Metal

Although everyone has the Metal element within them, some people become deeply invested in Metal’s way of being. We call this the Metal constitutional type and it is a collection of habits. We can put that collection of habits into 3 categories: habitual thoughts, habitual emotions, and habitual behaviors. Metal constitutional types will invest their body’s vital Qi and resources into thoughts like “it shouldn’t be this way”, “things should be better”, “reality doesn’t meet my ideal notion of what should be”, “that never should’ve happened”, and “I won’t participate until life meets my standards”. These thoughts create emotions like grief, regret, longing, and holding yourself, others, and life to high standards. These thoughts and emotions then create behaviors like an inability to value what is, valuing a fantasy over reality, and withdrawing from others and life. Over time, these thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can create diseases like hypothyroidism, sinus infections, and multiple sclerosis.

These thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are a collection of habits. For Metal types, this collection of habits feels safe and comforting in the face of the uncertainties and unknowns of life. Like most habits, they aren’t necessarily healthy…like biting your fingernails or smoking a cigarette, they are ways of self-soothing. Rather than facing the vast enormous uncertainties and unknowns of life, we retreat into our habits which make us feel a sense of security.

Ultimately, we need to ask ourselves if investing in these thoughts, emotions, and behaviors is a worthy investment of our Qi. We can choose where we want to invest our Qi. When we begin investing our Qi in the present moment, trusting life, and trusting the unknown, we create the pathway to remembering the peace, joy, and love inherent within or original nature. We do that in the section Metal Returning to Original Nature.

• The process of dying: Many people may not consider the process of dying a gift, but it can be. In the process of dying, we see the beauty and value of the life lived. It is through the truth of impermanence and the process of preparing for death that we see how precious people, things, and experiences are. The process of dying gives us the chance to reflect on the past. We take stock of the consequences of the choices we made. In reality, we go through many deaths throughout our lives. The end of the day, the end of the year, the end of childhood, the end of the school year, the end of a relationship, the end of a job, the end of the life of a loved one, the end of our own lives. Through these deaths, small and large, we gain awareness of the preciousness of the people, things, and experiences in our lives. We feel the richness and value of life just as it is. We become alchemists and are capable of turning lead (ordinary mundane everyday life) into gold (the gems hidden in everyday life making it feel extraordinary).
• Beauty: In the fall, the leaves change into brilliant yellows, reds, and oranges becoming their most beautiful just before they fall from the trees and become mulch. With impermanence, we see value and beauty. We are more aware of someone’s or something’s value and beauty when we know this person or thing won’t be with us forever.
• Value: The Metal element governs our sense of value and self-worth. In a healthy mindset, we know that our value is inherent and not dependent on things we do or achieve. Metal types tend to be keenly aware of their own value as well as how others are valued and how others value themselves. Five Element literature mentions the role of the father in feeling valued in life. A child who is valued by their father will feel inherent value. A child who does not feel valued by their father will feel they lack value and self-worth.
• Purity: A natural act in the preparation for death is to cleanse. When we prepare to meet our creator, we feel a need to purify ourselves. We may summon a priest or healer to hear our regrets and confessions. We may give away our worldly possessions. We may also do this with our bodies, taking in less food, clearing our minds in preparation of our last breath. Metal types value purity. Feeling pure in body and mind feels right to a Metal type. 
• No mud, no lotus: No mud, no lotus is a quote from the late Thich Nhat Hanh meaning there is no awakened mind without the messy, uncomfortable, ugly, dirty aspects of Life. In Buddhism, the lotus flower, with its eight petals representing the eight fold path, represents awakened mind and radiant consciousness. But the lotus flower grows in murky messy mud. There is no separating the two. Many Metal types prefer to remain in the pure, heavenly realms, but are reminded of the messy, dirty aspects of life. on a regular basis. This is represented in our physical bodies by the Lungs and Large Intestine, the organs associated with the Metal element. The Lungs, the uppermost organ, take in Qi from the air known as Qing Qi which is a manifestation of the Tao. The Large Intestine, one of the lowermost organs, deals with our dirty smelly waste.
• Alchemist: the alchemist turns lead into gold. Symbolically, when we value everything just as it is, we find the gems hidden in the mundanity of everyday life. When we value reality as it is, we turn the everyday, pedestrian mundane life into rich, beautiful, valued everyday life.
• Solitude and sanctuary: Metal types need long periods of solitude in a place which feels like a sanctuary. Metal types recharge and rejuvenate with solitude.
• Breath and breathing: With each exhale we die, with each inhale we are reborn. Each breath in and out reminds us of the impermanent nature of all of life. The Metal element rules the Lungs and the breath. Our ability to breathe fully and completely is governed by the health of the Metal element.
• Voice: The strength and quality of the voice is governed but the Metal element. The voice is where we represent ourselves, advocate for ourselves, and speak our truth. The ability to speak up for yourself.
• Noise: Similar to the wind section of an orchestra, our ability to burp, fart, and make loud noises is all thanks to the Lungs and Large Intestine.
• Proper procedures: Metal types relax when proper procedures are in place and are followed.
• Precision: Metal types are capable of great precision. This can be the deft and patience needed to create a beautiful piece of art or the precision needed to execute the intricate moves in a ballet performance. This can also be the precision to execute a delicious recipe properly or to change a diaper with aplomb.

