Emotions are part of a person's character that is linked to their feelings instead of their thoughts. Feelings people can go through vary, such as happiness, anger, fear, worry, love and are a reflection of the environment/situations that they are in.
Emotions play an important part in our lives and when situations occur that cause an emotion to become imbalanced, it can cause a lot of emotional pain (psychological pain), which can be intense and significantly affect many areas of your life.
Everyone can experience an imbalance with their emotions given life situations. However, it is when it happens for prolonged periods without being addressed it can then interfere with a person’s ability to function and perform normal daily activities.
Emotional pain compared to physical pain can be downplayed a lot. However it is just as important and needs to be taken just as seriously, as when emotional pain is not addressed it often turns into physical pain - from neck tension, chest tightness, bowel issues to more serious conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, cancers, chronic fatigue, etc. there are many physical pains that come from unresolved and unaddressed emotions.
Each one of your organs is associated with an emotion
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, one of the foundations is the Five Elements, they reflect a deep understanding of natural law and the universal order underlying all things in our world.
With each organ, there is an associated emotion (for more information take a look at What is Your TCM Personality blog).
Wood (Liver) - Anger / Irritability
Fire (Heart) - Joy / Anxiety
Earth (Spleen) - Worry / Overthinking
Metal (Lung) - Grief / Sadness⠀
Water (Kidneys) - Fear
When emotions are not able to be expressed and released they can get bottled up in our bodies.
For example, when we are affected by stress, it affects the natural free flow of energy in our bodies, which is the responsibility of the Liver. Thus, a common reaction to stress is irritability and anger. As the free flow of energy is impacted, it can lead to many other health issues as well, and one major area affecting a lot of people today is anxiety and depression.
Prolonged stress can also lead to physical body pain
Prolonged stress can also lead to tightness in the chest, headaches, muscle pain in the neck, dizziness, physical pain in the arms and legs, gastrointestinal issues/imbalances, and many others.
When we start looking at how emotions are affecting our body, we are then able to develop a treatment plan to address the imbalanced emotion, but as well as look at treating the physical pain.
At Pure Health Clinic, we look at your physical and emotional pain combined – as usually, one links to the other, and in order to truly live pain-free we need to address, treat and relieve both.