The Power Of Spring – The Wood Element

No matter how long Winter can be, Spring comes back each year. As the days get brighter, we are inspired to start anew. Every day, our body makes millions of new cells – that is how life asserts itself. Which parts of you are reawakening? Where is your vision pulling you? Spring is the peak season for your Gut & Liver. This article will explain the spiritual roles of your Gut & Liver in your spiritual growth and manifesting alignment.

There is no season better than Spring for mama Earth to demonstrate the power of renewal and rebirth. As the days get longer and brighter, we know that new life is just around the corner. When nature calls the shots, a new chapter, life force, vitality…is all indestructible.

Which parts of you are reawakening? What would you like to give birth to?

Where is your vision pulling you?

Are you inspired to start anew?

And how will you resurrect?

This can be challenging if we did not let go of old patterns in the last Autumn, or get sufficient rest in the Winter.

However, even if you are not 100%, can you feel the elevating power of Yang energy inside you? (By the way, if you are in the Southern hemisphere, read this seasonal article on Autumn instead).

The Wood Element

Spring is the season for growth, and its associated element is Wood in the Five Element tradition, its Planet is Jupiter. In the Chinese language, we even call Jupiter “Wood Planet” 木星.

The Wood Element in us gives us direction, plan, and structure. It governs your nervous system. It filters toxins out of our digestive system.

When the Wood is working effectively in your body:

:: you excel at clear seeing and planning, bringing your goals into reality;

:: you are both assertive and flexible during confrontation and disagreement;

:: you are able to make wise decisions and express emotions including anger in a healthy way.

Otherwise, if Wood is in an imbalance you might experience the opposite of the above.

If this element is deficient or in excess, one can suffer from an inability to make decisions, disorganisation or inflexibility, difficulty in looking forward to vision the future, overwhelm from your external environment, constant emotional meltdowns, struggling to take action, easily feeling frustrated/angry, or inability to express appropriate anger in given situations, nervous pains, PMS, insomnia, migraines…

Many of us have experienced some of the symptoms above chronically and thought that “this is the way I am” or looked at painkillers for a solution.

However, our body itself can be the cure.

{Entering Gall Bladder}.

Your Gut Does Not Lie

Your Gall Bladder is relatively a masculine organ and he has a sister called “Liver”. These two siblings represent the Wood 🌴 element (think about how trees grow in the Spring, the power surges through everything and the freedom to reach out to the sky).

Gall Bladder, aka Gut, has the direct connection with heaven, it bypasses all the noises, hype and BS, it gives you the truth of the truths.

External influences have nothing to do with him. Different from all other organs in your body, your Gut has the divinely given purity. All other organs somehow have to get into contact with polluted energy or corrupted substance, however the Gut only interacts with bile, a pure secretion of your body.

Therefore, your Gut holds heaven’s blessing for right and wrong and retains integrity.

No wonder why our mama old us to “listen to your gut feelings” – ‘cos he knows!

Your Gall Bladder is such an expert to:

: : 1. play a digestive role.

: : 2. clear your bile – the clearer your bile is, the clearer your brain is.

: : 3. make decisions (big, small and everything in between) and judge wisely.

:: 4. stand up to injustice.

:: 5. handle confrontation effectively and smoothly.

The peak time for your Gall Bladder to do his job is 11pm – 1am, when the day has definitely finished and the world is governed by Yin, your Gut needs his replenishment directly from heaven.

If you enter into deep sleep by 1am, you are allowing your Gut to do his job. That is the very reason for expressions like “I need to sleep on it”.

The next morning when you get up, you’ll feel fresh and clear, and all the little things which previously took over your energy are sorting themselves out, and you are able to thrive from adversity and take aligned actions.

No more over-analysing or procrastinating, you simply get on.

This is your body intelligence playing. No pills or external beliefs can possibly replace this innate ability.

However, if you party till midnight, eat heavy junk food in the evenings, pull an all-nighter for your product launch… inevitably those habits will put a huge pressure on your Gut.

He can no longer to do what he is best at, but to use his precious energy to deal with the “emergency” you pushed him to do.

Try to go to bed earlier tonight, be kind to your Gut.

Liver: Your Best Life Strategist

Your Gut works closely with his sister Liver.

She is responsible for the planning and the “strategist” in your life.

