Water

Although everyone has the Water element within them, some people become deeply invested in Water’s way of being. We call this the Water 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. Water constitutional types will invest their body’s vital Qi and resources into thoughts like “the world isn’t safe”, “I am powerless in my life”, “I have to expend all my resources to get life to go my way”, “I am not safe”, and “I do not belong”. These thoughts create emotions like fear, terror, feeling powerless or feeling the need to overpower life and others. These thoughts and emotions then create behaviors like withdrawal, becoming frozen or paralyzed with fear, overworking or overextending yourself, and giving up. Over time, these thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can create diseases like Parkinson’s disease, low back pain, scoliosis, and chronic regional pain syndrome.

These thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are a collection of habits. For Water 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 Water Returning to Original Nature.

• Peace: The greatest gift of the Water element is the ability to be at peace with everything just as it is. Water constitutional types tend to be able to find that inner peace more readily than other constitutional types.
• Stillness: Winter time is inherently still. We can truly be quiet and introspective in winter. Water constitutional types have a great capacity for inner peace, stillness and just being. Most Water types have great capacity for stillness. My late and wonderful father-in-law Jim, who was a Water type, sat in stillness and just observed a bee as it climbed in and around his eyeglasses that were on his face. This is the vision of stillness itself. For Jim, there was no problem. The bee was just there. It eventually flew away without doing any harm.
• Power: Water constitutional types tend to be very aware of the balance or imbalance of power around them. In nearly all relational structures there is a power dynamic. In a balanced state of power, each individual or entity has equal power and an equal share of the resources. When power is imbalanced, one entity has more than their fair share of resources.
• Four Types of Power: 1. Generative Power: creation and procreation. The ability to manifest your life, your destiny, your progeny. 2. Resources: the person who holds the most resources has the most power. All wars are for possession of resources. 3. Relational Power: power balance in a relationship. Most relationships have someone who holds more power, who has the upper hand. 4. Life Force: vitality, energy, life force, will to live, ability to thrive. You body’s vital Qi and resources.
• Empowerment: True empowerment is when we are totally content with our life just as it is. When we are not seeking approval from others, or seeking greater fortune than we have, or consumed by the desire for life to be different than it is, we are empowered at a fundamental level which no one but ourselves can take away or alter.
• Will: Your strength and capacity to bring to fruition your destiny and potential in this life. Caroline Myss says, “Your greatest power is your power to choose.” Your will is your choice as well as your ability to see that choice through to fruition. Our lives are an accumulation of our choices and thus a picture of our will.
• Power vs force: True power is going with the flow of life. It is total acceptance of what is. There is no resistance to reality just as it is. Everything else is using force to impose your will onto Life. When we use force to impose our will onto the circumstances of life, we drain ourselves of our vital resources and reserves.
• Backbone: When someone is strong in their will and principles, they are said to have backbone. They do not bend to the will of others. Backbone is also used in slang to refer to the part of a team or organization which supports and strengthens it. Those with a lack of strength of will and principles may have a weak spine such as in scoliosis.
• Capable of being with the uncertainties and unknowns of life: All of life is uncertain and unknowable. No one knows what will happen in the next few minutes, few hours, or few days. I don’t say this to invoke fear, but to open a friendly conversation around this universal truth. When we open to this truth, we have more freedom with it. So much of our suffering stems from this very simple truth. We are desperate to know what’s next, how it will end, will things turn out okay. Those are just thoughts and anxieties about the future. Water constitutional types have a great capacity for just being…being with things as they are and being with the uncertainties and unknowns of life.
• Seeking truth: Water types are always seeking truth. They are capable of great depth and breadth of thoughts and ideas. This can lead Water types to long periods of research and investigation into philosophy, ideology, and wisdom.
• Focus and concentration: Water constitutional types are capable of deep focus and concentration thus making them able to delve deeply into thought, philosophy, and the deeper meanings of things.

• tends to become paralyzed and frozen with fear and terror. This can often be from someone who is close to you like a spouse, parent, or co-worker.
• tends to overwork and overextend themselves. Feeling a need to overextend yourself to gain approval.
• tends to withdraw from people and life situations which evoke feelings of fear and/or powerlessness.
• tends to overpower life and others. Throwing all of your resources and reserves at something in the hopes that you can control the outcome.
• tends to feel powerless in work, relationships, in life in general.

