Feel the natural world of Healing With The Five Elements

Chinese medicine has a more holistic and holographic point of view than western medicine. Chinese medicine is also full of imagery, making it very useful in designing guided imagery for healing.

Chinese medicine organizes the body

One way Chinese medicine organizes the body, in fact, the entire natural world, is using the five elements. Actually, elements is not a good translation, but because it looks so similar to the western four elements, that is the word we often use. The Chinese word is more dynamic, some people translate it as phases or transformations.

I think of it as five groupings of energetically related things and functions. Each one is related to a season, a color, a group of emotions, two or more internal organs, a body tissue, a sense organ, etc. When one element is out of balance, you will often see two or more of its categories feeling unwell in some way.

The five creation elements always think about first Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.

Wood

• Liver
• Gall Bladder
• tendons and ligaments
• eyes
• anger, frustration, organization, planning
• Green
• Spring

Fire

• Heart
• Small Intestine
• blood vessels
• tongue
• joy, excitement, anxiety
• Red
• Summer

Earth

• Spleen
• Pancreas
• Stomach
• muscles
• lips, mouth, taste buds
• serenity, groundedness, worry, overthinking
• Yellow
• Indian Summer, or the transition between all seasons

Metal

• Lungs
• Large Intestine
• skin
• nose
• initial defense against disease
• sadness, grief, ability to let go
• White
• Autumn

Water

• Kidneys
• Bladder
• Reproductive organs
• bones
• ears
• fear will power
• Blue
• Winter

Taoists in China have been using healing meditations with the five elements for centuries. The two most common styles are healing sounds and healing colors.

A very simple, yet effective technique is to visualize breathing colored light into the area that needs healing. For example, if you have an upset stomach, imagine inhaling warm yellow light into your stomach, and exhaling the toxic energy from your stomach like a gray cloud or smoke.

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