At the beginning of the study, each student was monitored over the course of two terms. Tests gauged their personality, how they coped with stress and how healthy they were.
From the study the researchers found that emotions had an important effect on whether we get ill. The students who were emotionally balanced were less likely to become ill. On the other hand, the ones who:
were more likely to become ill.
The illnesses varied from headaches to heart troubles, but it was found that the people who were most often in these negative states were likely to have more serious illnesses. The researchers noted something that Chinese medicine has known for over two thousand years. This is, that negative emotions place us under a kind of permanent stress which causes us to become unhealthy.
In this book we will be discussing this obvious truth, that repetitive negative emotional states cause us to become ill and conversely, that regular, positive and balanced emotions can help to keep us well.2
This chapter will introduce us to the Chinese view of health, disease and our emotions. It will also explain how these relate to Chinese Five Element theory and the Five Element types. This chapter will also give us a thorough background to all aspects of the Five Element types. This includes a brief history, their relationship to our Organs, how our constitutional type originates and an overview of the positive and negative capacities of the types. We will also look in greater depth at how we become ill and how we are affected by our emotions. Before we go any further, however, let’s look at how the Chinese view disease.
Chinese medicine teaches that there are three main areas which cause disease. These are called External, Internal and Miscellaneous causes.3 The External causes relate to how the climate can make us ill. The Miscellaneous ones are mostly to do with how our lifestyle can affect us. It is the Internal ones, however, which we are dealing with in this book. This is because they are concerned with our emotions.
The Internal causes of disease were first noted in Chinese texts over two thousand years ago. They are clearly an even more important cause of disease in today’s society than they were at that time.
You may be wondering what the emotions have got to do with the Five Elements and the Five Element ‘types’.
The five main constitutional types are based around what is known as the theory of the Five Elements. Along with Yin and Yang, which are the two prime forces of the universe, Five Element theory underpins the whole of Chinese medicine.
Each of these Five Elements is associated with two main organs. We will discuss these organs and Elements in greater depth in this chapter and the later ones. All of us are born with one Element which is constitutionally slightly more imbalanced than the others.4 This imbalance causes us to have repetitive negative states or difficulties expressing certain emotions.
If we have an imbalance in the Element known as ‘Wood’, for example, this is connected with the Liver and Gall Bladder organs. The associated emotions have to do with anger and assertion. An imbalance on the other hand in the Lungs and the ‘Metal Element’ will tend us more towards emotions connected with grief and loss.
By knowing and understanding our constitutional imbalance or ‘type’ we can know where our main emotional imbalance lies. This is important because it enables us to specify the key areas where greater awareness and work on ourselves will pay the greatest dividends. If, for example, the inability to grieve is a key factor, then ‘working on our anger’ is not as useful as responding to our diminished capacity for grief. After all, much of the anger may be coming from the inability to experience or express our grief.
In order to understand these types better we’ll now find out more about the Five Elements.
As we said earlier, the Five Elements along with Yin and Yang are an important underlying structure of Chinese medicine. Five Element theory says that the energy of the world can be divided into five movements or processes which are sometimes also called phases or Elements. We will use the term ‘Element’ as it is the one most commonly used.
The Elements are: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. They are the energetic substances or processes out of which the world is made. Each Element is defined as having a set of associations. For example, some of the associations are a Yin and a Yang Organ, a colour, a sound in the voice, a season, a taste, an odour, a direction and a climate. Through these associations arises a Five Element language to describe the world.
The Elements connect to each other via two cycles illustrated by the arrows. The cycles emphasize how aware the Chinese are of the interconnectedness of the Organs. Below is a diagram of the Five Elements and their generating and controlling cycles. Figure 1 shows the main associations of each Element.
Figure 1: THE FIVE ELEMENTS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS
HOW DO THE FIVE ELEMENT ASSOCIATIONS CONNECT?
Any situation in the world will always contain all of the Elements, but one will be dominant. As an example we’ll assume it’s a summer’s day. The sun is bright and the temperature is scorching. People are gathered together and talking a lot, bright colours such as red appear in abundance and laughter resounds.
We would say from the description above, that of all the Elements, Fire is in the ascendant. Why? Because summer, heat, speech, laughter and the colour red are all associations of Fire. So is the heart. And so is the emotion joy.
The Five Element theory is a way of connecting many aspects of the world. We can use these to determine which Element is to the fore in a situation and which Elements are in the background.
HOW DID THE CHINESE USE THE FIVE ELEMENT THEORY?
The theory of the Five Elements was originated by a Chinese philosopher, Tsou Yen, a few hundred years before the birth of Christ. Tsou Yen is thought to be the founder of Chinese scientific thought. In his first writings, he described the movement from one Element to another. This was especially with regard to the change in power from one dynastic ruler to another. His political advice and insights became highly sought after. He was consulted by the various powerful lords, emperors and feudal rulers at a time when China was a group of warring states.
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