• Fear: Water types may experience fear more intensely than other constitutional types.
• Frozen or paralyzed with fear: When fear becomes intense and overbearing, Water types can feel frozen or paralyzed with fear. This can happen in response to repeatedly experiencing fear in everyday situations without fully acknowledging and identifying the fear response or the intensity of the state of fear.
• Powerlessness: Many Water types feel powerless in life. They may feel powerless in relationships, in work, and in social situations. This can lead to withdrawal and depression.
• Overpowering life and others: On the other end of the spectrum from powerlessness, Water types may feel the need to overpower life and others. This may look like continually expending resources and reserves in order to achieve a certain outcome. This may also look like an emotional tidal wave of emotional reactivity toward others.

(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.)

• Life is not safe.
• The world is not safe.
• It is not safe for me to _______.
• I will use all the resources in my power to achieve a certain outcome.
• I have to spend all my resources to make life go my way.
• I am powerless. Everything is futile. I have no power in my own life. There is nothing I can do.
• I do not belong.
• I cannot rest.

Listed below are diseases associated with the Water 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 Water 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.

• Water addiction: Escape. Fantasy. The inability to be with What Is. The need to move into another realm which feels safer, freer.
• Water depression: Withdrawal. Unable to engage with yourself, with others, and with life. Pulling away. Resistance.
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), Huntington’s disease: 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.
• Bipolar disorder/cyclothymia: (With Fire) 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.
• Chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) or reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD): 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.
• Fatigue: All fatigue has an underlying Water deficiency. You will see specific types of fatigue disorders listed in 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?
• Hearing loss: 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.
• Hot flashes/night sweats: 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): (with Fire) The need to control life. Imposing your will onto life.
• Hypotension (low blood pressure): Difficulty rising to meet life. A need for rest, retreat, rejuvenation. Take time out to replenish resources and reserves. Embrace stillness.
• Interstitial cystitis: 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.
• Low back pain: Overwork. Squandering resources and reserves. Feeling powerless.
• Memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease: A slow and gradual loss of the story of “I”. A gradual reconnection to Original Nature. Preparing for death.
• Stress incontinence: 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.
• Postpartum depression: As you carry your baby for 40 weeks, you are reunited with the Tao and with Heaven as the unborn baby is still a part of that heavenly realm. During the first months of the baby’s 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.
• Scoliosis: Feeling powerless to assert your own will. Capitulating to the will of others. Lacking backbone; the will or strength to stand up for yourself.
• Urinary tract infection (UTI): (with Wood) Deep anger at the power imbalance in a relationship.

• Awareness of what drains you: Having a healthy understanding of what drains your resources and reserves. Do you overextend yourself on a regular basis? Are you someone who goes and goes and goes without really feeling how draining that can be? What exhausts you? Who exhausts you?
• Awareness of what rejuvenates you: Cultivate an understanding of what rejuvenates you. What helps you feel relaxed, at ease, and happy? What rebuilds and restores your energy levels? What people in your life make you feel relaxed, at ease, and happy to be around?
• Massage your ears: The ears are the orifice of the Water element. They are shaped like the kidneys. There is an entire system of acupuncture called auricular acupuncture that sees the ear as a microcosm of the body and uses needles in the ear to balance the entire body. Massaging your ears is relaxing. It immediately creates a state of calm and peace.
• Eat in accordance with the Kapha body type in Ayurvedic medicine: The Water constitutional type’s body is similar to the Kapha body type or dosha in Ayurvedic medicine. Here is some information on the Kapha body type.
• Cook with and ingest healthy oils: Water types need to cook with and ingest healthy oils such as avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and walnut oil.
• Eat foods high in Omega 3s: Water body types are prone to be sedentary. Omega 3’s help move the blood which is beneficial for more sedentary body types. Salmon, mackerel, sardines, oysters, walnuts, spinach, and brussel sprouts are some foods high in Omega 3s. You could also consider an Omega 3 supplement.
• Spend time in and around water: Take hot baths or long hot showers. Walk near lakes, rivers, streams, or the ocean. Go swimming. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Take an extra minute or two while washing your hands to enjoy the feeling and experience of water.
• Backward bending yoga poses: In yoga, backward bends stimulate the Kidneys. They are energizing and symbolically help us to open our hearts to the world around us. Some good passive backbends are Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Virasana, and Viparita Karani.
• The Art of Resting: In our speedy aggressive culture, we do not value rest. But in the ancient traditions of Chinese medicine, resting and conserving our precious Qi is paramount for health. Water constitutional types seem to innately know how to rest well. And yet, our culture generally shames restful behavior. What is your relationship to rest? Do you feel lazy, unproductive if you rest? There is more on this in the Water Returning to Peace, Joy, and Love section.
• 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.