MIGHTY ENERGY
Vernal Equinox – new like spring!
We have come into the potent time of Spring. The “Wood Rhythm” energy, as we learn about in Energy Medicine, is all around us. This is the time where the hibernation of winter has come to an end and nature is beginning to spring forth through the last vestiges of the cold air and soil to bring life back to the surrounding earth. We think of baby birds pecking their way out of their eggshells and snow drops, crocus’s and daffodils pushing up through the last bit of frost that still freezes the land. It’s more precarious to thrive and survive so it requires determination, perseverance, fortitude, and strength.
It's a time we start thinking about shedding and getting rid of the dust and debris that has accumulated over the winter. Whether it’s the need to clean out the cobwebs from our homes or wanting to do a liver cleanse to kick start the metabolism to shed some of the extra winter padding we may have put on. This type of energy has both qualities of drive and stubbornness.
This yin/yang charging time of seasonal change activates our own inner Wood Rhythm and can stir up strong emotions Did you know the Ancient Chinese understood the liver as the seat of the soul? It is responsible for the emotions of kindness, generosity, and self-love, and when liver is in balance, we can access the energy and wisdom to create the pathways forward to realize our dreams.
Energy wants to move, and it needs space to move. Emotions are Energy in Motion and certain emotional states are easier to move through our systems than others. Loving feelings are light and expansive and move through us effortlessly, but, feelings of anger, are denser, fiery, and can constrict our ability to move forward in life.
When our Wood Rhythm becomeS unbalanced we can experience emotions that can include confusion, frustration, irritation, fury, envy, indignation, furious, intolerance, exasperation, wrath, outrage, ill temper, huff, stew, mad, bristling, incensed, riled up, livid, bitter, seething, impatient, peeved, crabby, critical, displeased, rankled, annoyed, affronted, offended, spiteful, menacing, violent, disgusted, contemptuous, hostile, hurt, jealousy, embarrassed, powerless, rejected, worried, displeasure, cross, agitated, grouchy, grumpy, dismayed, seething, acrimony, animosity, impatience, resentment, sarcastic…are all powerful “anger” descriptive words to describe energy that is frenetic, frazzling, and fraying, and in turn can create havoc with our biology.
These types of emotions can raise our blood pressure, cause anxiety and stress and make us feel scrambled and unable to focus. Physical signs of anger might be increased heart rate, feeling hot or flushed, shaking, a clenched jaw, a dry mouth, shouting, ranting, making loud noises, intense staring, baring teeth, finding it difficult to hear and tense muscles.
In energy medicine we are always showing our clients ways to open, move and create a balanced flow within their energy systems. In order to be a good practitioner, I must make sure my own energies are balanced and in harmony. Gaining insight into my own emotional nature, helps me to release my own more difficult and denser energies that can get mired in the body.
With my extensive knowledge, I decided to work on my own Wood rhythm imbalances in the last 4 months and embarked on a 100-day challenge of not getting mad at my husband. After 30 years of marriage, living in close quarters, and being forced to be around each other more than usual because of the past restrictions of the pandemic, our patience with one another was becoming very thin. Statics were saying the stress of all the world changes at that time were causing a significant increase in divorce rates. I was becoming concerned for how our attitudes were becoming so negative towards one another.
What began as an exercise of being more kind, more tolerant, less impatient, and less frustrated ended up being a huge self-awareness exercise about how the energy of anger played a role in my life.
You’ve heard of the sayings “getting hot under the collar, it made my blood boil, I blew my top, he bit my head off, I was fuming, and I was fit to be tied” … these are all great descriptions of how anger was physically affecting me. My Wood rhythm had become unbalanced, and my body was holding onto all this frenetic frenzied type of energy that was making anger become my default emotion when things weren’t going my way.
We generally express anger in two ways. We withdraw and become passive, or we lash out and become aggressive.
Anger turned inwards… Yin energy
Unworthiness, self-punishment, depression
Anger turned outwards… Yang energy
Indignation, maliciousness, revenge, rage, belligerence, envy, hatred, abusiveness, resentment, frustration, irony, cynicism, contempt, stubbornness, impatience, irritability, harshness, grumpiness, sulkiness, stonewalling, detachment, punitiveness.
Suddenly having to control myself to not get mad forced me to discipline and sensor my reactive self and this was not an easy thing for me to do at first. My neural pathways were in a negative pattern loop and figuring out how to stop the chemical cascade and remain calm and centered was a big challenge at first.
