Who knew, that besides the millions of different Acupoint combinations, thousands of different herbal prescriptions and infinite ways the Chinese can make formulas taste horrible they also have a system for determining how we process emotions?! They do. And as much as this specialty is a teeny tiny rarely talked about part of the vast science that is Traditional Chinese Medicine, it’s the nearest to my heart and the system I work with the most.
In Chinese Medicine each Acupuncture point has specific functions that it performs in the body, when you link up several points, they work towards a goal which is whatever the practitioner is trying to achieve with treatment. So, not unlike a recipe needs several ingredients to come together and taste like marinara sauce instead of just taking a bite out of a tomato, an onion and some garlic, healing a patient’s requires a specific “recipe” of points. When we are talking about healing the emotions and working through shock or trauma the first step is to analyze which organ is MOST out of balance. I always like to really listen to a patient, feel their pulses and check their tongue but also get a real sense of what they’re going through to put together a treatment and heal them. So with most emotional balancing treatments I am listening for certain emotions that surface often and then link them to the organ we need to heal with, someone can have a headache for 15 different reasons and believe it or not, one of which could be Grief (like when you run out of peanut butter or Netflix isn’t working). So it’s crucial your Acupuncturist can identify what is out of balance instead of just arbitrarily stick needles in random spots (which I know is what it looks like to the naked eye 😉
Let’s look at the emotions a little closer and how they relate to the organs:
Heart ~ Joy/Connection
Lungs ~ Grief/Loss
Spleen ~ Worry/Overthinking
Liver ~ Anger/Drive
Kidneys ~ Fear/Willpower
Now before 87 Chinese Med Docs jump down my throat and we start splitting hairs on verbiage, this is a very watered down version of what’s up with the emotions/organs so hold onto your tea cups and keep your pants on kids. It’s a blog not an encyclopedia 😉
When we go through an emotional event, a breakup, a trauma or life starts chucking lemons at our heads, each one of us will inevitably regress into our most predominant organs emotional state, that is, we all have a trigger emotion we twitch at first. Example (cause I know this is getting weird as fuck and not all of you are gonna follow me down the rabbit hole 😉 I think we all know the people who whenever something goes wrong their automatic reaction is “WHAT THE FUCK?! WHO DID THIS?! WHO DO I NEED TO SCREAM AT?!” even though that is in response to there not being enough foam on their mocha latte half skim frappahappacino. It’s basically an unwarranted angry response to something that isn’t that big of a deal = we look at the Liver.
In the same way, who knows the chicken little type that misses their train in the morning and goes “Oh wow. That’s it. Late for work, then fired, then living on my parents couch and eating ramen but they shut off the water so I can’t even cook it and nobody will ever date the guy who smells like ramen so I’m basically dying alone…” and on and on which is a totally ridiculously fear based response = Kidneys.
So by identifying which organ is predominant when our lives go out of whack, then balancing THAT organ + the rest of the body + a ton of other witchcraft and wizardry I am keeping secret so I look like a magician when you come for an appointment… We are able to help strengthen you and lessen the emotional trigger response to life’s little challenges. Capeesh?
Till next time, take your vitamins, eat your greens and come get poked
xoxo Paige
For more on emotional stuff, inspiration, poking needles and general magic follow me on Instagram @theacuchick and twitter @theacuchick
