RE: Gut Feeling
Thank you for the links! Seems there's plenty on this.
Venetian, I liked this info about the heart. Don't know why, but it always gives me a warm glow in my heart whenever I hear about everyday things that remain a mystery to science!;)
ORIGINAL: spinal music
I'm always telling my hunched over clients to think and lead their walking with their emotional centre ...<snip>... so many people who are stressed have varying degrees of colitis.
Sharon, this is good: in 5 element chinese medicine, everybody is regarded as having one "element" out of balance from birth (or very early on in life). This is their constitutional element. Each element contains two organs (Fire contains 4).
Posturally, many people can be seen to be protecting their constitutional element in some way - if there is a Metal imbalance (main organ is the Lungs), the shoulders will often be slumped because of the weakness in the chest area, and the person's natural tendency to try to protect their Lungs. The other organ in Metal is the large intestine.
Similarly, Fire types can have a similar posture to protect the Heart - here the paired organ is the small intestine.
I thought your observations fitted well with this view of our energies.
:)Aragorn:)
RE: Gut Feeling
Hello Aragorn,
Just as I believed - that we think with our whole bodies, not just with our brains.
Love,
Patsy.
xxxxxxx
RE: Gut Feeling
Aragorn - my thoughts have been spinning since I read your post - and some of them have spun away - but could the reason some people have scoliosis is that they are protecting their liver? By encouraging my clients to walk "heart first" does that leave their lungs and hearts unprotected? Is this good? Have you any web-links which might help me understand this a bit more? Or a (simple) book to recommeend. I find it really interesting.
In my Pilates and Franklin Method practice, my aim is to get their bodies as symmetrical and upright as their individual structures allow.
Sharon
RE: Gut Feeling
Hi Sharon
I can't really recommend any books on this stuff - not all the observations that are made in clinical practice in chinese medicine get coherently written down as I'm sure you'll appreciate, and this postural one is something that passed to me through word of mouth.
Some acupuncturists (myself included) have seen a link between the position of a patient's scoliosis and their element type.
Basically, each "level" on the back (i.e. the spaces between the bones of the spine) corresponds to a different organ. For example the space between T3-T4 is the Lung level. In a constitutional Metal-type (i.e Lung type), there seems to be a greater incidence of slight spinal curvature at this level than anywhere else. Some have speculated that defects in the spine might even cause our elemental imbalance.
Certainly, I think, in osteopathy, pilates etc you would recognise how spinal alignment can have a deeper effect on our entire system. To me this explanation is not completely satisfactory, as there would seem to be a greater influence in elemental causation from an emotional level than purely physical, though I do recognise the significance of this spinal observation.
I haven't personally come across anything in Chinese medicine that would specifically link scoliosis to the liver. If there were one organ involved, it would make more sense for it to be the kidneys, as these "govern" our bones, growth and development.
Regarding the correction of posture by encouraging patient's to walk "heart first", I can see no issue with this. Our postural shape is governed by the energetics of the organs involved: by straightening the posture you will also be encouraging the patient to have more vitality in their Heart by allowing a better movement of energy in this area (or Lungs, Stomach - wherever it may be for them).
It is possible that a particularly vulnerable Heart-type, may feel more exposed by opening their shoulders and revealing their Heart, and quite probably simply wouldn't keep doing it! But I can't see any harm at all in encouraging this, as the very action in itself will build greater confidence.
Rambled a bit there - hope it kinda makes sense!
:)Aragorn:)
RE: Gut Feeling
Yes, but the broad subject of 'Psychology', including the physiology and biochemistry of the brain, has its answer to that one, even if incorrect. The brain certainly gets information about the rest of the body from all over the body, and then responds. However, psychology still has the brain at the center of things, and 'consciousness' - whatever psychologists muse that to be - as being in the brain or created by it, whereas the rest of the body is a biochemical 'machine'. This thread is pretty contrary to that, what?
V