• tends not to breathe fully. Tends to hold their breath. This holding of breath has many consequences on the physical body including tension and lack of free flow of Qi and blood.
• tends to hold themselves to high standards
• tends to hold others to high standards
• tends to hold life to high standards
• tends to value their ideal of what should be happening over their reality of what is happening.
• may withdrawal from others and life because high standards aren’t being met
• may participate in self-punishment or self-harm as a way to feel pure
• may travel on a spectrum between hedonism and self-punishment

• Grief: Metal types may experience grief more strongly than other constitutional types. Grief is a natural response to loss. And impermanence is the one true thing we can count on in life. Metal types tend to be keenly aware of the impermanence in all things and may carry a constant feeling of low-grade grief. This can lead to the habitual behavior of holding the breath and not breathing fully.
• Regret: Regret is a natural extension of grief. With regret, we look back on the past and wish it were different. We are unable to value the past just as it is. With regret, we overlay our notion of what should have happened onto what actually happened. Finding the gifts in what actually happened can be a valuable way out of the state of regret.
• Longing: Longing is also a natural extension of grief. With longing, we are valuing an imagined future or an imagined way of life that is fantasy. We are unable to value reality as it is. Again, finding the gifts in reality as it is, is the way forward when you are stuck in a state of longing.
• High Standards: Although high standards isn’t an emotion, it can be a state of being. Metal types tend to spend lots of time and energy in a state of an imagined ideal. This is valuing an ideal of what should be over reality as it actually is.
• Guilt: Guilt is also an extension of grief, longing, and regret. Guilt is “that shouldn’t have happened” in its extreme form. Guilt can become very dark and heavy when experienced over time. The antidote to guilt is acceptance as well as finding the gifts in the reality of what happened.

(Note: these thoughts are the root of the above emotions and behaviors. When we isolate and question the thoughts which create these emotional states and behaviors, we create the ability to free ourselves from these mental and emotional habitual tendencies.)

• This shouldn’t be happening.
• That shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let that happen.
• It shouldn’t be this way.
• I shouldn’t be this way.
• She/He/They shouldn’t be this way.
• If only _____ would happen. If only _____ would have happened.
• I refuse to participate in life until high standards are met.
• I must feel pure.
• I deserve to be punished for what I did.
• Punishment will bring me a feeling of purity.

Listed below are diseases associated with the Metal element and the mental, emotional, and behavioral tendencies that may cause them. This information is based in my experience as a medical intuitive and practitioner of Chinese medicine, so what is presented below is just my opinion. 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 tendencies which can manifest as disease.

