Jump Start Your Energy this Spring By Meret Bainbridge,
L.Ac.
sweeping through and bringing rapid change. In Chinese Medicine, we call it the Wood element – the very
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life force of vegetation moving up and out. Hildegard of Bingen, the German mystic, called it Viriditas, the
greening power that renews everything. Wood energy is Yang in nature – warm and upward moving, rapidly expanding and coming into being.
In our bodies, wood energy is represented by our “sinews” – the tendons connecting muscles to bones, and the ligaments connecting bone to bone. If our sinews are well nourished, then our limbs are like the branches of a tree full of sap, flexible and resilient, able to bend in the wind without snapping.
This flexibility has its source in the Liver, the organ which Chinese Medicine relates to the Wood element and the season of spring. The liver is responsible for the smooth flow of Qi, vital en- ergy, through the channel pathways, and for bringing nourishment to all cells and tissues. When the liver qi becomes stuck, everything becomes stagnant: our joints become stiff and painful, our muscles tight, our minds rigid and our mood cranky or outright angry.
The physical pain symptoms of this pattern are often seen along
the channel pathways of the liver and its partner, the gallbladder: throbbing headaches, especially in the temples, migraines, sensitive and burning eyes, neck and shoulder pain, pain in the flanks and under the ribcage, hip pain and sciatic pain running down the sides of the legs. Breast distension, PMS and menstrual cramps are classi- cal signs of liver imbalance, as the liver also regulates the menstrual cycle.
h, Spring! Nature waking up from winter sleep, earth crack- ing open, green sprouts pushing up through soil, leaves unfurling, tiny seeds growing into tall plants, strong winds
Mentally, the liver and gallbladder are responsible for plan- ning and decision making. Spring is a time for new beginnings and for planning and plotting out the year ahead. But our information- overloaded, multi-tasking culture, infusing us with constant pop-up messages of distraction, makes high demands on never-ending decision making on us, straining our livers and keeping us under constant stress. Our livers can’t keep up with detoxing environmen- tal stresses and mental garbage. Irritability and chronic stress is the result.
Anger, frustration, irritability and mood swings are emotional expressions of constraint liver qi. These emotions arise out of the experience of restrictions that keep us from fully expressing our- selves. The force of wood energy is all about coming into being, awaking and rising up, the desire to become who we truly are, to fulfill our destiny. Psychologists call this individuation (Jung) or self- actualization. When this desire is smothered, we become resentful and frustrated. Our muscles tense up in a holding pattern ready for confrontation, with tight necks and clenched jaws.
Anger and resentment can teach us areas where we feel stunted
in our growth, where we deny ourselves to be our whole selves. The solution is to find creative ways of turning our anger into action, and to let go of that we cannot control – just like the serenity prayer teaches us. In Taoist philosophy, which is at the root of Chinese medicine, we learn to become a “free and easy wanderer”, striv- ing to align ourselves with the flow of nature, riding the waves of change instead of resisting them.
Meret Bainbridge,
L.Ac. practices at Acupuncture by Meret, 222 St. John St., Suite 137, Portland, ME 04102,
www.AcupunctureByMer-
et.com, phone 207.878.3300, e-mail: meret@acupuncturebymeret. com. See ad on page 13.
14 Essential Living Maine ~ March/April 2015
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