Why Tigers & Dragons?
As we explore Polarity together in this blog and in my book, Feed the Tiger, Free the Dragon, you will notice that I have made a few tweaks to the traditional language you may have previously stumbled across. Polarity traditionally uses the terms “masculine” and “feminine” to describe the polarized sexual energies within us.
During my long journey of exploration of this “sexual energy,” everywhere I turned I ran into discussions of masculine and feminine energy. The use of these gendered terms were heavily weighted and outdated and distracted me instead of helping me. I wanted to feel empowered to be my authentic self in our relationship, and I didn’t want to be boxed in by traditional terms. Peter (my husband) and my needs and energies were different, but they were equal in power and complexity, neither superior nor inferior to the other. My husband, Peter, would have an involuntary visceral reaction whenever I referenced him in his “feminine energy” and he would shut down whenever I used gendered language. I had to find a better way to communicate about this important topic without our subconscious biases getting in the way.
The challenge was finding a way to talk about and explore those differences in a way that would allow us to move forward as equals. Drawing on the imagery often used with the Yin and Yang concepts from Taoism, I began using the labels “Tiger” (Yin) and “Dragon” (Yang) to describe our energetic traits. Afterall, who doesn’t love both Tigers & Dragons?
While we’ll do a deep dive into the difference between the Dragon and Tiger energies in the coming blog posts, in their simplest form, here are the basics:
Dragon Energy is your “doing” energy. Your inner Dragon gets shit done. It’s the part of you that is competitive and driven by purpose.
Tiger Energy is your “feeling” energy. Your inner Tiger uses intuition and sensitivity to feel and nurture the world around you. It’s the part of you that is untethered, wild, and radiant.
Over the following years, being able to apply the concept of Dragons and Tigers allowed Peter (my husband) and I to more fully understand and embrace our differences—and, ironically, to use those differences, the polarity, to draw us closer together.