Get to Know, Detox and Love Your Liver

In feng shui there are five elements. Each element has its own personality and qualities, it also has benefits and drawbacks. Wood is the element associated with Spring, renewal and growth and in the psychology of colour with colour Green and Olive Green. In elemental energy healing, each element supports specific organs in our physical bodies. Wood energy helps keep your liver healthy and vice versa.

You can listen in to my special Health and Healing radio show dedicated to the importance of cleansing, detoxing and energising our liver here.

Below, I shared more information for those of you who are curious to explore more and take a step further in understanding how you function holistically and in synergy with your environment, the elements, nature and the therapeutic energies of colour theory and colour psychology. 

Like all elements, wood is best when it is balanced with other elements. Wood’s biggest difference is that it is one element that having an abundance of is considered good for growing and healthy energy, or chi. How can you bring more of wood energy in your house and in your life?

Here’s what you need to know about your Wood Element:

The Wood Element is officiated by your Liver and Gallbladder Meridians. These meridians govern not only your liver & gallbladder organs, but also your tendons, ligaments, eyes, and nails.  Common Wood imbalances include sprains, strains, sciatica, hip pain, headaches, TMJ, and eye irritations.  Wood also ensures the smooth flow of qi (“chee”) in the body.  If the Wood element is strained, the gentle rhythmic movement of qi may also be disrupted, lending to tremors, twitches, strokes, cramps, and difficulties with movement or balance.

The emotions of Wood are Irritability, Anger, & Rage.  Our Liver Meridian helps us manage stress.  A balanced Liver Meridian allows for strength and flexibility when under pressure.  Think bamboo.  But if out of balance, stress may overwhelm the Liver Meridian, leading to irritation and eventually rage.

Wood time is 11pm-3am.  Every meridian has a 2 hour window in the 24 hour clock.  The Gallbladder Meridian is most active from 11pm-1am, and the Liver Meridian is dominant between 1-3am.  This often accounts for why you’ll wake up during the 1-3am window when combating excess stress.  Sleep may also be disrupted from 1-3am by drinking alcohol before bedtime, as the Liver Meridian then has to work extra hard during its shift.

The colour of Wood is Green.  In the system of Colour Mirrors that I specialise in we have a particular coloured essential oils essence that helps detoxify and rebalance your body: it’s the Olive Wood Elemental Spritzer.  If you feel drawn to find out more and connect with the elements and colour energies, I offer an one-day training course this Spring. Email me to info@chrisoulasirigou.com to enquire and arrange a complimentary call. Or you may wish to purchase the bottle and start your own colour therapy healing journey. Online shop available here.

Why don’t you join the Stress Awareness Shows on either 11th April or 23rd April on my GoldenMuseTV? Did you know that Stress is the number one factor that affects the flow of your wood energy and healthy liver function?

The movement of Wood is up and out.  Like a tree stretching upwards and branching out.  And like trees, Wood needs space to grow.

Wood helps us envision the future, set goals, strategize, plan, make decisions, and take action.  Spring is the season of visionaries and change-makers.  Tap into this productive energy!

A Wood-dominant personality tends to:  Have a vision for the future and the ability to create their desired life, environment, or job.  They foresee problems and strategize ways to solve or prevent them.  They are physically active.  Wood people are planners and doers; they make decisions and take action.  They are often natural leaders.  Wood-dominant personalities are just.  They assess problems with integrity, sticking to the facts and making decisions based on what’s right versus I’m right.

 To support your Wood Element:

1. MOVE

2. CLEANSE

3. Create space for yourself

4. Make a vision board

5. Get back to nature

6. Shout.  Shouting is the “voice” of Wood. Release anger …

7. Get some Acupuncture

8. Use Colour Therapy

Get to know and love your liver

Liver (liver) and Gallbladder are the couple of instruments of the wood element inside us that kept spring in direct agreement with the wake and expansive energy of the season trying to detoxify our body from the diet of winter. Because we are getting older and so it’s more sensitive this time, spring is the best time to take care of and love our liver and the best time for detox.

Let’s get to know it a little better to understand its main functions according to traditional Chinese Medicine:

Liver works as a filter for everything our body can’t absorb and absorb. It manages the levels of fats and sugar in blood and manages substances such as alcohol, coffee, smoke and medicine and all chemical residues of pesticides, hormones etc we receive through diet. The liver of most people is very healthy from diet with conventional and edible food and chemicals that these foods contain, and from environmental toxins. Our liver is also burdened by all kinds of chemicals we put on our skin in cosmetics form, hair dyes, nail polish and chemical cleaning for home. These substances gradually accumulate and create problems in the internal organs and tissues.

It stores BLOOD, regenerates, cleans blood and regulates the volume of blood in relation to our activity. When our body is resting then our blood flows into the liver and is resting by supporting the renewal of the body’s energy. When our body moves, then our blood flows into the body feeding all the tissues of their body muscles, tendons, skin and other parts of the body. Hypotension, anaemia and most problems with blood belong here. SKIN PROBLEMS like acne improve by cleaning the blood.

