Felt like time for a long Chinese medicine Spring theory post.
This is the season of the Liver/wood element🌱🪜; the visionary, plan making, stubborn and anger prone organ that represents the force required for budding flowers to burst their way through the frozen earth of winter. The Liver channel opens to the eyes and governs the tendons, signifying our ability to envision the futures we desire and to move our bodies into them with ease.
Upward rising by nature, excess Liver Yang energy can lead to head and upper body symptoms like migraines, rhinitis and itchy eyes (think spring allergies), insomnia, anger/argumentativeness and upper body/neck/jaw tension, especially when not anchored by sufficient kidney yin 🌊.
NYC is a particularly Liver Qi stagnant place and it’s one of the most common aspects I treat in practice. Picture your body like a packed 4 train on the morning commute, just taken off from union square. The train rolls on and all seems fine enough while you’re moving steadily towards your destination. All of a sudden everything slows to a halt between 34th and 42nd st. Full stop. Fan shuts off. You instantly regret your decision to wear a puffy coat. A verbal fight breaks out at the other end of the car. This trapped feeling and the resultant heat that arises are the essence of how stuck Liver Qi functions inside your body.
From our tiny apartments to our concrete confined workspaces and our even more stressful financial pressures, NYC can often stifle us from all angles. It’s no wonder many of us gravitate toward alcohol and other liver stimulating agents to create a false sense of space and flow despite their pendulum effects on the withdrawal.
To course Liver Qi, diaphragmatic breathing and body movement (dance/exercise) are essential tools. Emotional expression, whether via talk therapy, conversations with loved ones or screaming into a pillow can do wonders to air out our stagnant spaces. And, of course, Acupuncture and cupping are stellar at moving Qi while allowing us time for rest and nourishing our anchors.
