3 secrets about emotions that you should know but don’t

A Happy Client

There I was in my office. My client, John (not his real name), a retired attorney, walked in and said: “I can’t stand those reckless drivers!”

John’s statement took me by surprise. Here in South Florida, people are more erratic on the road than in other parts of the country. However, John’s a gentle, kind and intelligent person. Seething with frustration seemed to be out of his character.

Melanie, his wife, saw my response and chuckled: “That’s the only time John gets mad. Any suggestions?”

“Yes! When you drive on the road, make the hush sound, ‘shh’. That’ll help balance the liver system, which governs frustration and anger,” I told them.

The next time they came in, John was elated. “I no longer get mad at other drivers,” he exclaimed!

Anatomy of Emotions

It may sound like magic that John was able to get rid of a mild case of road rage with a simple sound. That’s because most of us haven’t been introduced to what I call the “anatomy of emotions”, the mechanism through which a human emotion works.

Once you know the anatomy of emotions, it becomes straightforward to manage your challenging emotions. Here, I present you a simplified model.

In the Five-Element Theory of Chinese Medicine, there are 5 buckets of emotions: fright, anger, panic, anxiety and grief. Each set of emotions is an attribute of the physical state of a particular visceral organ.

Think of emotions and organs as scents and fruits. Each type of fruit gives off a particular range of scents.
A healthy apple emits a pleasant smell. An overripe, bruised apple emits a rotten smell.

Liver System

Take your liver as an example. Let’s use the term “liver system” to represent your liver and its related energetic system. The set of emotions ‘emitted’ by the liver system includes anger, frustration, judgment, vision, forgiveness and assertiveness. They’re the same for you as they are for me.

When your liver system is healthy, it emits healthy emotions. You feel confident and assertive.

When your liver system is stressed, it emits challenging emotions. If you’ve been a heavy drinker with a compromised liver, you get frustrated and angry easily. This is the natural law.

When you bring balance to your liver system, your emotions will naturally move from frustration to assertiveness.

3 Secrets of Emotions

In summary, the secrets of emotions are:

• Your emotions are related to your internal organs. They’re natural attributes of your visceral organs.
• You experience these emotions with your physiology; your cells, hormones, etc.
• Each organ has its own distinct set of emotions. The liver system holds the anger bucket, the kidney system holds the fright bucket, and so on.

Healing Techniques as Toolkit

The best part of this model is that there are simple healing techniques to balance your organ systems. These include energy exercises, acupressure, sounds, etc. – all of which can transform your emotions. I’ve shared many of them with you on this blog.

One way to balance the liver system is by making the hush sound, ‘shh’. As irritation is one of the stress emotions ‘emitted’ by your liver system, making the sound ‘shh’ can help you stop being irritated.

That’s exactly what my client John did.

One last thing

You’ve just learned about the anatomy of emotions, the best kept secret in Chinese Medicine about emotions. What do you think? What’s your gut telling you?

Leave me a comment below!

Disclaimer: The information presented in this article and on this website is for educational purposes only. It’s not intended to be a diagnosis. Reading articles on this website does not constitute a healer/client treatment relationship.