Listed below are my own impressions of the messages chronic disease has for us when it shows up in our lives. Next to each disease you’ll see the predominant element which is imbalanced for that disease. My hope is to give you self-awareness, clarity, and insight into yourself through what your body tells you. This information can be a springboard for you to journey within and get to know your habitual mental and emotional tendencies which can manifest as disease.

In Chinese medicine, no two people present with exactly the same diagnosis. Everyone is unique is some way. As you read through these, please keep in mind that these are generalizations. Everyone has their own unique variation of their own imbalances. In nature, there are no two blades of grass, no two snowflakes, no two roses, no two whales tails that are exactly the same.

Important to note here that the traditional teachings of Chinese medicine and the Five Elements do NOT indicate that these diseases are caused by imbalances in these elements. This is very much my own interpretation based on my experience.

Another important point to note is that the mental and emotional imbalances I have attributed to various diseases is meant to be a springboard toward self-awareness rather than a concrete concept of the mental and emotional meaning of that disease. My hope is that the information I provide begins a conversation within yourself about your own mental and emotional habits. As I stated above, we are all unique. It is up to you to be curious about your inner world and see yourself clearly.

• Acne: (Fire with Metal) Pretending to be more than you are. Wearing a mask. Pretending to be happy, okay, when underneath the mask you feel unhappy, not okay. Thoughts of “I am not enough just as I am” take over and create the need to be liked, acknowledged, admired. Unable to value yourself just as you are.
• Adrenal fatigue: (Fire) Efforting, giving 150% to everything all the time. Direct result of seeking approval. Look to your childhood for a parent/family member whose approval you did not get. Draining your vital resources and reserves in the hopes of getting the parent/family member’s approval. Also: taking responsibility for other people’s happiness. The Triple Warmer (which relates to the adrenal glands) sees herself as the one who makes others happy or warms up the room. If someone is not happy, you expend effort and energy to make them happy. This also drains vital resources and reserves because you can’t make someone else happy. Only they can make themselves happy. So you are like a dog chasing its tail, fighting a losing battle that can never be won and draining vital resources and reserves in order to do so.
• Agoraphobia: (Fire) Very harsh self-criticism, self-denigration. Going over past events and interactions with others with punishing self-hate. Unable to face life due to debilitating self-criticism.
• Anxiety: (Fire) The need for approval. The need to feel in control. Future oriented: trying to control the future…’What If’ thinking. Dreading the future. Distorted thinking blows future events out of proportion making life seem difficult and overwhelming.
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): (Fire) A habit of speeding through life. Slowing down feels unsafe. Fire’s reaction to fear is to speed up and press the accelerator pedal down. Speed feels like the right thing in the face of fear. Speeding through connection with others and life in general which creates poor connection and reinforces fear.
• Asthma: (Metal) Retreating into oneself is the only place that feels safe. Like a metal cage around the Lungs. No full inhale. No full exhale.
• Bipolar disorder/cyclothymia: Water presentation: Traveling between the two poles of total withdrawal/inability to engage and hyper-engagement. Can be caused by two things: 1. Habitual reaction to fear: rather than having awareness of fear, working with fear, and managing fear; the habitual reaction to fear prevails. Fear suffocates any joy out of life. 2. Habitual reaction to the thought that someone/something has power over you. You feel powerless in life. Fire presentation: Traveling between the two poles of seeking a feeling of control and the realization that any sense of control is an illusion. You may confuse positive feedback from life like getting things done, achieving goals, positive interaction with others with a sense of control. When you don’t get that positive feedback, you feel that you have no control and thus powerless.
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD): (Fire) Cannot trust love or life. The need to control both love and life. Manipulation of loved ones in order to feel in control.
• Breast swelling and tenderness: (Earth with Wood) Resentment associated with feeling obligated to care for others. Caring for others before your own needs are met and feeling resentful for it. Feeling obligated and burdened by caring for others. (This includes emotionally caring for others.)
• Bruising easily: (Earth) Weak Earth Qi can no longer hold the blood in its vessels. Symbolically: fragility, vulnerability. A need to care for yourself. A need to treat yourself with softness and kindness.
