Spring-time, great esteem, depression, growth and expansion

Today, it truly is SPRING! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the flowering cherry is in full splendor – packed with pink, delicate snow-like petals. I’m inspired to breathe it in and let the moment resonate in my body. Better already.

The Wood element corresponds with the season of spring. Wood associations include the color green - likely because everything is growing. Wood energy involves the liver and gallbladder organs and meridians. The virtue of the wood element is moving upward, growth and unstoppable birth.

The wood energetic can be feisty, active, and even explosive in it’s directionality. The pop- culture example is Kramer from Seinfeld. Can you see him bursting through Jerry’s door, his energy anything BUT subtle, his body is tall (upwardly directed) and lanky? Even Kramer's hair stands at attention! Creative ideas also spring forth from Wood energy – this is also exemplified in Kramer. He’s always coming up some (crazy) plan.

Wood’s emotion is anger.

Anger? We’re not supposed to be angry – the word, the thought, usually makes us slink away.

What is anger? According to the Five Element framework, anger, the emotion of wood, is a boundary. A positive NO is powerful and useful when used rightly: No, I will not stand for that. Gandhi used the power of a positive no. I will not be a slave. His powerful "No" was enough to defeat an entire army. He was clear in his vision of freedom for himself, his countrymen and women. Gandhi's anger was righteously expressed. He didn’t need to get ’mad’ because his vision was so clear. His boundary, impervious.

A relative of mine was recently talking about practicing saying "no," -- looking in the mirror and saying "No." She said it was empowering.

What does anger look like unexpressed? Resentment, depression. Resentment is a deep, festering irritant. It creates toxicity in the body which leads to many problems – depression is one way in which anger wrongly-expressed manifests.

One way to move through resentment or depression is to move the energy. Maybe practice saying 'No' in the mirror like my cousin did. Take it a step further and say 'no' someone who you need to say 'no' to.

So many of us do things we don't want to against our own sight of what's right. We think we need to - do or be or have - not because it's what we want. Is it because of (perceived) outside expectations? To be liked? Agreeable? Maybe it seems easier (but it isn't really)? Maybe it's because we're afraid. When in doubt, consult your heart - what your heart say? The heart receives information (conscience, guidance) and sends the information to the Liver (planner) and Gallbladder (decision maker). They're responsible for the doing and the growing, the action. The clearer the information the better.

So, the wood element encompasses growth, focus, drive, boundaries, rules, competition, aggression, power, control, domination, enforcement, patience, forgiveness, justice, seeing points of view, future – development and growth.

Great Esteem – first acupuncture point on the liver meridian I have used like magic for depression. One patient, Anne, harshly judged others, and of course, herself. She seemed to feel small, yet, KNEW she wasn’t small. Anne was a perfectionist, smart, and had a high ideal for how things ‘should’ be. Anne thought her home should be like the photos in Martha Stewart's magazine. Maybe Anne knew that such pictures are staged and clearly not real or lived in, yet she compared.

Falling short of her ideal led Anne to more self criticism and depression - a downward spiral. Anne lived in a nice home, with nice furnishings, and, her judgment – reflecting outward created a disdain for people - mostly directed at co-workers (she didn't have much of a social life).

In truth, Anne was lonely. She was stifled and stagnant in her creativity (life) which led her on a cycle of inaction: go to work, come home, watch tv until she fell asleep and do it over again. She didn't really enjoy her job but felt the stability wasn't something she could change. Anne was saying 'no' to her-Self instead of to overtime at work or to Martha Stewart's magazine.

With treatments and the point Great Esteem, Anne's energy shifted. Acupuncture shook up the energy and seemed to inspire Anne toward the creative things she used to love -- she turned an old dress into pillows for her couch. She pulled out cookbooks and started cooking again - feeding herself inspiration. Anne took action and expanded her vision of who she is - she started to remember that she's funny and likable, she reached out to old friends and family who she'd cut herself off from. Moving the stagnancy fed Anne's creativity, her ability to have fun in life and her sense of who She really is.