Sunday, July 12, 2009

Letting Go...Embracing Change.

Invariably I wake up with my muscles all tense...usually stressed out by overly vivid dreams and profound insights that come deep from my subconscious - things I barely had any clue was "a problem" in my conscious. When the muscles are all tense and achey like this from an energetic point of view, qi is not flowing smoothly and there is energy blockage. From certain alternative health view points this blockage could be seen as due to resistance to change.

So a couple of things that might help...

1. Letting go through Breath and Visualisation - measured breathing with a focus on long exhalations...imagine that when you exhale you're breathing out that tension and any "stuck crap"! You can focus your mind on particular areas of your body where there is concentrated tension.

2. Yoga: Fish Pose I'd always found this stance very beneficial but didn't realise why...until I realised it unblocks the throat chakra(the one which is responsible for being able to embrace change). I'd guess it also opens the Heart Chakra somewhat.

3. Get out of your comfort zone! Things that make you feel uncomfortable...they're likely related in some way to areas that need changing/to be shaken up and MOVED...Set yourself a goal of challenging yourself out of your comfort zone by doing something that makes you go "Nooooo!" once a week or so. I'm one up on that last one...I did go to Karaoke last week didn't I!

4. And the active solution would be to GET MOVING with exercise...to release any pent up energy. Boxing class anyone? Devoid of anger issues I think I prefer cycling LOL...anything that is aerobic anyway...walking (unless fast up a steep hill sustained) doesn't count.

5. And the passive solution...Liver tonics...something common at home that's simple could be...peppermint tea, dandelion tea...and if we get more specialised...anything Bupleurum!

H.O I think you often get this "stuck qi" business...and even bother make effort to get it treated...what other suggestions can you add to this list?

6 comments:

HappyOrganist said...

well, I was going to say bupleurum when I saw dandelion. But you beat me to it. it's funny that you say walking doesn't count.
I wake up all the time lately with a nervous kind of energy (has 'trapped [liver] qi' written all over it). Anyway.. it's not the kind of energy that you can actually use to get anything done - just the kind where you feel wired (like one's nervous system is on the fritz). really fun. And when I don't wake up feeling that way that's when I wake up feeling like I've been hit by a truck (that's always fun).

It is SO refreshing to see a budding health-practitioner dealing with the same crap that all the rest of us put up w/ (fight against).

uh.. so to add.. well. You could add lemon, although apparently according to TCM (while some western theories say it's great for cleansing the liver) it supposedly works quite differently from bupleurum. (I took a formula to my Ac. once.. it had lemon and bupleurum and some other things. He gave me a funny look and said he had no idea why they would put lemon with bupleurum, etc. etc. they're used to treat different imbalances or something). Anyway
that was cool.
but the cool part of that, see, is I was intuitively drawn to that formula (picked up more or less randomly at the health-food store. good ol' muscle-testing). And I only took it for a short while. But you see, when I finally saw that acupuncturist (for the first time.. shortly after taking those herbs) - the blend that HE gave me had bupleurum in it (and mind you i had no idea what bupleurum was before then. only that i had been 'drawn' to this other formula in the store recently).. and THAT blend that He gave me (combined w/ acupuncture i guess) got me pregnant! well..
nevermind.

oh - I want to continue on a different venue. but i'll make that a separate comment.

ah yes - the only other thing I can recommend is Benadryl. kinda helps (doesn't really cure anything at all. even causes some of the Same problem. but it seems to help occasionally.) much like your favorite red-wine, I imagine

HappyOrganist said...

OH! I was going to talk about Americans and trapped liver-qi patterns.. but First! It's fascinating (and ironic) that you mention "embracing change" thing. Quite fun. The times when I've tried to adjust my thinking to see if that would help relieve the tension in my body, I have found that the one thought that inevitably works is this: "things aren't going to change. they'll stay the same." I can feel the tension leaving my shoulders as I type it! goodness.

So.

may I add to your list: lie to yourself (tell yourself things will not change. and then surprise yourself later by leaving your comfort zone). OR - just don't change.. that may work, too (but .. it probably will not).

ok.. Americans.. I was reading somewhere. It may have been in this "needling w/o needles" article I read a while back (i'll have to check my notes. I keep notes on these things). yes. the author was talking about transformations we go through in life (different stages of life). And he used the 5 colors or elements or whatever those are ;-) (heh).. fire, wood, brick - what are those?
ok - so he talked about those.
and he got to this whole pent-up liver qi thing we're talking about. but it was fascinating; he seemed to look at it from a completely different angle than I had ever heard it described before - and he explained something about the culture of Americans - and then said that was why so many Americans have this liver-qi pattern. Very cool. I will look it up and share, if I find it.

