Wood

Although everyone has the Wood element within them, some people become deeply invested in Wood’s way of being. We call this the Wood 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. Wood constitutional types will invest their body’s vital Qi and resources into thoughts like “it’s all on my shoulders”, “life is unfair”, “its unsafe to express my anger”, and “there is only one way of doing things”. These thoughts create emotions like pressure, anger or lack of anger, and rigidity. These thoughts and emotions then create behaviors like taking responsibility for other people’s affairs, repressing anger, and authoritarian behavior. Over time, these thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can create diseases like headaches, gallbladder issues, and diabetes mellitus.

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

• Vision: The ability to see potential in yourself and in others. Visionary: ability to see potential of life. Able to see where you have been, where you are now, where you need to go, and how to get there.
• Symbolic vision: 6th chakra vision and intuition. Big picture perspective. Seeing life from the bird’s eye view. Capable of seeing the story of life: its scenes, characters, archetypes, plots, storylines, subplots, dramas, comedies, tragedies. Seeing life symbolically rather than literally.
• Dreaming: Sleep is governed by the Fire element, but dreaming is governed by the Wood element. The time of day which corresponds to the Wood element is 11:00PM – 3:00AM. The Hun, the spirit of the Wood element, governs astral travel associated with dreaming. Dreams we receive while asleep can give us information about ourselves and our current life situation. Day dreaming or envisaging the way forward in life is also governed by Wood.
• Moving forward in life: Of all the elements, Wood gives us the ability to feel we can move forward in life. Wood’s vision, planning, and strategy show us where to go and how to get there.
• Self-assuredness: In health, Wood types tend to be self-assured and confident. They have a solid sense of themselves.
• Leadership: Wood types make natural leaders. They tend to see other’s gifts and potential as well as the strengths and/or weaknesses of a group or entity.
• Teaching: With the vision to see the potential of people around you, Wood types make good teachers. Again, seeing the strengths and weaknesses of others as well as seeing other’s special qualities and gifts.
• Decisiveness: Having clear vision of all the options and the self-assuredness to lead, being decisive is a strength of Wood.
• Planning: With vision of where you have been, where you are now and where you need to go, it is natural to envisage a plan of how to get to where you need go. Like plotting a course on a map, Wood types like to plan how and where they are going.
• Healthy competition: Competition can bring out healthy qualities of strategy, strength, and endurance. Working together and working as a team creates self-esteem. Wood types tend to enjoy healthy competition.
• Sacred plan: The Hun, Wood’s aspect of consciousness, holds our sacred plan, our potential for this life. The Wood element is not only about moving forward in life, but moving forward in our karmic path, paying our karmic debts and unlearning our bad habits so that we eventually return to peace, joy, and love creating heaven on earth.

• tends to put enormous amounts of pressure on themselves
• tends to feel responsible for other people’s lives and decisions
• may take on the responsibility of other people’s affairs
• OR may feel unable to take responsibility for their own affairs
• may fall into dictatorial or authoritarian behaviors
• may have a hard time apologizing to others
• may have a hard time compromising or bending to work with others
• may become fixed and rigid in one mindset or one way of doing something
• may feel uncomfortable feeling emotionally vulnerable
• may create rigid eating or exercise routines as a way to cope with feeling pressure
• may overeat due to pressure. Pressure creates the need for more fuel and increases the appetite. May lose the ability to ascertain how full you actually are.

• Anger: Wood types may experience anger more intensely than others. Anger can be a positive force in our lives. Anger is the emotion that pushes us forward into making change. Anger shows us when a boundary has been crossed. Anger which is unresolved and held over long periods of time easily turns into rage, bitterness, and resentment.
• Lack of anger: is a term used in Chinese medicine when anger isn’t felt or experienced, even when anger is the appropriate response. Many of us repress and internalize our anger thus forgetting our ability to call on this valuable tool. This emotional pattern often goes hand-in-hand with a lack of self-assuredness, lack of decisiveness, and timidity.
• Pressure: Wood type’s response to stress in life is pressure. This manifests as putting enormous amounts of pressure on ourselves, on others, and on life itself. This can feel like the weight of the world on your shoulders.
• Rigidity: Wood types fall into the habit of believing there is only one way to do things or one way to be. 