She is expansive – nothing needs to be set in stone at all – she is the utter Free Spirit.

She is attached to nothing but freedom. Just like your Soul can reincarnate over and over again and be whoever and wherever you want to be.

Her peak time is 1-3am. During this window, the Free Spirit Liver leaves your body, she travels anywhere, she can be anything and with anyone.

In your dream state, she starts checking things out in the Universe:

:: Is it the time for you to have a collaboration partner?

:: What do you need to do for the next stage of your career?

:: Where is the best spot for your next holiday?

:: Where you should live next?

The next day, you’ll be inspired to make that phone call, take the initiate to make the right connection, or implement anything as appropriate.

The Wood Element is the true master of the manifestation.

For those of you who struggle to sit down and visualise, here is the good news for you: you do not need to force yourself to visualise. Your Liver is an expert in doing that anyway, so go to bed early, catch her peak energy, let her do a good job for you and you can simply relax.

We all know that we should go to bed early enough, and this is the deeper why.

If you can do this, you are not missing out on anything important. The Wood in you will find the right partner, job, career, friends and activities for you.

I teach more about your body intelligence in this Manifesting Course by the way.

The Meridians

A patient and a couple of readers asked me a very interesting question, “What if my Gall Bladder has been removed? What is the impact at the non-physical level?”

It is important to point out that the name “Gall Bladder” refers to different meanings in the Chinese Medicine comparing to the Western terms.

In Chinese Medicine, each organ is interpreted as an Official.

Think about the palace in an empire, the heart being the Empress (Heart is an Yin Organ) holding the heavenly mandate, however she cannot implement everything on her own. She needs a group of ministers in her palace to govern the daily affairs in the empire.

Each organ in your body is like a minister doing a specific job at all levels – spiritually, emotionally and physically. And this is delivered via each meridian line (a.k.a the energetic pathway).

When we were talking about your Gut and Liver in the above examples, we were referring to their overall energetic pathway. The physical function is part of the bigger picture, however a relatively small aspect.

Therefore, when someone’s Gall Bladder has been removed, the Gall Bladder Official/Minister continues to function and reports his work to Heart, the Empress.

The physical element of Gall Bladder is a small, hallow, and pear-shaped organ, locating right under the liver.

The energetic pathway of Gall Bladder, however, starts right from the outside corner of your eyes  (where your makeup eye liner ends usually 凤角), runs up and down behind your ear, your head and the base of your skull. It carries on all the way down your shoulder, the rib rage, the outside of your leg, ending on the outside of your 4th toe.

See the image below for illustration.

 

You can gently massage this meridian line especially in Spring, to support your inner-balance. As this is for preventative self-care purpose instead of treating patients, you do not need to get bogged down with the exact pressure point locations, simply follow the meridian line.

If a specific area feels painful, that indicates blockage, so pay more attention and care towards that area.

It is very common for ladies to experience discomfort along the Liver meridian, especially before the menstruation cycle, along with headache, sore breasts, frustration and even anger, which are often the indicators that your Liver Qi is not travelling freely inside.

As we said earlier, your Liver is like the General and Strategist for your life. She knows how to vision your most authentic life, guide you to live your purpose and plan your day to day affairs.

Gently massage long the Liver meridian (see image below), the energy runs from your toe to above, so follow this direction during massage to assist your Liver and enjoy Spring more!

The images above are for illustration purposes only. When you start out massaging your meridian lines, you should do both sides. As you strengthen your relationship with your body further, you will be able to tell which side has more blockage/stagnancy (ie, more pain), then you can focus on that side.

The two sides of your body should communicate with each other anyway assuming your body is functioning effectively.

Develop self-care habits

In Spring, it is the time for you to birth and bring things that you have been holding so dearly in your heart into life, but not sure if the timing was right before.

I always recommend my clients to not rush into New Year Resolutions, simply because it’s deep Winter around that time and nature wants to restore energy instead of splashing it around.

However, now when we look around, sprouts are under the ice, greens are coming out.

Your body too wants to align this wonderful energy for your new vision, plan and growth. It’s a perfect time for your organic expansion.

Your Liver and Gut are the Spring for your body. They are about to experience their peak energy and you can do a few things to help them:

a) Begin your day earlier:

Breathe in the morning air with the sunrise. Watch the daffodils coming out. Feel all the potential and possibilities lying in front of you.

b) Make yourself a daily Goji berry tea, especially in the afternoon.

