Emotions are like a flowing river in our lives. Calm and serene stretches followed by tumbling rapids and waterfalls into gentle pools of love and even underground passages. In Chinese medicine, emotions are very much a part of our being and our health. Imbalances in the emotions, getting stuck in one for too long, or overly expressing one too much can show us an imbalance that exists within us, or can lead to imbalance if left untended. 

You’ll see a feelings map above, these wheels are used to help people see the variety of emotions that exist in our world and help us to communicate how we’re feeling to others. This is one way of looking at the emotions. Chinese medicine looks broadly at five emotions that seem to underlie much of what we go through that has a strong influence on our physiology. You may have heard of grief being associated with the Lung and Metal element, anger associated with the Liver and Wood element, joy with the Heart and Fire element, fear with the Kidney and Water element, and over thinking/ worry with the Spleen and Earth element. Encircle Acupuncture in Nashville did a great write up on these associations — you can read that here. 

Emotions affect us physiologically, and this is a fact, not an assumption. Because we all have them, and they are often fleeting or hard to get a hold of, emotions are often swept to the side in hopes that logic will win the day. You don’t have to believe in emotions, they are more than real, often too much so, and they can help us heal or they can harm us if ignored. You can read about how emotions move energy around to different parts of the body here in this NPR article, Mapping Emotions on the Body.

Most of the arts spring out of emotion, and be it a painting or a song, a dance or a building — the creations of artists invoke emotions and these can have a visceral effect on us as well. I highly suggest you explore the Art Emotions Map done as a collaboration between UC Berkeley and Google — you can do that here.

As a side note, there’s a big full moon in Scorpio tomorrow, and for all those astrology buffs out there, this points to a week of strong emotion, potentially overwhelmingly so — so buckle up and keep low in the boat while you surf this week’s waves. Just remember, emotions are things we have and experience, they are experiences, not solid structures. They are moving, changing, and ever-evolving — they are not immovable, they are mutable and flowing.

In Chinese medicine, the only problem is when they get stuck. Let them flow and all will be well. Acupuncture works with the body’s energies to get it flowing and unblock stuck spots. Acupuncture is great for helping you manage and care for your emotions. Personally, I think every week is a good week for acupuncture, but specifically — this week is a great week for acupuncture.