(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.)

• It’s all up to me. It’s all on my shoulders.
• I am responsible for everything.
• It’s my way or the highway.
• If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
• This isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair.
• I am not an angry person.
• I am not allowed to feel angry.
• He/She/They will leave if I voice my anger.
• There is nothing I can do to change my life situation. I am stuck.
• I can’t see the way forward to change or grow.

Listed below are diseases associated with the Wood 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 Wood 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.

• Wood addiction: Rigidity and fixation feel safe. Becoming rigid in one viewpoint. Rigidly sticking to a routine or habit. This could include healthy habits like exercise.
• Wood depression: Stagnation. Can’t see the way forward. Resignation. Giving up. Putting so much pressure on ourselves that we collapse.
• Chronic pain: A fixed and rigid mindset. Fixed in one point of view.
• Diabetes mellitus/blood sugar issues/hypoglycemia: 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.
• Dizziness/vertigo/Meniere’s disease: 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.
• Epilepsy/seizures: Heaping enormous amounts of pressure onto yourself. Heat in the Liver and Liver Blood.
• Breast swelling and tenderness/fibrocystic breasts: Resentment associated with feeling obligated to care for others. Caring for others before your own needs are met and feeling resentful for it. (With Earth)
• Gallbladder issues/gallstones/gallbladder inflammation/gallbladder attack: Lack of self-assuredness, timid, indecisive. Resigned to not growing or moving forward in life. Repressing and internalizing anger. Harboring quiet resentment and bitterness toward others.
• Stroke/aneurysm/transient ischemic attack (TIA): Rigidity is extreme. Becoming fixed in one way of being or one point of view.
• Headache/migraine: Pressure. Putting so much pressure on yourself. Also repressed and internalized anger. Pretending not to be angry. Holding anger deep inside.
  
• 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: 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.
• Restless legs syndrome: 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.
• Scleroderma: Deep and intense anger which has become embedded in the personality. Results in fixed and rigid mind and body.
• Tinnitus: 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): Withheld anger. Choosing not to voice anger. Remaining stuck and fixed in the habit of unvoiced angry feelings.
• Nodules/cysts/fibroids/fixed Masses: Anger has become deep, rooted, and stagnant. A fixed and rigid mindset.
• Poor proprioception/balance/weak ankles: Indecisive and timid. Unable to envisage the way forward.

• Exercise: The Wood element is happy when there is free flow of Qi. All movement helps the Wood element become balanced and happy.
• Be in bed and asleep by 10:00PM: One of the most cleansing things our body does for itself is the Liver’s nightly routine of collecting, cooling, and storing the blood. This happens around 10:00PM and ends around 2:00AM-3:00AM. (This is the Liver and Gallbladder time on the Chinese clock.) This function only happens if we are asleep. If you get a second wind at around 10:00PM, that is this function starting to happen, but then stopping because you are still awake.
• Eliminate gluten, cow’s milk and cheese, and sugar: Gluten, cow’s milk and cheese, and refined sugar impede the Liver’s ability to function. This blocks the flow of Qi and blood not only in the Liver but throughout the body.
• Eliminate coffee and alcohol: Both coffee and alcohol put damp heat into the Liver. Damp heat can lead to Liver imbalance and also impede the free flow of Qi and blood.
• Eat beets: Beets are a nutrient dense super food that supports Liver function. It helps the Liver and Gallbladder to function properly. Beets are particularly helpful for Gallbladder issues.
• Eat leafy green vegetables: Like beets, green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, beet greens, swiss chard, and broccoli help the Liver and Gallbladder function properly and unimpeded.
• 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.