Читать книгу Healing Your Emotions: Discover your five element type and change your life - Angela Hicks - Страница 28

At the beginning of this chapter we said that the emotions are called an Internal cause of disease. Western research is supporting the ancient Chinese view that disruptive emotions negatively affect our health. So how does this happen?

In the first place, emotions are natural and not all emotions are causes of disease. Part of the understanding of the Five Elements is that we need to be nourished emotionally and we need to express feelings. All of the Elements have qualities which nourish them and fulfil their basic needs.

Element	Basic Need
Fire	Love, warmth, joy.
Earth	Support, nourishment, care.
Metal	Recognition, acknowledgement of self.
Water	Safety, reassurance, stability.
Wood	Boundaries and structure to facilitate growth.

Being nourished will involve feelings. We feel warm when we are loved, secure when supported, satisfied when acknowledged, relaxed when safe and excited when our boundaries and vision are clear. Whatever the feelings, it is natural for us to have them when our Elemental needs are satisfied.

It is also natural on occasion to have negative feelings. If we are abruptly and inexplicably abandoned by a partner, it would be natural to feel unloved and devastated. The same applies to many situations. So if this is natural, when do emotions cause illness?

In adult life, a feeling which is too strong can cause illness. Being involved in a disaster where our lives are threatened and those close to us die, can produce such overwhelming feelings that leaves us unable to resume a normal flow of energy.

Something like this, although not externally devastating, can happen when we are young and not be noticed by those around us. For example, our mother is ill and consequently absent shortly after birth; at an impressionable age we have a teacher with inappropriately high expectations; we are the first born and a sibling arrives unexpectedly. Any of these events can seem catastrophic from the point of view of a child. The result can be that some emotions we feel day by day can make us ill. These emotions have several characteristics:

They are repetitive or prolonged, occurring over and over again and seem to be a part of our personality.

They are generated from inside us, via memories, although an external event might trigger them.

They are often experienced as unpleasant.

We often feel passive when undergoing these emotions, as if they happen to us and we cannot do anything about them.

An overwhelming one-off emotion may make us ill. Consistently, however, the emotions causing disease are the everyday, repetitive, negative feelings over which we feel we have no control. These arise from our own internal way of experiencing the world.