The liver also maintains and governs the sufficient flow of energy and blood in the woman’s cycle and governs MENSTRUATION. Backwards, the image of the female cycle gives us information on the liver status. Emotional intensity and swelling of the chest and belly before the period, problems of reduced amount of blood, dysmenorrhea, fibroids and several other gynecological problems depend on liver health.

The liver is responsible for the harmonious and unobstructed flow of QI energy throughout its body and management, in all internal instruments and in all directions. The Chinese words of this operation mean: flow, I, expanding, relax, walk, soft release and avoid limbs. This unobstructed FLOW of energy affects the flow of energy and the operation of all other main internal organs.

The unobstructed and harmonious flow of energy throughout the body affects our emotional situation. EMOTIONS need to flow and not be crushed. When they don’t flow, they get stagnated. When there is stagnation in some feeling – that is, we remain a long time stuck or submerged in it, blame our liver – in collaboration with the corresponding organ.

Because as we said the energy of the liver needs to flow unhindered when there are obstacles in its path, the energy is disturbed by irritation, nervousness and moving into intensity like ANGER and rage.

Anger is a form of energy and has a very big potential.

When flowing leads us to our personal power when it is properly expressed in the right time and protects us from trespassing. (boundaries belong to lungs). We also often feel anger when the feeling of ourselves degrades us somehow. When we feel they overlook us, they don’t give us value or degrade us intentionally. These situations insult the element of our wood because wood supports healthy individuality and I, as a tree grows and grows. When we have the feeling that we are not treated with proper respect our liver doth expressing our anger with strong voice to howl and in extreme cases aggressive behaviour.

When we do not properly manage our anger and whether we do not recognize him or oppress, trouble is created in the liver-bile system and in their functions. In Women this often causes DEPRESSION as the anger that is not expressed towards the outside is directed towards.

Being angry at the slightest is considered another disharmony and is treated with Colour Therapy.

A Healthy Liver-Gallblader (Bile) system allows us to have a positive attitude on life and which way we want to go and feel this frisk in a natural way, through inspiration. But when the element of wood in us is not balanced there will be a sense of disorientation or lack of meaning. Then it often appears that disappointment or a situation where everything seems to us stationary, we see nothing to inspire or motivates us forward and everything seems without meaning or purpose.

Bile accompanies the liver in taking our appropriate decisions. With a balanced bile liver system we can easily receive the right for us decisions and we have the energy to support them in everyday life. Healthy Liver allows us to have an inner vision, a purpose to which we work and offer our energy. Energy is heading somewhere specifically, towards our goals. If we don’t know where we want to go right now in our lives our liver is not balanced.

The liver is opened in the eyes: the eyes are the body openings that connect us through sight-externally-with our external environment and internally – with a sense of inner vision and purpose. Problems with eyesight and eye diseases show that liver is not balanced.

Tendons: in traditional Chinese medicine tendons are those who move the body to move and go further. The power of elasticity in movement and flexibility in the body but also in thought depends on the health of the liver and by whether tendons are adequately taken from blood. Cramps in tendons or problems with their elasticity and inflammation show liver cramps.

Nails: strong nails show healthy liver. Nails that break easily or nails yellow or very hard show that the nails are not adequately implanted by the liver.

Our liver also controls the way our immune system reacts, seeing some substances as foreign from us on a cellular level and trying to protect the body from external foreign influences. When our liver is not balanced and difficult to manage this function, allergies to food or substances and autoimmune diseases appear.

Bile stores the bile fluid that helps to manage and metabolism fats. When bile does not work well, this leads to fat concentration in tissues and arteries. In another level bile controls the power of decision. When our bile is problematic it leads to difficulty in receiving the right for us decisions and indecision.

Also all chronic diseases include a disharmony of liver.

Loving and caring for our liver in spring:

• Make sure to sleep before 23:00, so that your body is resting and renewed adequately.

• Frequent walking in nature and especially in green landscape full of trees and flowers renew the liver. Beauty and observation nourishes the eyes and extend our liver.

• Spring is the best time for detox. Choose Taraxáko and chamomile as tea I detox drank the liver

• Green foods such as green vegetables, Wild Edible Greens and sprouts feed the liver and help it to grow.

• Preferred Lemon from vinegar to your salads.

• Choose simple food and meals with vegetables and full cereal.

• Reduce your amount of food to 70 % so you can still be hungry when you finish your meal.

• Make sure you are done with your dinner until the sunset of the sun, so that you will allow your body to deal completely with its recovery

• Choose the more food of organic agriculture that do not bear the chemicals of conventional agriculture.

• Choose as much as you can plant care products and cosmetics and more friendly in the skin and environment cleaning house.

• Reduce Alcohol and say no to cigarette. A healthy liver will ask for itself less chemicals. A Balanced Liver immediately understands alcohol.

• Wear Green: Green color is the color of the wood element and when we eat it or we wear it we accept the refreshing and expansive energy of wood, stimulating the liver and bile. ????

More insights and tips are available in my book The Book of Soulful Musings: Inspiring Conversations to live LIFE with Love Intention Flow Ease (Golden Muse Publishing)

Here is to planting seeds and new beginnings!

ChriSOULa Sirigou