Oriental Medicine and the Emotions
Posted in Uncategorized on 04/22/2009 10:51 pm by adminI had a teacher once tell me that 100% of all dis-ease has an emotional component. That means that either our emotions cause the illness or we have an emotional reaction to our imbalanced condition. This was an enlightening concept for me at the time. To think that for every condition there is an emotional piece to it was a completely new concept for me. That was just the beginning for me, what followed over the next years of my training was truly liberating.
In Chinese medicine there is an understanding of 7 basic emotions. Anger, Joy, Pensiveness, Over-thinking, Grief, Fear, and Fright. There are of course other emotions, but they are usually a combination of these basic seven. These emotions have a specific resonance in the body towards a specific organ. Anger affects the liver, Joy affects the heart, Pensiveness & Over-thinking affect the spleen and stomach, Grief affects the Lung, Fear affects the kidney, and Fright affects the kidney and gall bladder.
We use this clinically to differentiate what organ may be out of balance. For instance, when someone habitually elicits an uncontrollable temper, then we could assume that their liver may be out of balance. A Chinese medicine practitioner would then treat the liver and other supporting organs with acupuncture, herbs, massage, etc in order to bring the liver back into balance.
Anger is not the disease. It is a result of an imbalance. Just like all the other signs and symptoms we can manifest. Headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc are not the disease; they are symptomatic of an underlying imbalance.
The most important piece of information that I took away from my studies was that the repression of the emotion is more damaging to the body. All of the emotions are normal to feel and have expressed. It is normal to be angry, joyful, pensive, sad, and fearful. These are expressions of life and so are natural expressions of our interaction. When we judge and begin to repress these feelings, we do our spirits a disservice.
Chinese medicine is not about helping people get rid of their emotions, but rather it is about helping people to fully express their feelings and move on. Watch a two year old for two hours. You will see the full compliment of emotions expressed and moved in that time. This might be an aspect of what the masters meant when they said, “be like children”.
My hope is that we all can learn to express ourselves in a healthy and positive way. I welcome comments…..
In health and healing,
R. Scott Moylan
04/23/2009 at 1:33 pm
In western psycho-therapy anger is often seen as a response to a threat. This can be a threat to our physical or emtoional wellbeing or a threat to a blief we have- for example - how we (or others) should be, behave, or what they should belive in. We can work to reduce ou anger response by regularly checking in about how we are feeling threatend and what belief is being challenged.
Sudhir
04/24/2009 at 2:18 pm
Another Western thought is that anger is the “twin sister” of sadness, and that anger is just easier and more acceptable to express than sadness in our culture. Sometimes looking beyond or underneath anger, you can identify unexpressed sadness or hurt that is stagnating and transforming into anger. Whatever emotion you are stuck in, it is important to remember that unexpressed or stagnated emotions can cause physiological responses and disharmony in our organs AND they can be caused by a disharmony in our organs. It’s a two way street. Luckily there is no need to determine which came first, the emotional stagnation or the organ disharmony. Once you recognize an emotion that is seemingly reoccurring or that you are stuck in, you can support the function of the organs to help restore harmony. Give thanks that our body has this amazing way of “telling” us where to focus our attention and give it support, all we have to do is “listen”.
I have a very good friend who has challenged herself to recognize sadness/hurt and say “ouch” before saying “F*** YOU!” in anger. In other words, when she is feeling angry she looks deeper to determine what she is feeling hurt about. Doing this has allowed her to express hurt before it flares as anger. Not only has this given her an opportunity to explore her emotions, but it has enhanced her ability to communicate with the people that she shares her life with. She is expressing her feelings before they stagnate and become anger.
05/06/2009 at 11:17 pm
Great post. New to your blog, but you got great writing style. You had some very interesting points that I liked. Looking forward to more of your thoughts.
05/22/2009 at 9:14 pm
Great words of wisdom. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I can attest to this connection that you speak of through my personal healing journey and my bodywork practice. I work with a lot less effort on a client’s physical body if they can access their emotional body and express themselves. Sometimes I will incorporate the use of their voice to ‘vibrate’ through physical tension. Stress can virtually melt away if strong emotions are expressed.
Looking forward to visiting your new space!
M