If you are a Metal constitutional type, this does not mean you are predisposed to the diseases below. Anyone can have these diseases. Diseases are usually caused by multiple factors including infection, poor diet and lifestyle choices, environmental toxins, genetics, aging, and habitual mental and emotional patterns. I hope this information starts a conversation within yourself. Ask yourself: “does this resonate with me?” “can I see this in myself?” “if I don’t resonate with this, does this bring up other feelings, memories or information that gives me insight into myself?”. These are mere suggestions rather than absolute truth.

• Metal addiction: Self-harming. Self destructive behavior. Self-punishment as a form of purification.
• Metal depression: 1. Isolation: Inability to connect on a heart level with anyone or anything. 2. Despair: giving up on life. Life has not lived up to expectations so what is the use?
• Asthma: Retreating into oneself is the only place that feels safe. Like a metal cage around the Lungs. No full inhale. No full exhale.
• Eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia (see also Fire Eating Disorders) 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.
• Cutting, self-harm: stems from the need to feel pure. Bleeding creates a feeling of release and purification.
• Hypothyroidism/Hashimoto’s thyroiditis: 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.
• Hyperthyroidism/Grave’s disease/toxic diffuse goiter: 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.
• Multiple sclerosis (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.
• Raynaud’s syndrome/Raynaud’s phenomena: 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.
• Sjogren’s syndrome: 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 (with Earth): Seeing only what we want to see. Denial of life/reality as it is. A desire to overlay our own 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.
• Smoking: Smoking is not a disease, but it is worth mentioning here that Metal’s types love to smoke. This stems from the deep inhale and full exhale achieved with smoking. In addition, smoking warms and circulates the Qi of the Lungs which feels great to Metal types who hold their breath.
• Inability to absorb vitamins and minerals: Not valuing yourself. Not able to recognize your own intrinsic value. Not able to see how valuable you are.
• Heat from the stagnation of holding breath for many many years: When there is significant stagnation over long periods of time, heat is usually created. This can manifest in many ways. One common way is that during menstruation, the body can become hot. The stagnant heat moves and presents itself as the menstrual blood moves. This can create increased thirst for cold drinks.

• Breathe in Steam: Breathing in steam benefits the Metal element in two ways. 1) It facilitates breathing. As you breathe in the steam you can breathe deeply pulling the steam into the lower lobes of the Lung. 2) It puts moisture into the Lungs which are in charge of all of the moisture in the body. This helps to moisten the skin as well. Directions: Pour boiling water in a bowl. Put a few drops of eucalyptus oil in the water (optional). Put a towel over your head and the bowl making a tent-like structure which traps the steam. Breathe deeply for 10 minutes or so. Have tissues nearby as this can expel mucus.
• Breathing: Practicing breathing or doing breath work can be helpful for Metal types. This can be as easy as reminding yourself to breathe deeply a few times a day. Pranayama can also be beneficial.
• Practice tonglen: Tonglen is a Buddhist practice where you breathe in the pain and suffering of others and breathe out, or send out, relief to those who are suffering. This practice incorporates breath work as well as engaging in the connection of all sentient beings. This also helps us practice acceptance of all the uncomfortable messiness of life. 
• Use a neti pot/sinus rinse to cleanse sinuses: You can find neti pots and sinus rinses easily online or at your local pharmacy. Rinsing with a saline rinse on a regular basis is very helpful to keep the sinuses clean and clear.
• Abhyanga (Ayurvedic self-massage with oil): Most Metal types tend toward dry skin. Giving yourself a self-massage with oil can keep skin hydrated and supple. Here is a link to more information and instructions for abhyanga. 
• Sanctuary: Metal types need a sanctuary that is a place of retreat and solitude. It is important to create this space for yourself in your own home. If you can include a bathroom in this sanctuary that is ideal.
• Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Ji: Everyone would benefit greatly from a regular practice of either yoga, Qi Gong, or Tai Ji. These forms of exercise create strength and flexibility. They balance, harmonize, and strengthen Qi. Yoga, Qi Gong, and Tai Ji strengthen our connection to the peace, joy, and love inherent within. They weaken the habitual mental and emotional patterns which block us from experiencing our connection to peace, joy, and love.