Have you ever wondered what impact continuously experiencing negative emotions can have on your body? I recently did a presentation about how sickness and disease are stored in our bodies.  This is part 1 explaining the traditional Chinese medicine perspective according to the five element cycle. 

Take a moment and think about, both, a negative situation you’ve had.  Now close your eyes.  What was happening in that moment?  What were you feeling? Can you feel it now?  Where in your body do you feel it? 

Not only do our minds remember those experiences but our bodies and cells remember them as well.  When we aren’t properly dealing with our negative emotions that energy is stored in our bodies and cells, which can have a long-term effect on our health, both emotionally and physically.  It can also have lasting effects on what life experiences we attract into our lives.  

How negative emotions can affect the organs from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective:

1. Heart and Small Intestine
   • Negative Emotions
     • Resentment
     • Hate
     • Cruelty
     • Impatience
   • Physical Symptoms
     • Heart palpitations
     • High blood pressure
     • Chest Pain
     • Nightmares
     • Insomnia
2. Liver and Gallbladder
   • Negative Emotions
     • Anger
     • Frustration
     • Jealousy
     • Envy
   • Physical Symptoms
     • Blood stagnation, reducing the ability to detox the body
     • Increased cholesterol production
     • Bile production can be impaired causing digestive problems
     • Systemic inflammation
     • Headaches
     • Insomnia
3. Kidney and Bladder
   • Negative Emotions
     • Fear
   • Physical Symptoms
     • Loss of sexual energy
     • Loss of life force energy
     • Nervous system disorders
     • Increased acidity in the body
     • Knot in the abdomen
4. Spleen and Stomach
   • Negative Emotions
     • Worry
     • Anxiety
     • Mistrust
   • Physical Symptoms
     • Problems with digestion
     • Difficulty eliminating
     • Acid reflux
     • Insomnia
5. Lung and Large Intestine
   • Negative Emotions
     • Sadness
     • Depression
   • Physical Symptoms
     • Breathing problems
     • Lump in the throat
     • Heaviness in the chest
     • Insomnia
     • Decreased oxygen in the blood
     • Constipation

We are often taught in this society that experiencing emotions like anger and sadness is a bad thing, which is not true.  We need to feel our emotions and be able to move past them letting them go.  It’s when we don’t allow ourselves to feel them that we stuff them and they become pathological for us and can create sickness and disease in our bodies.  When we start having physical symptoms it’s a signal to alert us that we have some things we need to address within ourselves. 

As we learn healthy ways to express our emotions we become more equipped to respond to situations around us instead of reacting to them.

Here are some things you can do:

• Be honest with yourself and be willing to be vulnerable
• Acupuncture 
• Tapping, emotional freedom technique
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
• Journaling
• Meditation
• Exercise
• Yoga
• Qi gong
• Tai Ji

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I go more in depth about cellular and body memory.