Happy New Year! Here’s my New Year’s wish for you based on Chinese Medicine / Five Elements:
May you have the hope & optimism of Water.
May you have the success and productivity of Wood.
May you have the joy and celebration of Fire.
May you have the caring and connection of Earth.
May you have the wisdom & understanding of Metal.
May 2023 be your best year ever!
For years I considered the Five Elements as the best kept secret of Chinese Medicine. Here’s one incident from my private practice that shows the power of this way of living and thinking.
If you want skip ahead and watch the video right away, click here. 🙂
Disappearing Anger Behind the Wheel
Years ago I had a retired UN attorney as client.
He was such a nice English gentleman, always kind, always proper.
One day in my office his wife casually mentioned a problem: that he would get quite angry at bad drivers, we have a lot of them here in South Florida. They drove a relatively long distance to come to see me.
He was recovering from cancer and was seeing me to deal with low energy, not for anger management, I asked if he was open to a simple suggestion. He was.
I gave him one thing that he could safely do while driving.
The next session when they walked into to my office they were elated — he did what I suggested and his anger behind the wheel totally disappeared.
It sounds like magic but it isn’t. It’s a straightforward technique based on the science of the Five Elements.
Five Elements Chinese Medicine
Five Elements Chinese Medicine is based on the observation of the changes in the nature through seasons: winter, spring, summer and autumn.
- Winter: we see snow covered soil and frozen lakes. Life goes underground. The element of this season of water.
- Spring: trees are everywhere. The element of this season of wood.
- Summer: there’s heat and feast of ripen fruits. Summer is the season of fire.
- Autumn: leaves are falling into the ground. After harvest what’s returned to the soil are the most important things for the next cycle. Soils is enriched by the minerals condensed from the entire cycle. The element for this season is called metal. Strange word, I know!
- Indian summer, solstices and equinoxes, the transition time ties together all the seasons. Earth nurtures all of nature. The element of the transition is earth.
Each element has its associated emotions and virtues. Together they represent the whole universe, or the entire human being, your bones and muscles, your likes and dislikes, your emotions and thoughts.
That’s the origin of the 5 Element based New Year’s Blessings. My dear friend Dr. Vicki Matthews came up with it. 🙂
Five Emotions
Each element has a set of emotions of associate with it, emotions that come up when the element is out of balance, the emotions that arise when the element is balanced.
For instance for the Wood element:
- Emotions while under stress: anger, frustration, irritation
- Emotions when balanced: kindness, assertiveness, forgiveness
It’s when wood is balanced that we achieve success and productivity with ease.
To manage anger is a simple thing of balancing your wood element, which includes pressure points, sounds, energy exercises, etc.
You can see some exercises in the video below.
What do you think about the Best Kept Secrete on Anger? Leave me a comment below.
And you can find Dr Vicki at her website DrVickiMatthews.com
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