This unruly habitual response would immediately cause my cortisol levels to go up. Knowing this was causing my fight, flight or freeze response to take over I had to make a concentrated effort to pause, take a deep breath and think before I spoke, making sure my tone was cheerful and pleasant. I had become a close observer of myself, and it forced me to find a way to be more compassionate towards my husband and gain some much-needed patience and understanding of myself.
Imposing some inner self-control helped delay my own inner child tantrum type energy, from unconsciously verbally assaulting my husband, long enough for me to go hide away from him until I could calm myself down and be more civil. I had to bring out all my superpower energy medicine knowledge and do lots of the exercises to “Blow out the Venom”. I would hold my temples while I ruminated internally about all that was upsetting me. I would calm my nervous system with lots of deep breathing and doing the “Triple Warmer Smoothie” bringing myself back into a better state of mind.
I realized I had to get more proactive and really start to examine and get more aware of what the root of what was making me become so easily frustrated, angry, and impatient if I was going to make it through the next 100 days.
To hate
Is an easy lazy thing
But to love
Takes strength
Everyone has
But not all are
Willing to practice
~ rupi kaur
Here are some of the things I began to notice and realize about myself.
When I’m trying to do something that requires my focus and concentration, I can become easily irritated and impatient with others making me unconsciously snippy in how I express myself. This was happening very frequently in our busy household and my work life. I was always being unexpectedly or continually interrupted and by the end of the day, when I was tired, I just became short tempered.
I tend to go all day, never giving myself a bit of a break, and by 5pm I’m tired. It has always been my natural low ebb of the day and can unconsciously become my “Witching” hour if I don’t give myself some quiet “me” time.
If I allow my internal frustrations to build, I can unconsciously become anxious and start swearing out loud at my phone, computer or even our noisy cat who is just wanting me to pat her and give her some love.
Drinking or smoking pot – can give you an anger hangover the next day.
Not eating makes me “hangry”.
My highly sensitive empathic personality can take on other people’s energy such as my husband’s own grumpiness and frustrations, which in turn causes my stomach to grip, making me become defensive and short tempered with him. I was beginning to realize my own personal energy boundaries were not that good.
Physically when I am getting angry, my digestive system constricts, and I become gaseous and start to burp. My neck becomes tense, my forehead furrows and my jaw become tight and tense from the gripping. My nervous system becomes troubled and if I allow these signs of physical stress to take over, without doing anything about it, I can become the wolf in the story of “The 3 Little Pigs – I begin to huff and puff and blow the house down!
I get mad at myself for getting mad at others and belittle myself internally for not being emotionally intelligent enough. Judging myself was making me almost feel worse than judging anyone else.
Finally unfulfilled expectations were causing me feelings of disappointment and anger. At the heart of my expectations was the emotion of desire. I wanted to be experiencing be loved. I want to get respect and acknowledgement by other people. I wanted to enjoy life and get what I deserve. In other words, I wanted things to unfold in a way that would make me happy. Eventually, I began to understand that believing I could only be happy when my expectations were filled was fragile thinking. That’s because we cannot control how life happens to us, and we cannot control other people.
After several annoying busy workdays in a row, I suddenly realized that I was not managing my own needs and that I should probably find a place I could go where I wouldn’t be disturbed, turn off my phone, look after myself so I could get my tasks done.
Self-care – FINALY! I was beginning to see the light.
Patience was a skill not an event. Letting go of expectations meant that I no longer was bound by my desire to have things happen a certain way. It meant allowing life to flow and believing the universe has got a plan and will have my back. I could still have a preference or a goal, but I began to assign less importance to the outcome. I started to grow my thinking to consider alternatives. I had to allow my husband to be himself without the direct or indirect pressure of my expectations. Non-attachment to a specific outcome was liberating. I stopped struggling, and instead, I just started to drift with more ease and contentment in the river of our life together. When I began to just accept the things, I could not change I suddenly started to notice a shift in his attitude towards me.
So, what have I learnt about balancing my Wood rhythm?
The key was being more flexible. When I become too rigid in my ways of thinking, I tend to sizzle, break down, and crumble. I had to start taking care of my “fiery” nature a bit more. If I don’t set healthy boundaries and become loose and wobbly, like a badly rooted tree, there is no real potential for growth and change. Because the Wood element embodies the energy of growth, I needed to allow myself to grow more, by being more nurturing to my own needs so I could properly take care of the needs of others. I had to become more assertive not angry, flexible not rigid, and remain more present within myself so I stay more positive with the important people and projects in my life.
Let this Spring be a time where you move forward with new optimism, and determination to bring better emotional happiness into your life. Try a 100-day challenge of not getting mad and find out how you can experience more kindness, compassion, and self-love in your life.
Love Becca