HappyOrganist said...

ah ha, I found it. (i am so excited!). It was in a different article: Psychosomatic Compartmentalization. The Root of Qi and Blood Stagnation - by Michael Greenwood. He wrote the Needling w/o Needles article, too. Guess I like the guy.
ok.

"In OM, the Wood sector (Liver and Gall Bladder) is the aspect of consciousness which
discriminates between things – such as this and that, good and bad, or here and there. It is
this process of discrimination and classification which is said to bring apparent order out
of the chaos – the appearance of the ten thousand things out of the chaotic unity of the
Tao.6 Thus, through observation we ‘create’ our reality in the very process of ‘naming’ it.
In OM the Liver is said to control the smooth flow of Qi precisely because it is the
Liver’s discriminating function which is responsible for ‘constructing’ reality in the first
place. Of course there is nothing wrong with naming and observation, but the
discriminating mind must never forget the ultimate unity of all things, or else the process
of discrimination is not rooted in wholeness. It is this forgetting which actually obstructs
the smooth flow of Qi and leads to stagnation.
The Western scientific tradition is very much an expression of this process of naming and
categorizing. We observe and classify, and consider that to be science. But ironically it’s
a kind of science that has forgotten the essential wholeness which lies in the background.
Unfortunately, a society built on the premise of reductionism and endless classification sooner or later loses the ability to allow the smooth flow of Qi. As an aside, it is also
interesting to consider that this loss of smooth flow is occurring in a country in which
Wood energy is almost a national characteristic. The creativity, competitiveness, and
youthful vigour of the USA, together with its high levels of violence, points to a strong
Wood component in the collective consciousness. Thus it’s probably no coincidence that
in North America, one of the most common OM diagnoses is stagnation of Liver Qi.

isn't that cool? I had never seen it described or thought of from that angle before. always read about exercise (lack thereof) and diet being related to this stuck liver-qi thing. But this is a whole new spin on it.

Zz... said...

HO I gotta hand it to ya- that is some interesting stuff you have pulled there...I've also heard about these different five phases of life before- if you can find stuff on that can you send me? It was interesting my same age classmate and I were complaining about how this agegroup is so tough and our teacher turned to us and said that's cos you're still in your fire phase...which is apparently all chaos and turbulence LOL

HappyOrganist said...

yeah, i confused the two articles. it's Acupuncture and Intention: Needling w/o Needles (whoahoa. that's the way to do it, i tell you)
I like this.. 'what if intention is the whole key to the success of an acupuncture treatment? And what if the needle insertion is simply an expression of that intent?'
lovely
I have literally (seriously) literally seen this with my own two eyes.
ok. it's in the "Intention and the Void" section. (this is a long article).. "The application of the 5-phase model.." I love this part.

HappyOrganist said...

they also talk about the same thing, i think, in the "Unlocking blocks to intention." I like Earth-Sympathy part.

ok - so you'll have to check the article itself to see the images he has. And I don't know if this is really what you were looking for, but here is the interesting part, I thought.
"Phases & the Void – The Golden (Metal) Gate
Most patients with chronic symptoms – regardless of the specific pathology – face an
issue of letting go if they are to reach transformation, - i.e. they must relinquish an out-moded
way of being, and find a new way of functioning which is not so tension producing. Thus they
present in the Yin phase – in the region of the Metal element. From there the move forward into
the apparent chaos of water. (Figure 7) This is so
frightening that most people become paralysed in their
symptoms
, desperately trying to re-construct an ego which
has outlived its usefulness
. But move forward they must if
they want to find healing, through what is essentially their
own resistance, a psychic narrowing which has been
likened to a constriction in an hourglass. In oriental
philosophy, this constriction has been called the Golden
or Metal Gate (Jin Men), the Mysterious Pass, the Door
of Death, and the Gate of Birth, so variously named
perhaps because passage invokes a radical
transformation.6

this probably sounds like "bla bla bla" but it is ok in the article. And the pictures make it worth it ;-) I like the whole thing. give it a look through, see if you like it.
One very fascinating, I was floored (i think my jaw literally hung open as I saw it) at this guy's idea of a 'safe' healing environment. he compared (pros and cons) of office setting vs. residential. clearly he prefers residential (and I'm screaming "for goodness sakes, no!" (or be very careful!) very funny.. it was nearly the complete antithesis to what I had been reading prior.
anyway.
there ya go