• Candida: (Earth) 1. Burden: taking on other’s burdens. Feeling a burden to others. Feeling burdened by life and by others. 2. Not feeling at home in your body. Not feeling at home anywhere, even in your own home.
• Celiac disease: (Earth with Wood and Fire) Celiac disease mainly effects the Small Intestine, which is the paired organ of the Heart. Unable to enjoy and appreciate life as it is. The thoughts about life in which you invest are distorted creating fear and anxiety in everything and the function of the Small Intestine shuts down. Unable to see, assimilate, and absorb the good of everyday life.
• Chronic pain: (Wood) A fixed and rigid mindset. Fixed in one point of view.
• Chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) or reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD): (Water with Wood) Deep anger and resentment toward the Creator, Higher Power, God, the Tao, etc. A refusal to move until you feel safe. Wanting guarantees from a Higher Power. Wanting to be guaranteed that you won’t experience more pain. Simultaneously frozen with fear (paralyzed) and angry about the uncertainties and unknowns of life.
• Cutting, self-harm: (Metal) stems from the need to feel pure. Bleeding creates a feeling of release and a feeling of purification. A belief that self-punishment is purifying.
• Diabetes mellitus/blood sugar issues/hypoglycemia: (Wood) Feeling overly responsible for the growth and potential of others. Taking responsibly for other people’s affairs. OR not able to take responsibility for your own affairs.
• Digestive issues: (Earth) All digestive issues are rooted in some way by an imbalance in the Earth element. In Chinese medicine, digestive issues usually involve other organs and elements as well which is shown in the specific digestive diseases listed on this page. Digestive upset is one of the first signs of imbalance and it is always a sign that more self-care is needed. Here are four common habits that disrupt our body’s ability to digest well: 1. Erratic eating schedule: the Earth element loves rhythm and routine. Our organs of digestion love to know that meals are at regular times every day such as breakfast is at 8AM, lunch is at noon, and dinner is at 5PM. This is rarely the case in our hectic, fast paced world. 2. Eating while doing other activities. Your body needs to be relaxed and at ease while it eats and digests food. Again, rare in our hectic, fast-paced world. 3. Over-eating. Stress, eating while distracted, and eating overly processed and overly flavored foods all contribute to overeating. This is common in our culture and puts strain on our organs of digestion. 4. Poor food choices. We have so many food choices in this day and age. We often get in the habit of choosing poor food choices. This can include seemingly healthy choices that may not work for your body or constitution. For example, being vegetarian when you need meat protein.
• Diseases of heat and eruption: eczema, ulcers, hives/skin rashes, allergic reactions/histamine response, canker sores, body odor, bad breath: (Fire) Mental and emotional eruptions which are unprocessed, unacknowledged, and suppressed. Fire types tend to be emotionally reactive and go to an emotional 10 quickly. A need to examine honestly what is causing emotional eruptions in your heart and mind.
• Dizziness/vertigo/Meniere’s disease: (Wood) In health, the Qi of our lower body is strong and vital keeping us grounded and rooted. When the Qi becomes deficient, the lower body loses its ability to anchor the Qi thus creating an upward surging of Qi into the upper body. Dizziness in all its forms shows us the need to slow down and strengthen our vital Qi.
• Eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia (Fire) Traveling on the spectrum of control and chaos. Sometimes in the state of rigid control of yourself and your eating habits and sometimes in the state of total loss of control of yourself and eating habits which feels like chaos. This relates to binging-type eating disorders.
• Eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia (Metal) Being the “brand” or “spokesmodel” for your family. How pretty you are, how thin and neat you are shows the world that your family is happy, successful. You are the face of your family. This is extraordinary pressure and high standards. Eating disorders simultaneously allow you to conform to the role you have been assigned and allow you to destroy and deteriorate the brand of the family thus feeling some sense of control. Also, purging can feel like a form of purification. Purifying through self-harm is a tendency of Metal types.
• Epilepsy/seizures: (Wood) Heaping enormous amounts of pressure onto yourself. Heat in the Liver and Liver Blood.
