You’ll have seen the symbol above many times — “yin & yang”
It’s a great metaphor* for the two lives we lead—the Inner & Outer.
Separate, yet integrated. Opposite, yet interdependent. Black and white. Perfectly, beautifully balanced!
The Outer Life is what we do in the world:
Relationships with family, friends and beyond
Career, paid work, voluntary activities
Leisure: TV, movies, surfing the Internet (including social media), reading, hobbies
Sport, fitness and physical activity
Just being in the world, wherever we happen to live.
When we’re living the Outer Life effectively, our sense is that all is well with the world and our place in it.
The Inner Life, by contrast, is played internally—in our mind.
This Life is dominated by our thoughts, feelings and imagination. For many people (perhaps, most), this is the only way they know they’re alive… that stream of thoughts and feelings entering their consciousness.
You may have heard it — that voice in your head that sounds JUST like you? The one that chatters on and on, burbling away virtually non-stop? The monkey mind?
When our Inner Life is going well, we experience a whole range of pleasant sensations: joy, calmness, confidence, peace, belonging and fulfilment.
When it’s not, negativity dominates and our thoughts and feelings are of doubt, anxiety, fear, anger, depression and so on.
We suggest that working on the Inner Life is where your biggest potential benefits lie.
As Eckhardt Tolle says:
If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.
We’ll get into more details soon, but just want to emphasise at this point that there are two Lives to live (which is where the 200% comes in, of course), one more important than the other, and, interestingly, one much more accessible to us if we are prepared to commit to working on it — you guessed which one, didn’t you? The Inner.
That is the question!
* In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.