Guest guest Posted May 27, 2000 Report Share Posted May 27, 2000 Hi all, Have enjoyed all your teachings about TCM, but now have a question. What are the emotions of the Spleen? Worry, what can be used to replace worry? Thanks for all your comments -- ------ Judy " 'But' is a fence over which few leap. " --German proverb http://www.oneworldreiki.ab.ca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 28, 2000 Report Share Posted May 28, 2000 >What are the emotions of the Spleen? Worry, what can be used to replace >worry? Pensiveness. Obsessing. Ted J. Kaptchuk, OMD, in The Web That Has No Weaver, has the following to say about pensiveness: " The Nei Jing states that ... excess pensiveness generates 'knottedness' or stuckness', .... " (p. 129) " Excessive pensiveness may result in stagnation of the Qi, thereby disturbing the Spleen's function of transforming food and leading to such abdominal symptoms as stomach distention or poor digestion. " (p. 130) Maciocia in The Foundations of Chinese medicine says, " Worry depletes and knots both the Spleen and Lungs. " He adds, " Worry depletes Spleen-Qi causing much the smae kind of damage as excessive mental work. Worry also knots Lung-Qi leading to anxiety, breathlessness and stiffness of the shoulders and neck. The breathlessness is the physical manifestation of the constraint of the Crporeal Soul induced by constant worrying. Many patients present with raised or arched shoulders and stiff neck with shallow breathing, typical of knotted Lung_Qi caused by chronic worry. " (p. 132) Henry C. Lu in Chinese Herbal Cures says, " Excessive thought is harmful to the spleen. When a person thinks too much, the energy of the spleen becomes congested, with the result that the person may suffer from chronic indigestion and iarrhea and suppression of menstruation in women. " He also says that, " Excessive worry and sadness are harmful the the lungs, because when a person worries too much and feels sad for a prolonged period of time, the energy of the lungs becomes blocked up. " (That " knottedness " thing referred to earlier.) As long as emotions - like energy - are free flowing and balanced, they're usually not going to cause any problems. When a particular emotion is excessive over a long period of time, that's when a person runs into problems. Sometimes a particular emotion is excessive because it's being used to block other emotions. For example, in this culture, especially among men, anger often is used to block other emotions like worry, sadness, etc. An interesting twist on this in another culture is detailed in one of Dagmar's earlier Letter From China. In it she talks about a woman who had undergone a divorce, a really traumatic event in most cultures but especially in China. The woman wasn't responding well to the herbs given her. So the healer arranged for another form of therapy. She had someone tell the woman that another woman had been saying some bad things about her mother whom she doted on. She rushed to the other woman and yelled at her. Really told her off. In this case the healer used anger to break up dammed emotions and get them flowing. The other people were in on what the healer was going to try to do. Suppressing emotions is not the same thing as allowing them to flow. Indeed, suppressing emotions only makes them excessive. They build like pressure in a pressure cooker with no vent. But free flowing emotions is not necessarily actting upon them or acting on them in limited ways. For example, anger can be used just to destroy or hurt, or it can be channeled into changing conditions for the better for a lot of people as in social movenments. You will see a lot of using one emotion, anger, to mask others in abusive families. The abuser is letting go with his/her anger a lot. This gets to be addictive. Over time it takes more and stronger lashing out to get a little relief from the personal demons. The abuse escalates. What the abuser needs to do, will have to do eventually is to face and feel the other emotions in his/her life and give all their proper place. Very often abusers were themselves abused (though relatively few abused children grow up to become abusers themselves). Or they were raised in families and cultures where others were abused and where more tender emotions were devalued and even discouraged. The excessive anger is used to block having to feel the sadness from the realization of never really having been loved, to block feelings of vulnerability and helplessness as a child, and to block not having to feel and face appropriate anger at the parent. Instead the appropriate anger against the abusive parent is bled off onto innocent targets because the person is still too afraid to face. But these substitutes are never going to be satisfactory, so over time it takes more and worse abuse against these substitutes to quiet the personal demons that are clamouring to be faced and recognized. Another time emotions are a problem are when they are sudden and extreme. Like someone being badly frightened suddenly. One thing to remember is that TCM recognizes a two-way street. Yes, emotions can cause physical imbalance, but physical imbalance also can cause emotions. You see this sometimes in severe viral infections, especially those that are attacking the liver. Nothing in the person's current life or history is engendering the emotions. No amount of talk therapy is going to do any good because the anger and other emotions are coming strictly from physical imbalances in the body. Correct the undelying imbalance in the Liver, bring the viral infection under control, and the extreme emotions disappear. Victoria ______________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 28, 2000 Report Share Posted May 28, 2000 Judy, Victoria's posting of the article on PMS has some excellent info on the Spleen. Lynn >Hi all, >Have enjoyed all your teachings about TCM, but now have a question. > >What are the emotions of the Spleen? Worry, what can be used to replace >worry? > >Thanks for all your comments > > >-- >------ >Judy > > " 'But' is a fence over which few leap. " >--German proverb > >http://www.oneworldreiki.ab.ca > > > >------ >Old school buds here: >http://click./1/4057/5/_/701177/_/959460299/ >------ > > > Post message: Chinese Traditional Medicine > Subscribe: Chinese Traditional Medicine- > Un: Chinese Traditional Medicine- > List owner: Chinese Traditional Medicine-owner > >Shortcut URL to this page: > /community/Chinese Traditional Medicine > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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