In this article I would like to share some thoughts on transforming emotional energy into useable energy drawing on meditations advanced by generations of Taoist sages, as well as the wisdom of Peter Levine, a psychologist and writer who specializes in trauma. Both offer wisdom for transforming our emotions to find vitality and peace.
Emotions can grab us and send into a spiral where we lose our connection to our inner guidance. Anger, sadness, frustration, impatience, worry, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt. This is an incomplete list of the host of emotions that we all cycle through when something that someone else does or something that happens in the world triggers us. A fight with a loved one, a disappointment, a perceived failure, a loss, can be the trigger that initiates a storm of emotional reactions. I think of this cascade of emotions as a fog that clouds our clearer vision of ourselves and our true nature. Paradoxically these emotions can also be a tool to help us actually see and understand ourselves more clearly.
To be able to see ourselves more clearly we have to have a internal space or place we can call on to give us a larger perspective. This is an inner spaciousness that allows you to acknowledge how several seemingly contradictory and opposing realities can all exist together at the same time. Some traditions refer to this space as the inner observer, the inner sage, the higher self.
In the Taoist conceptualization of human consciousness, there are two concepts that explain the dimensions of this inner space. One is called the shen zhi and loosely translates into our personality or the acquired mind. The shen zhi is considered to be the post natal aspect of our mind that is influenced by culture, emotions, thoughts, and daily activities and stressors. It is the combined consciousness of the five organ spirits (heart, spleen, lungs, kidneys, liver), and it plays an important role in driving our actions in the world. The other is the yuan shen which literally means the original spirit and is what you might think of us your soul or your inner guidance or intuition. These two aspects of ourselves are interdependent, as well as interactive.
There is a Taoist saying that explains the relationship between the two, “The mind must be led by a Master: the yuan shen must be that master and must lead the Heart’s Shen Zhi as One Mind.”
The Personality, Ego, or Acquired Mind
The acquired mind is active and is sometimes called the monkey mind because it can get caught up with the emotions, worries, fears, distractions, and illusions of daily life. If you have ever engaged in meditation, you likely know it well. It is the voice that is making the to do list, assessing the stain on the floor that you could never get out, determining what you will be cooking for dinner, analyzing the conversation you had with your best friend about the argument you had with your spouse, etc. It can spin a story using all the information at your disposal that will thoroughly engage you, but that is usually completely and totally wrong. More importantly, it can keep us from sinking and settling into that calm, peaceful knowing of the yuan shen.
From a practical perspective this gives us several options for how to deal with emotions that blindside or paralyze us at times and for how to develop a relationship with the yuan shen. The goal is creating a clear line of communication with the yuan shen so that our personality does not run the show and is able to receive the gentle guidance of our soul or higher self.
The Taoists were masters of understanding and cultivating human consciousness. They developed an elaborate map of the process and how it unfolds before we are born and after we take on a human body. What results are countless tools that help to practice these lofty goals in our real life in real time.
The personality, or Shen zhi, from a Taoist perspective is comprised of the individual consciousness of the organs systems. This is the ground from which we observe and understand and create our inner world which is the key for how we experience the outer world. We adopt certain beliefs based on our life experiences. For example, a belief of I can’t have what I want, or I am powerless. This creates a pattern of energy flow in the body in response to this belief. The Chinese simply mapped out what this looks like. It is important to remember that It is not the event itself we re exposed but how we respond to it that shapes us. We can change our response no matter how long we have been practicing it. We have the capacity to change that belief and choose a new pattern at any time. It simply requires the will to make the change and undergo the transformation. Chinese medicine offers us a roadmap for where emotions get stored and how our thoughts and emotions impact our physical health.
The 5 organ systems: The Chinese Medicine Understanding of the Heart Mind or Shen Zhi
The five organs – liver, heart, kidneys, spleen, and lungs – are each thought to represent a distinct element of our conscious intelligence. This conceptual understanding is derived from a Taoist perspective that sees conscious awareness residing in our whole body and not simply our brain. Our own innate virtues, as well as our capacity for the acquired or negative emotional opposite resonate with each organ system. For example, anger and frustration can be stored in the liver, but also our capacity for creativity, vision, self and interpersonal love, and kindness. In the spleen lies our capacity for worry, as well as deep trust and inner acceptance. The lungs hold our capacity for grief, as well as courage and integrity. The kidneys house fear, as well as gentleness and deep wisdom. And the heart represents our capacity for unconditional love, joy, and a sense of order, as well as impatience, intolerance, chaotic thinking, and cruelty. We all have the capacity to choose either end of the emotional scale, as well as all of the places on the continuum between those extremes.
