often adrenalized, masculine state. However, healing oneself and facilitating healing for others requires presence, being, listening, holding and receiving — it requires relating with yin, the feminine. This guided visualization was first received during a healing session with a man who wanted to address disconnection from his inner feminine, which was negatively impacting his relationships. While the guided meditation proved effective in this case, it’s come up many times since as adaptable and appropriate medicine for multiple scenarios, including:

• again, for those who feel disconnected from their femininity or who want to balance dominant masculinity
• for ‘filling up’ after big release or removal work
• when someone has difficulty with receiving, often related to self-worth
• to support shifting from an adrenalized (fight or flight) sympathetic nervous system state to the restorative, assimilative (rest and digest) parasympathetic state, in either acute/ situational overwhelm or Chronic / Complex Post Traumatic State situations (PTSD / C-PTSD)
• to strengthen receptivity, presence, space-holding, intuition and protection in preparation for facilitating healing work
• when the momentum of doing is strong from long stretches of productivity, this can help shift into being for meditation practice or relaxation / creativity / play
• as an East-medicine visualization to transition from doing to being, to calm fears, set up protection, introduce renewal and become receptive to altered shamanic states
• as a West-medicine / Water-element visualization to connect with eternal divine flow (surrendering, trusting, allowing, receiving)
• as North-medicine for post-ceremonial integration to connect with source (and receiving all of the insights, lessons, nourishment and healing from the experience)