What is spiritual healing, anyway? What does it mean for you? Let me give you a quick explanation of how spiritual healing is approached within the framework of the 5 Elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The 5 Elements: Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire, are related to every component of our being. Let me lay it out with one example: I’ll use the Wood Element, since I am writing this during the Spring, which is the season associated with Wood.
Physically speaking, the Wood Element is related to the liver and gallbladder; to our ligaments and tendons; and to flexibility, resilience, and vitality. Emotionally, the Wood Element governs the negative emotion of anger; and helps us cultivate kindness. Spiritually, Wood helps us develop patience, kindness, and forgiveness; it supports us in bearing spiritual fruit by organizing our aspirations and goals into workable plans. The Wood Element is about coordinated action, and creating the structures that help a seed grow into a tree.
Let’s use an analogy to describe how we would engage in spiritual healing using the Wood Element. Sometimes I like to think of each element as a file on my computer. If the Wood Element was on my desktop, it would hold my anger, as well as the ideas and memories related to it. Inside this folder I’d find the people I resent, the circumstances that frustrate me, and the pieces of my life that I am desperately trying to control.
On the positive side, the Wood Element file would hold my potential for tolerance, for seeing the good in other people, for forgiveness. It would contain the well-conceived plans for implementing the necessary actions I need to perform to achieve my goals, as well as the “gall” to follow through with these plans.
So spiritual healing is opening this file and getting to work. Start releasing your anger; work through the memories and ideas related to your resentment or unwillingness to forgive. Begin cultivating patience and kindness; and get your life in order. I suppose this is the “what” of spiritual healing (for the Wood Element, anyway), and the “what” can be relatively simple to define. It’s when we get to the “how” that you may be stumped (no pun intended).
But fear not – the 5 Element framework simplifies the “how” of spiritual healing. The secret is by engaging with your body. You can release your anger through your body; you can cultivate patience through your body; you can enhance your powers of organization and implementation through your body! The tools that I utilize from the 5 Element framework to work with the body; and to engage with emotion and spirit include a combination of Qigong, Meditation, and Affirmation.
To learn more about how to utilize the 5 Elements for healing, I am rolling out a video series on Qigong for the 5 Elements that works specifically with the Wood Element and shares general principles and practices of Qigong. The first 2 videos have already been posted. The first is, “How Does Qigong Work,” followed by, “Spring Qigong, The Wood Element.” If you’d like to learn more about Qigong, the 5 Elements, and spiritual healing, I encourage you to check out these videos and stay tuned for the whole series.
If you’d like to take a deep-dive into the power of 5 Element Qigong, make sure to check out my Online Course, “The 5 Elements, Affirmations and Qigong.” The course provides 17 lessons full of video instruction on Qigong, audio meditations on the 5 Elements, as well as text from my upcoming book, “Qigong for the 5 Elements.”
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