There is a flow of emotions and energies in the body that follows what is called the creation cycle. It flows from the unknown and the wisdom born of sitting in the quiet stillness and vastness of the unknown (kidneys) that flow into the loving kindness toward others and to the self (liver), the order and joy that comes from the Divine and the alignment with the highest purpose and the voice of the soul (heart), to the deep trust in self and the world that comes from that (spleen), to the courage to be fully present and experience the flow of life (lungs) that helps us walk into the unknown and gain the wisdom from the process of being in the flow of life.
Healing Sounds
One of the most basic and useful tools I have learned in my Taoist training to help manage the emotional storms of life are the healing sounds. There is a sound that resonates with each of these five organs.
Sounds are used to gently vibrate the internal organs and release or purge accumulated emotions and energies that we store in our bodies. When we feel an emotion and stuff it, we develop an accumulation of energies in our body. Essentially we can either let it move through us and not stick anywhere and accumulate density or we can let it take root. You know something has taken root when you find yourself ruminating about it for days or months (or years) or it pops up at inappropriate times days, months, or even years later to haunt your thoughts. One of the ways you will notice that accumulation of energy is when you have an emotional reaction out of proportion to the event (ie someone cuts you off in traffic or does says or does something and you find yourself in a raging fit or flood of tears.
Sounds should not be used by pregnant women or in the room with babies or small children. The vibration of the sounds are not healthy for a developing fetus and they can be too strong and unsettling for small children who are very sensitive to energy. It is important to note that the sounds can be very beneficial for children. Andres and I are teaching our toddler how to use these sounds. It is empowered for kids to see and feel how they can change their emotional state quickly and easily instead of getting stuck there. As kids get older and are exposed to life situations where they may feel like they have limited control, a tool such as the healing sounds can show them how they can regulate and maintain their own inner state of being and can shift their emotional state by themselves.
Children are a great example of moving emotions through the body. If you have ever spent time with kids you notice that they can cycle through a host of emotions in minutes or sometimes seconds – anger to joy or sadness to smiling. This is a great example of presence and the ability to respond to life in real time without letting anything stick or take root.
We offer a collection of meditations you can download that walk you through a guided meditation for each of the organ sounds. You can click here for more information about how you can purchase this, as well as a simple description of the benefits of each sound. We also a collection of meditations you can use to focus the power of your own innate virtues. You can click here for more information about how to purchase these downloads and a description of the process. These are tools you can use on your own. We are also available to help teach and guide you through these and other meditations to support you in identifying and transforming emotional patterns that are no longer supporting your health and well being.
Trauma and Emotional Triggers
Trauma is not so much the event itself as our reaction to it. In the words of Peter Levine, a trauma researcher, “an incomplete physiological response suspended in fear.” Literally trauma is the act of these emotions being frozen in place without being discharged. Two people can experience similar events and have completely different reactions to it. It is the emotion of fear or shame or guilt or shock or hopelessness or powerlessness that freezes us in that moment of time and we keep repeating and recreating it over and over again in different settings. The mind (ie the Shen zhi) has the ability to recreate these scenarios with perfect precision literally transporting us back to the mood and emotion we felt when we first experienced it. But as Peter Levine so eloquently states, “Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”
Why is it important to release these stored energies? Because they can lead to disease and health issues. But also because these extreme emotions can interfere with our ability to know and experience our essential nature which is trust, joy, openness, awareness, love, kindness, inner peace.
How can we discharge those frozen or stored emotions so that we can respond to life in the present moment? The sounds are a basic skill and tool that can help us release things in real time, as well as release past accumulations of stored energy. These sounds are incredibly powerful. I have seen people release physical pain in an organ by using these sounds, as well as emotional pain such as grief, fear, or anger that has kept them from moving forward from a wound that happened years or even decades previously. Peter Levine, a trauma researcher, noticed how animals in the wild deal with trauma, particularly noting that they do not hold on to a traumatic experience like almost being killed by a predator. They will literally shake off the experience and release it from the tissues of their body and move on without storing those reactions. The sounds literally vibrate our tissues releasing any past tension or accumulated energies.
There are many other tools we can use to release these experiences and emotions from our bodies, as well as a practices to help us strengthen our yuan shen and to see the world from the eyes of our higher self. At 4 Branches Chinese Medicine Center Andres and I are trained in Medical Qi Gong which is an in-depth understanding of how to transform the internal landscape for greater health and wellbeing. We combine Medical Qi Gong with acupuncture, herbs, and Chinese medicine food therapy to help not only transform but also to maintain these new patterns of health and well being.
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