Time to Amplify Your Kidneys!
The winter water season is upon us! With this fresh snow and cold, long nights, the autumn metal season is now transitioning to the winter water season, according to Chinese medicine.
The winter water season's chi (energy) corresponds to the energy that runs the kidneys and bladder. The chi that runs the organs is akin to electricity. Like a lightbulb, if the electricity is weak, it will flicker; if it's excessive, it will burn out, therefore requiring a balanced, harmonious flow of chi to run well.
Each season feeds the next season with energy. If the seasonal chi is strong and balanced, it will nourish the organs of the next season, enabling them to operate optimally.
But if the chi flow was imbalanced (weak or excessive) in the organs that run in high tide during that season, it'll most likely produce maladapted energy for the next season. So let's look at how our lung and large intestine energy did this autumn.
Emotions are energy, and are an indicator of our organ health, as each organ holds an emotional frequency and vibration. The lungs that run strongest in the autumn hold qualities of emotional resilience, so we can go from upset to reset quickly and process our emotions in a healthy, responsible way. Lung chi embodies strong discipline and integrity and demonstrates courage.
When lung chi is maladapted, and we're unable to process emotions, we suffer from the weight of sadness and grief. We can become cold, distant, sharp, critical, and judgmental when the energy is imbalanced. Our integrity and discipline become weak, and depression can often arise.
Breath work can help bring lung chi back into balance by clearing the mind and allowing us to observe emotions without repressing them, therefore processing them so they can heal and transform.
The lungs feed the kidneys with chi. Strong lung chi creates strong kidney chi, which is crucial to our vitality and longevity. The kidneys are known as our bio-batteries, and when they're balanced with ample chi from the lungs, we have endurance and willpower to get us through the long, cold winters, and/or difficult times.
Kidney chi is also associated with our intuition and the ability to tap into our wisdom, as it is known to hold our ancestral cellular memory. When we can still the mind with breathwork, then our intuition can guide us, without being obscured by obsessive thinking.
If the lung chi is maladapted, then the kidneys won't receive ample chi. This results in feeling a lot of fear and insecurity, low back ache, knee trouble, brittle bones, poor memory and hearing, and cognitive decline.
I've been guiding a specific qigong breathing technique that clearly uses the lungs to build kidney chi. This breathwork is called 'Leading, Spiraling, and Packing Chi.'
Qigong often uses imagery and visualization, as its wisdom knows that where the mind goes, the chi flows.
Leading, Spiraling, and Packing Chi:
Inhale deeply into the lungs a white pearly light (the color of lung chi)
Exhale and visualize the lung chi spiraling around the kidneys, and at the end of the exhale, press the navel back to the spine to pack it into the kidneys.
Repeat this for several minutes. It will keep you warm and enhance your kidney chi!
Hope to breathe with you soon.
From my heart to yours~
Namaste,
Maggie