What Chinese medicine can teach us about growth
In Chinese medicine theory, the season of Spring correlates to the element of Wood and the meridians of the liver and gall bladder. This is an time of year for growth, and our lives tend to speed up as everything around us begins to proliferate. While this can be an exciting time of opportunity and movement, Chinese medicine teaches us that not all growth is created equal, and some growth rather than being fulfilling can leave us feeling drained. This week I wanted to explore the virtues and challenges related to the wood element and growth, and examine how these can show up in our bodies and lives. So if you want to learn from the ancient teachings of Chinese medicine about how to make the growth occurring in your life fullfilling, read on!
I’ll start with a story of growth.
I am an aspiring gardener and when I used to be lucky enough to have a garden, one of the plants that I continuously tried (and failed) to grow) were nasturtiums. I had visions of a garden swimming in big, round, green leaves with pops of yellow, purple and orange edible flowers. Come each spring, I would plant a new plant, and watch with excitement as it proliferated startlingly quickly all over the garden. However, this growth was always so fast that it was not sustainable, and by the time the weather got warmer in December, my plants would wither and die at the edges of my garden. Each year this would happen, and each year I would tell myself that I would remember to control the growth the next spring. But spring would roll around and I didn’t seem to have the heart to set limits on the growth of the plant. I would let it proliferate and then have to watch it die.
This is a tragic and yet beautiful metaphor of what can happen to our growth if we do not tend to it adequately. In this story, I had a vision (a flourishing garden) but I failed to set clear boundaries and respond to the external environment in order to achieve it. If we are not discerning about where our energy is going when we are in a growth phase, we can get to the end of this phase and realise that we haven’t got anything to show for it. It feels good in the moment, like things are happening and everything is moving, but we haven’t been able to harness this momentum to build something for ourselves that will last.
Chinese medicine teaches us that fullfilling growth:
Expresses boundaries clearly
Creatively responds to obstacles
Is connected to clear vision
Makes clear decisions by consulting both our inner world and our outer circumstances
Trusts oneself
The gallbladder and liver meridians work together to facilitate this for us. The liver meridian holds our internal vision and plan. The gallbladder assists us in making decisions so that we can bring our plan to fruition. It also helps us to see the external world accurately and reflects it back to us in order to inform our planning.
The nature of growth:
It is the reality of life that resistance will always accompany growth. How we respond to this resistance is the most important factor in determining whether we can achieve fulfilling growth. Fulfilling growth is directional and creative, it responds to obstacles and moves through them.
When our wood is in balance we can remain calm and unattached to moments of temporary deviations that occur when we encounter resistance, trusting that our vision is unfolding over time and continuing to work towards it.
We are also able to express anger in a healthy way by setting boundaries in response to resistance. The Qi that supports anger also supports creativity which is required to direct our growth in a fulfilling direction. If we suppress the expression of natural anger through failing to set boundaries, our capacity for directional and creative growth is also suppressed.
When wood is out of balance, it manifests as either a rage or collapse against the obstacle. We may feel anger or despair, and we are unable to connect to our ability to overcome the obstacle. People with wood out of balance tend to hold beliefs such as “life is not fair”, and hold onto visions for how things should have been. If we are not able to let go of our idea of how things ought to be, we project anger from the past onto our current circumstances and are unable to achieve growth in the present. We are also unable to implement changes to our plans that accommodate the obstacle and keep us moving forward.
We might notice a wood imbalance showing up in our lives if we experience difficult with:
Punctuality – being too early or too late
Planning – over planning and control or underplanning and avoidance
Trusting our internal vision or inner knowing
Being overly focused on how things should/should have been
Decision making – such as making decisions without consulting our inner vision or random decision making where we react whenever resistance is met
Black and white thinking
Holding the belief that life is unjust
Imbalance of the wood element can also manifest as physical signs and symptoms. Common symptoms that tend to show up in people with a wood imbalance are:
Hayfever or recurrent infections
Migraines or headaches
Pain on the side of the body eg. hip, side of leg, sciatica
Pain or difficulty turning over in bed
Stress, anger, irritability
Pre menstrual tension
Insomnia – especially waking between 1-3am
One sided symptoms such as one sided headache or tinnitus
Irregular periods
Our physical sensations and behaviours are ways that our body speaks to us. If there is an imbalance in your wood element, it is likely that it will be showing up in at least one of the ways listed above. This is good news! Your body is telling you where you need support. Acupuncture and herbal medicine specifically targets this imbalance, soothing your nervous system and supporting your body. When there is a wood imbalance, the goal of treatment is to allow you to connect to your inner vision or knowing, and support you in being able to manifest your vision externally through the setting of clear boundaries. If you are interested in finding this place of balance and connection, come and see me in clinic this spring!
References:
Nourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine - Lonny Jarret
Japanese Acupuncture: A Clinic Guide - Stephen Burch, Ida Junko
