| Element | Basic Need |
| Fire | Love, warmth, joy. |
| Earth | Support, nourishment, care. |
| Metal | Recognition, acknowledgement of self. |
| Water | Safety, reassurance, stability. |
| Wood | Boundaries and structure to facilitate growth. |
Being nourished will involve feelings. We feel warm when we are loved, secure when supported, satisfied when acknowledged, relaxed when safe and excited when our boundaries and vision are clear. Whatever the feelings, it is natural for us to have them when our Elemental needs are satisfied.
It is also natural on occasion to have negative feelings. If we are abruptly and inexplicably abandoned by a partner, it would be natural to feel unloved and devastated. The same applies to many situations. So if this is natural, when do emotions cause illness?
In adult life, a feeling which is too strong can cause illness. Being involved in a disaster where our lives are threatened and those close to us die, can produce such overwhelming feelings that leaves us unable to resume a normal flow of energy.
Something like this, although not externally devastating, can happen when we are young and not be noticed by those around us. For example, our mother is ill and consequently absent shortly after birth; at an impressionable age we have a teacher with inappropriately high expectations; we are the first born and a sibling arrives unexpectedly. Any of these events can seem catastrophic from the point of view of a child. The result can be that some emotions we feel day by day can make us ill. These emotions have several characteristics:
An overwhelming one-off emotion may make us ill. Consistently, however, the emotions causing disease are the everyday, repetitive, negative feelings over which we feel we have no control. These arise from our own internal way of experiencing the world.
SO, AGAIN, WHAT IS AN EMOTION?
We said before that an emotion is made up of many parts. The Chinese would also describe an emotion as simply the flow of Qi or energy. Ideally, this flow should always be free and never blocked. It is natural for emotions to arise, flow smoothly, reach a peak and dissipate. However, the emotions described above — which are repetitive, generated mainly from the inside, unpleasant and seemingly outside our control — are based on blockage. When the Qi is blocked, stagnation occurs. A pond which is no longer fed by flowing streams begins to stagnate. Stuck emotions cause the Qi of the body to stagnate and illness results.
For example, grief which is held in the chest means that the natural flow of energy in the chest is inhibited. Fear which is held in the lower back stops the flow of blood to the kidneys. Anger which tightens the chest area can reduce blood flow to the heart. Even love or joy which we hold back makes the pond stagnant.
The next ten chapters consist of a chapter for each constitutional type followed by a chapter giving the exercises for that type. There are five different types: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water types. Each chapter on a type is designed both to describe the type and to give us the background in Chinese medicine to help us to understand the type. The purpose of the exercise chapters is to give us ways to grow and develop and achieve more balanced emotions. The rest of this chapter offers you some guidance to reading the book.
You can go about discovering your type in one of two ways. First, you may decide to read the whole book or chapters 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 which describe the five main types. You may then notice which of the types describes you the best. Alternatively, you may wish to fill in the questionnaire at the end of the book and find out which type gains the highest score. You can then read the associated chapter and see if it ‘fits’. Of course you may also wish to do both!
If you decide to take the first route suggested, this is a useful way to gain insights into your type. As you read chapters 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, you may decide that the characteristics of one of the types describe you well. If this is the case it is strongly possible that this is your constitutional type. You may gain greater understanding of yourself by reading the chapter and also from carrying out the exercises associated with your type. Doing these exercises will help you quickly to pinpoint and work on a number of your key issues. Thus you can uncover and deal with many important areas for your growth and development. It will also enable you to consider the ways in which those around you are different or similar in the way they think, feel and go about their daily lives. This awareness of others can be an important benefit of knowing about the different types.
The second route to discovering your type is the questionnaire. You will find this in Chapter 12 on page 218. The questions are asked from many different perspectives in order for you to gain a clear idea of your Elemental type. Please remember though that no questionnaire is foolproof. If the results of the questionnaire indicate that you are a certain type and the associated chapter is a good description of you, then you have probably found your type. If, on the other hand, it does not describe you well, then you can assume that the questionnaire has not given you an accurate result. In this case you may wish to read the descriptions of the other types too. If you then feel more in tune with another type then please read both types again carefully and assess for yourself which one describes you the best.
Some of you may already know your type because you have visited an acupuncturist who has told you that one of the Elements is the key focus of your treatment. Your acupuncturist may even suggest that you read this book in order to gain greater insight into the Element or suggest that you do some of these exercises.
I Relate to Many of the Elements as I Read This Book. What Should I Do?
When you read about the types you may find that more than one of them describe some aspects of your character. This is natural as we are a combination of all five types. Because we have our own unique balance of all of the Elements there are times when many of the main characteristics described in the chapters may sound vaguely familiar. However, when you come to the chapter which describes your constitutional type you may realise that this particular