• Fatigue: (Water) All fatigue has an underlying Water deficiency. You will see specific types of fatigue disorders listed in association with different elements. For example, adrenal fatigue has more of a Fire component to it, while myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) has more of an Earth component to it. With all fatigue issues, we need to look at our ability to manage our resources and reserves, meaning our vital Qi and energy. There is a belief in Chinese medicine that we must use only the resources and reserves necessary to complete a task and conserve our precious reserves. Do you overextend yourself? Do you overwork? Do you squander your precious resources and reserves? If so, how can you do a better job of conserving them? What is one thing you could do to begin the conservation process?
• Fibrocystic breast disease: (Earth with Wood) Resentment about caring for others turns into deep simmering resentment and anger.
• Fibromyalgia: (Earth with Wood) Resentment and anger at the burdens of life. Resentful that life feels heavy and burdensome. Resentful at the burden of caring for others. In addition, feeling ashamed of the anger and resentment. Hiding the anger and resentment and pretending everything is okay.
• Gallbladder issues/gallstones/gallbladder inflammation/gallbladder attack: (Wood with Fire) Lack of self-assuredness, timid, indecisive. Resigned to not growing or moving forward in life. Repressing and internalizing anger. Harboring suppressed resentment toward others.
• Headache/migraine: (Wood) Pressure. Putting so much pressure on yourself. The feeling of “it’s all on my shoulders. It’s all up to me”. Feeling alone in shouldering the load. Also repressed and internalized anger. Pretending not to be angry or not allowed to express your anger. Holding anger deep inside.
• Hearing loss: (Water) The energy of the ear moving from the outer ear into the inner ear. The need to listen to our own inner voice. The need for introspection and spending time in solitude and stillness.
• Heartburn/gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD): (Fire with Earth) In Chinese medicine, Qi that surges upward when it shouldn’t is called rebellious Qi. A deep mistrust of life as it is. The reaction to that mistrust is rebelling against life. (Heartburn is not always caused by emotional imbalance. It is often caused just by poor food choices and a weak digestive Qi.)
• Heart disease/atherosclerosis/coronary artery disease: (Fire) Holding back love. Unable to give love completely and freely. Unable to receive love completely and freely. Trying to control love, trying to protect yourself from hurt.
• Heart attack/myocardial infarction: (Fire) The joy has been squeezed out of life. The need to feel a sense of control has taken all the fun, play, laughter, and joy out of life.
• High cholesterol: (Fire with Earth) The joy that is available in relationships, loving, and intimacy becomes a burden. Feeling burdened by loved ones and relationships in your life. The need to identify and fulfill your own needs in relationships rather than people pleasing and doing what you think others want you to do.
• Histamine response is overreactive: (Fire) Fire types tend toward quick and intense histamine responses making them more prone to allergies and allergic reactions. This correlates to Fire’s emotionally reactive nature. Fire types can react emotionally and intensely. The histamine response reflects this intense emotional reaction.
• Hot flashes/night sweats: (Water) The need to slow down and embrace stillness. The need to stop doing and embrace being. The need for reflection and introspection. An inability to embrace life as it is.
• Hypertension (high blood pressure): (Water with Fire) The need to control life. Imposing your will onto life.
• Hyperthyroidism/Grave’s disease/toxic diffuse goiter: (Metal with Fire) The belief that if we push hard enough, we can alter reality and life as it is. Again, this stems from an inability to value reality and life as it is, but instead of withdrawing our participation as in hypothyroidism, we try to impose our own version of what should be happening onto life. This trying hard and pushing life around is a Fire-y pattern and therefore we can include the Fire element with hyperthyroidism.
• Hyperkyphosis/dowager’s hump: (Fire) Hiding how you truly feel. Being told by others that you are not allowed to feel what you actually feel. Being told by others that what you feel doesn’t matter….that your needs and wants don’t matter. Hiding how you really feel from others. Physical representation of pushing your feelings to the back, hiding them away.
• Hyperhidrosis: (Fire) Terrified of what others think. Desperate to please.
• Hypotension (low blood pressure): (Water) Difficulty rising to meet life. A need for rest, retreat, rejuvenation. Take time out to replenish resources and reserves. Embrace stillness.
• Hypothyroidism/Hashimoto’s thyroiditis: (Metal) Unable to value life/reality as it is. Putting high standards on life itself. Refusing to participate in life until life meets those high standards.