As the temperature rises up, do you also feel the impatience or perhaps even frustration or anger growing within? That is your Live Qi not getting channeled properly. Goji berries nourish your Liver thus helping you to sleep better and quicker.

Put a handful of Goji berries into hot water, then you are ready to go!

Want to jazz it up?  Try Goji berries with Chamomile tea and a spoon of honey.

It really helps to calm your nerve system and emotions.

c) Go out and hike

It is time to open the window and, better, get out. Eat more greens and be with the green outside.

You will naturally want to grow with the plants, trees and flowers around you.

d) Put on a new lens + reinvent yourself

As the new life cycle starts out, you too can look at yourself and your situation (work, home, relationship, creativity) with a new lens.

What seeds would you like to plant for the rest of the year to benefit from?

Seasonal tune-up

There are so many layers of “living your dream life” and we will be challenged throughout the journey.

Yet we will also be guided by our Soul at each step forward. When we peel off any artificial thoughts, desires or patterns, we are ready to meet our truest, most shining Self.

Every day, our body makes millions of new cells – that is how life asserts itself.

Each morning we wake up and take that first breath, each time we visit a place where we’ve never been before, each new passion we devote ourselves into…it is the power of Spring. And you have that in your body…

Do you want to play with the seasonal change: tune-up your body, harmonize your life and heal you Soul?

Spring has great influence on our nerve system thus an important season to do some work if you are an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person – see the next section).

If your situation allows, you can work with me in person and/or via skype.

Advice for a highly sensitive person

The Wood Element in you also governs your emotional and intuitive body.

As an intuitive/highly sensitive person/empath, your nerve cells are hyper-reactive.

A rude email, an unjustified comment, or even a cold look… they can get to you in a split second; suffering from a beloved friend, nearby or long distance, can totally wear you out.

As a HSP myself, I have certainly tasted the both sides of acute sensitivity. I used to be so busy “figuring out” ways to deal with my nature:

🌙 numbing my emotions and pretending they are not valid;

🌾 isolating myself out from social groups and hiding in my own shell;

😱 overly using sarcasm and self-deprecation to mask the deep hurt.

For years I did not know how to cry, I did not ask for help, I did not allow the divine flowing through me, I did not…understand who I was.

Well, until I did and fell in love with my true nature.

❤ It helps me zero in almost immediately on challenges my clients and loved ones experience.

🎨 It inspires me to create diverse content without turning my mind crazy.

👩 It encourages me to experience true intimacy in important relationships by sharing how I really feel.

📚 A new subject to study? No problem, it makes me soak in every single theory and practice like a sponge without trying.

You might ask: how do you cope with the dark side of being highly sensitive? The overwhelm of feeling too much? Keep absorbing everything in your environment until you are so ill? Don’t you want to protect yourself?

Firstly, I did go through a phase when I tried every single possible technique to “protect my energy”. The tools were great, fun and effective in a lot of ways, but still, something deep down was missing.

I missed true freedom: I did not want to over-analyse if this or that was “bad” for my vibes.

So I decided to strip out my “helmets”, “wellie boots” and “ponchos”.

No longer struggling how to put an emotional wall out there, I am widely open and in service to the world. Just like a little tree deeply rooted under the ground and reaching out to the sky, is committed to its growth and expansion.

Secondly, as a highly sensitive/creative/intuitive being, you can absolutely lean in and lean back as you wish, whenever, whenever and however.

Yes, dear empath, you have the choice: back to the flexibility that the Wood Element gives us.

For example, when you are genuinely upset, you can give yourself permission to say it calmly: “Your actions hurt me intensely”.

It is not weak nor b!tchy, dropping in your sensitivity with grace is the kindest thing you can do to yourself and, at times, perhaps the most honest and honouring feedback you can give to others.

Sensitivity makes us alive, passionate, attentive. It demands us to be good at “doing my life”. It often taps our shoulder and whisper “time to stop and listen”. It invites us to improvise here and now…

“And those who were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music.” ― Nietzsche

Do not be afraid of your sensitivity. A balanced Wood Element in your body makes you both soft and strong, both sensitive and sensible.
—-

With love,

Yiye

I hope that you find this article helpful. If you have any further questions, just ask away in the comment section below.