Word of mention: “Qi”, pronounced “Chee”, which can translate to energy.
In Chinese medicine, how action and understanding is applied within the medicine is attuning to nature. Humans are a part of nature, and our emotions are movements of Qi. Healthy emotions move through us to gain emotional resilience and help us adapt through life. They are expressions that are not meant to be perceived as pathological or “bad”; however, they can become pathological if they’re inappropriate to the situation, unexpected, traumatic, intense, or prolonged. In pathological cases, emotions bypass our ability to respond in a healthy way, which can lead to stagnation or consumption of the mind, body, and spirit. The effects on us are not limited to emotional conditions, but also physical conditions of the body.
Each organ in Chinese medicine has an emotion that arises from it. The heart feels all emotions first, and then the associated organ to that emotion responds. Acupuncture helps process these emotions by selecting specific points on the meridian and pathways associated with such organ, then that selected point influences the Qi and blood circulation within that meridian pathway that access the intended organ’s energy. I invite you to continue reading while I explain in further detail the emotions in Chinese medicine and their associated organ, when emotions are in healthy expression, and when they may become pathological and cause suffering.
Grief and Sadness arise from the Lungs.
Grief signals change, loss, acceptance, and release. This emotion usually asks us to pause for a moment to process a unique change in our reality. Pathology arises when one has a difficult time accepting their loss or change, prolonging the emotional experience, which results in an inability to adapt. Every one of these organs pairs with another — the lung pairs with the large intestine, often times resulting in constipation from the inability to let go of what once was.
Fear and Instinct arise from the Kidneys.
Acute stressors and fear prepare us for survival and communicate when it is time for us to become resourceful. Fear of the past and future, however, are pathological. These fears create a lack of trust in self-security, which causes chronic stress and anxiety. When this happens, there is an undertone of fear in every experience, preparing the nervous system for the worst-case scenario. Living from a fear-based perspective creates behaviors an individual may not be proud of, resulting in feelings of guilt and shame, and often leading to a path of self-deprecation.
Joy arises from the Heart.
Joy comes from a sense of unity and connection, openness to community, and receptivity. When we have a healthy amount of joy, our spirit communicates clarity to the mind and relaxation of the body. If there is a lack of joy and a desperation in search of it, we can get lost in places that create over-stimulation, over-excitement, and a cycle of addiction in the potential of finding joy. The heart is where anxiety, insomnia, and nervous breakdowns take root. In finding healthy joy again, we establish true connection within ourselves creating a ripple effect for true connection outside of ourselves.
Anger arises from the Liver.
Healthy anger can be a motivating force, which can create drive and action behind inspiration. Pathological anger can become resentful, uncontrollable, explosive, and aggressive. Internal anger that is suppressed often manifests in moodiness, passive aggression, or feelings of being on the verge of tears. One of the liver’s functions is to create free flow in the body; it helps move and process all emotions. If the liver’s free flow function is compromised with trying to move too many emotions, it can stagnate from overwork. This is why anger is usually the emotion we see the most often, when the root emotion is usually something else; this leaves room for a cycle of dissatisfaction, because the root emotion is not addressed.
Worry arises from the Spleen.
How we interact with the world will create stories we psychologically carry with us throughout our life. The spleen’s responsibility isn’t just to digest food and create nourishment, but also to determine how we digest life experiences and the weight of what we’ve gone through. The stories we carry create resonance to the world around us, which reflects what validates our beliefs further. It is like having selective hearing. The stories we tell ourselves are validated by what we continue to experience, and one can become stuck in the cycle of one perspective, unable to see the reality of a situation. Overthinking and fixating on something can create a knot in Qi, leading to digestive discomfort, pain, and upset. This in turn makes it hard to understand what is good for us and what doesn’t align anymore.
Acupuncture can help process grief, fear, over-joy, anger, and worry by selecting specific points on meridian pathways to create circulation and free obstructions and stagnation that cause emotional turmoil, stress, and physical pain. Acupuncture stimulates nerves to create signals that regulate the nervous system to remind the spirit it is safe residing in the body; it helps to ground you to feel secure in exploring new ways of thinking and to take one small step towards a positive shift in remembering what makes you feel most connected to yourself. Acupuncture is a somatic practice that can help you through some of your hardest emotional experiences and transitions, as well as resolve physical ailments that may have been rooted in stuck emotions.