• Insomnia: (Fire) Anxiety’s twin. The need for approval. The need to feel in control. Dreading the future. At 2:00 AM, tomorrow feels heavy and stifling.
• Interstitial cystitis: (Water) No where feels safe to let go and just be yourself. Childhood home environment didn’t feel safe to just let go and be you. Over time, anger and resentment build at not being able to just let go and be, which creates heat in the bladder which can lead to ulcerations.
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): (Earth with Wood) Symbolically, this is being very hard on yourself. Putting undue pressure on yourself. Not listening to your body’s need for rest, ease, and recuperation. Wood is overly controlling of Earth.
• Inflammatory bowel disease/ulcerative colitis/Crohn’s disease: (Earth with Fire, Metal, and Wood) The mothering, nurturing influences in your life are rejecting, cold, and, can be, abusive. Confusion is created about what mothering and nurturing actually is. Mothering and nurturing is associated with rejection and poor treatment. This leaves you with an inability to mother and nurture yourself.
• Latent virus syndromes (Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr virus, West Nile virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV): (Earth) 1. Co-dependency. A tendency to orbit a central person in your life. Putting the needs of this central person above your own. 2. A war between two parts of yourself. One part of yourself which believes you deserve punishment and are full of shame versus the part of yourself which believes you deserve happiness, joy and a fulfilled life.
• Low back pain: (Water) Overwork. Squandering resources and reserves. Feeling powerless.
• Lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus SLE): (Earth and Wood) Deep anger and rage at the care received from the mother or mother figure in your childhood. Mistrust of the mother figure. Feeling the mother put you in harm’s way or didn’t protect you in childhood.
• Mania: (Fire) A combination of chasing excitement, fantasizing about an exciting future, and dreading the future. All of these create speediness and revving the engine, which creates heat in the heart. In a manic state of being, speed, heat, and chaos feel right. So we cultivate and engender more speed, heat, and chaos. We fan the flames and throw gasoline on the fire.
• Memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease: (Water) A slow and gradual loss of the story of “I”. A gradual reconnection to original nature. Preparing for death.
• Menstrual issues: Anger at the power imbalance between men and women. Diminishing your own feminine nature: your ability to be soft, flexible, supportive, and nurturing to yourself. Putting more importance on the masculine nature within: your ability to be decisive, productive, attaining, and achieving.
• Muscle cramps: (Wood) Moving at a pace which consumes the vital fluids of yin and blood which nourish, lubricate, and keep supple the tendons, ligaments, and fascia which then become dry and susceptible to “internal wind” which causes cramping. The need to slow down, pace yourself, and connect with the deep roots available within the Wood element and ultimately trust life and life’s process.
• Multiple sclerosis (Metal with Water): The fear of leaving the safety of inner solitude and retreat is enormous. Leaving the inner realm becomes paralyzing with fear. Unable to fully engage emotionally and vulnerably with others.
• Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS): (Earth) Burden: Life feels heavy and burdensome. You feel like a burden to others. You feel burdened by others. Believing the story that you must burden yourself with care for others. Sympathy: desperate for sympathy. Feeling a neediness and looking for sympathy to placate the feeling of neediness.
• Narcolepsy: (Fire) So much efforting for control and to earn approval from others that the heart, which regulates sleep, is exhausted and shuts down.
• Neurological Disorders: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), Huntington’s disease: (Water) A lifetime of feeling overpowered and thus powerless. Feeling paralyzed by fear. Unable to move. The combination of feeling powerless as well as feeling paralyzed by fear at what to do about feeling overpowered.
• Nodules/cysts/fibroids/fixed masses: (Wood) Anger has become deep, rooted, and stagnant. A fixed and rigid mindset.
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD): (Fire) The illusion of control is achieved by repeating routines, rituals, and habits. Seeking safety from the terror of the future and the unknown.
• Postpartum depression: (Water) As you carry your baby for 40 weeks, you are reunited with the Tao and original nature as the unborn baby is still a part of that heavenly realm. During the first months of the babies life, you are separated once again from Heaven. Your own habitual tendencies and thoughts/stories once again take over and run your life. You forget original nature once again. You fall from heaven back to earth.
