We live in a world that is loud.
Not just in sound, but in pace, expectation, stimulation and urgency. A world that constantly asks us to respond, produce, decide, comment, buy, learn, improve, keep up. A world that pulls our attention outward, toward screens, responsibilities, updates, and opinions. It’s enough to make me feel tired just having typed that paragraph!
Within the noise lies an underlying message: that exhaustion and disconnection from our body and inner world are inevitable. Of course we get to choose how readily accessible we want this flood of information and how much of it we let in but this messaging runs deep because it has been normalised, which is a huge cultural flaw that our nervous systems are not designed for.
It’s hard to imagine the time when there was no clock dictating the day, no constant stream of information and no global crises delivered before breakfast. Our bodies evolved in a world where input was slower, simpler and more cyclical & rhythmic.
When I speak of yin and yang I’m not speaking in rigid or gendered terms. I mean them as energies: inward and outward, receptive and expressive, stillness and movement, sensing and doing.
Yin is the inner world.
Yang is the outer world.
Yin is what you feel.
Yang is what you do.
Yin is presence.
Yang is action.
Our modern culture is overwhelmingly yang-oriented, where output, speed, and productivity are highly valued. Worth has become measured by what can be seen.
Yang in itself is not a bad thing, we wouldn’t get anywhere without its fiery, active qualities. Action, ambition, movement and expression are not the problem. The problem is when movement is no longer guided by inner listening, when action becomes reflex rather than response, and when doing becomes disconnected from being. This is especially true for women.
For many women, our doing has been shaped by expectation, survival, adaptation, and conditioning. We’ve learned what “success”, confidence and power should look like. But true power does not come from imitation, it comes from intuition, and intuition lives in the yin.
We are not meant to be constantly available, absorb endless information, or to be highly stimulated all day and then expected to sleep deeply at night. Our nervous system does not know the difference between a physical threat and information overload. It responds to volume, speed, unpredictability, and demand. So when we feel scattered, overwhelmed, numb, or disconnected, it isn’t weakness, it’s biology.
This is where responsibility comes in, as agency. As most of us cannot escape to a forest or opt out of using technology, we must choose wisely how to meet this yang driven world. Choose what we let in, when we slow down and return inward. Discernment requires slowness and slowness is yin.
Our inner world speaks quietly, through sensation, emotion, instinct, fatigue, longing, subtle pleasure, subtle discomfort. Intuition speaks in images, impulses, and whispers. If we do not slow down, we miss all of this and this is why I believe yin cultivation must come first. Not because doing is wrong, but because without inner listening, doing becomes disconnected from truth. When yin leads, yang becomes natural, clearer and more precise, desire becomes honest, movement more meaningful and we get to tune into our bodily intelligence.
Accessing your inner world does not require elaborate rituals or perfect practices, it requires willingness to pause, notice and to feel.
You might begin like this:
Let your eyes soften, and notice where they naturally want to rest.
Feel the weight of your body being held, by the floor, the chair, the earth.
Noticing does not mean naming. You don’t have to analyze.
Simply sense.
Track the movement of your breath, not controlling it, just following it.
Feel the texture of the air on your skin.
Listen for the most distant sound you can hear.
Then the closest.
This is yin.
Moments like this might seem small, but they are radical, because in a world that constantly pulls you outward, choosing to return inward is a quiet rebellion. Not to reject the outer yang driven world, but not to be consumed by it. The more we quietly rebel, the more our inner world becomes our compass. And when women are connected to their inner compass, they stop striving for what they “should” want. There is no performance of strength, only embodied action that is nourishing and does not lead to burnout.
This requires devotion to your inner experience, sensations, rhythms, and knowing, and each time you choose yourself and slow down in a world that demands speed, you are also choosing sovereignty. That is the rebellion – quiet, unimpressive, unmeasurable, and deeply powerful.
If you want guidance on how to step into this inner world with curiosity and care, my Sensual & Somatic Self-Care Library is designed to support you in cultivating presence, tuning into your body, and nurturing your own quiet power. One small, intimate practice at a time.