• Prolapse of organs (uterus, bladder): (Earth) The body cannot raise the Qi up due to weakness and exhaustion. Depleted resources and reserves. Depleting yourself caring for others. Again, this can be emotionally caring for someone, not just physically caring for someone.
• Prostate issues: (Fire) Sexual intimacy without emotional intimacy. Allowing the intimacy of sex to replace the intimacy of emotional and heart connection.
• Poor proprioception/balance/weak ankles: (Wood) Indecisive and timid. Unable to envisage the way forward.
• Raynaud’s syndrome/Raynaud’s phenomena: (Metal) Emotional isolation. Hiding how difficult life actually is. Keeping the pressure you put on yourself deeply hidden away. A need to connect and share with others what you are going through no matter how trivial it may seem. On a physical level, not breathing. A need to breathe fully.
• Restless legs syndrome: (Wood) Deficient blood and yin of the Liver leading to internal wind. A need for slowing down and becoming more deeply rooted in life. A need for self-care.
• Rheumatoid arthritis: (Earth with Wood) Resentment and anger at the burdens of life turn into deep burning rage which settles in the joints of the body. Hidden simmering rage at the burdens of life, particularly the burden of caring for others. As with fibromyalgia, the rage stays hidden and underneath the surface. Autoimmune: attacking yourself for feeling the rage. Telling yourself it isn’t okay to feel anger.
• Schizophrenia: (Fire) Consciousness has broken, shattered. Shen (the Spirit of the Fire element) cannot rest or feel safe. Heat in the Heart.
• Scleroderma: (Wood) Deep and intense anger which has become embedded in the personality. Results in fixed and rigid mind and body.
• Scoliosis: (Water) Feeling powerless to assert your own will. Capitulating to the will of others. Lacking backbone; the will or strength to stand up for yourself.
• Sjogren’s syndrome: (Metal) The Lungs are in charge of moisture in the body. Dryness is what injures the Metal element and Sjogren’s is a disease of dryness. The Lungs are responsible for dispersing moisture throughout the body and, in particular, between the skin and muscles which then controls the pores and the ability to regulate sweat. Like all auto-immune disorders, the Earth and Wood elements also play a part in Sjogren’s syndrome. Sjogren’s syndrome is a disease of high standards. There is an aspect of Wood here in that there is an enormous rigidity around these high standards. Another word we could use for this is perfectionism. This is expecting perfection from yourself without exception. Holding yourself to impossibly high standards with no room for error or relaxation or letting go.
• Sinus infections (Metal with Earth): Seeing only what we want to see. Denial of life/reality as it is. A desire to overlay our own ideal version of reality onto life. Burdening life with our own version of what we think should be happening rather than seeing clearly what is happening.
• Stress incontinence: (Water) Depleted Qi, vital resources and reserves. The need to rest, rejuvenate, replenish your resources and reserves. Take a break. Put your feet up. Do less. Find the courage to do nothing.
• Stroke/aneurysm/transient ischemic attack (TIA): (Wood) Rigidity is extreme. Becoming fixed in one way of being or one point of view.
• Stuttering: (Fire) The feeling of “I am not enough”.
• Tinnitus: (Wood) In health, the Qi of our lower body is strong and vital keeping us grounded and rooted. When the Qi becomes deficient, the lower body loses its ability to anchor the Qi thus creating an upward surging of Qi into the upper body. Tinnitus shows us the need to slow down and strengthen our vital Qi.
• Temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ): (Wood) Withheld anger. Choosing not to voice anger. Remaining stuck and fixed in the habit of unvoiced angry feelings.
• Varicose veins: (Earth) Deficiency: weak Earth Qi can no longer raise Qi and blood back up to the Heart. Excess: stubborn, digging heels in. Refusing to move from one way of doing things. (Generally, people have a combination of both deficiency and excess)
• Weight Gain: (Earth) 1. For no obvious reason: most likely organs of digestion are weak and having a hard time breaking down food. Self-care is needed. 2. Due to craving of sweets, unable to feel satisfied: Unclear on what needs you have and what nourishes you. Choosing empty-calorie people and experiences in your life…people and experiences which don’t nourish you and don’t meet your needs.
• Urinary tract infection (UTI): (Water with Wood) Deep anger at the power imbalance in a relationship.