22-15 Sujata's take on Water's way of thinking

Here is my Water friend's answer to my question about how Water does its thinking. This follows on directly from the end of my last blog (22-14):

 

Thank you for asking me to write a bit about how Water expresses itself.  I have been thinking of getting back to writing for some time but nothing was flowing.  This will be a good beginning and I'm happy and grateful that you thought of me.  I am writing mostly about myself (and a few other Water people I know but I don't know how general this information will be).

 

Water, when unimpeded, flows.  It moves in an instinctive manner, not always logical, but usually by feeling its way - sending out sensors to the environment and modulating its response according to what it finds (or feels) is present around it.  Therefore, the way a Water person expresses himself (or herself) depends on how the Water person is feeling at the time and on who he (or she) is interacting with.  Water, in its comfort zone (as it often is with Fire), attempts to express its soul, or sometimes just bubbles along contentedly.  With Metal, Water tends to be more guarded, a bit on edge due to Metal's brevity and conciseness.  With Earth, Water can be very comfortable, but often slips into the mode of a listener, not revealing much of itself.  With Wood (depending on the intensity the Wood person displays), Water often has a disconnect, feeling sometimes unnerved by the push that Wood sends out.  Given a chance, Water would not try to push back (though if it gathers its resources, it probably can), but to bide its time and take a different direction at the earliest possible opportunity.  This is how Water functions when it is close to equilibrium or its natural state.  In times of stress, Water can be greatly affected by fear, reducing its natural flow to a frozen state, but Water, with its resilience, often finds a way to overcome this and continues moving on.

Thank you, Sujata, for these very illuminating descriptions about the way that you think.

22-14 How different elements express their thoughts

I have been thinking about how each element has its own way of expressing its thoughts, since I have noticed that their thought processes are so different.  This is very much in my mind at the moment because Covid lockdowns, whilst restricting my physical movements, seem to have accentuated my mental agility.  My element is Fire, the inner aspect of Fire, with the Small Intestine being what I call my guardian official.  The Small Intestine does the most sorting of its ideas of all the officials, and it likes to communicate the thoughts its very active mind is working upon.  I have often said that I think as I speak, sorting my thoughts out through the act of speaking. This can sometimes be confusing for the listener, for as I sift what I am thinking through, I may alter what I am saying, often in mid-speech, as my mind changes what I started to say.  It needs this form of communication, for in communicating with another person it is doing what all Fire people need to do, which is to set up a relationship with whomever it is with.  And what simpler relationship is there than the act of smiling at another person, one of the signature features of Fire people, and addressing words to another person.  Doing both at the same time is what makes my Fire element the happiest.  Smiles and words reach across the divide between one human being and another, bridging the gap in the quickest way possible, and thereby enabling a relationship to be set up between me and the other person.  

 

It is interesting to look at how the thought processes of the other elements manifest themselves, as far as I understand them.  The element I have always been most aware of, based on my close acquaintance with family members and friends, is the Metal element.  I always think of it as being almost the diametric opposite of my Fire, and have often envied it the kind of detachment it demands, which I can never achieve.  Its way of thinking illustrates this sense of distance between us.  Its thought processes reflect this, for it can stand back, look almost dispassionately at what it is considering as though from a distance, and then draw its conclusions before expressing them succinctly in very few words.  I have a Metal son who can be guaranteed to give me excellent advice about anything I ask him, and does this surprisingly quickly, as though he can think his way rapidly to the heart of the problem, see the solution and express it in the least number of words possible.  I may be talking through a problem to him for some time, going through all the ins and outs as I see them, and he will interrupt me in mid-speech, saying simply, "Just do this", or "Do that", and that is for him the end of the matter.  Metal's thinking is hidden, not out in the open as mine is, but this tends to make it all the more acute and to the point.

 

On the other hand, we can see Earth's thought processes in action quite openly, for it likes to think its thoughts through, often as part of a quite laborious process, going round and round a problem, like a cement-mixer churning things over, drawing the listener into this in its need to share its thoughts.  One of the burdens of being an unbalanced Earth person is therefore their inability to move their thinking on, as though they are a record stuck in the same groove, repeating the same words over and over again.  As practitioners we therefore have to learn ways of interrupting an Earth patient to prevent them from continuously working through the same thoughts in the same words time after time.  Here that lovely point St 9, Head Tied, comes to a practitioner's rescue.  I treasure the time when the moment I needled this point, my Earth patient, in the middle of telling me something, suddenly fell silent, as though he had literally at last been able to swallow his thoughts.  In balance, on the other hand, Earth will be very good at thinking problems through very thoroughly. 

 

Then we come to Wood, another quick-witted element, like Fire, its yang companion, but with none of the need to set up the relationships Fire looks for.  Instead, its thoughts are directed more upon action, ensuring that things are done properly and constructively, that the right structures are put in place to allow things to move forward.  It may send its thoughts out into the world almost in the form of orders (hence the shouting voice), dictated by its need to ensure that everything proceeds in good order.  A Wood friend told me that she thinks of her way of thinking as being like sending out branches from the trunk of a tree in many directions.  It does not matter to her if a branch gets broken off at some point, but each must first be firmly attached to its trunk within her.

 

Finally, I come to Water, and how often I realise that I delay writing about Water until the last, for I see it as the most mysterious of all elements, and even after all these many years of thinking and writing about the elements, at some level Water still remains a mystery to me.  So how do I envisage its way of thinking?  Perhaps its thoughts could be described as being much less clearly defined for me than those of the other elements, but nonetheless they often have the potential to surprise me.  For Water is a deep-feeling element, probably the one that can feel the most, just as the waters of the oceans hide more secrets in their depths than there are on land. 

 

Perhaps I should leave it to Water people themselves to describe their own thought processes for me, since these, much like what Water always does, puzzle me a little.   I have therefore decided that I will send this blog to a young Water friend of mine in India, who always gives me interesting insights into her element.  Perhaps she will be able to add something to my understanding of the way Water thinks. 

22-13 Do I think our guardian element changes during our lifetime?

Many people ask themselves whether our guardian element (CF or dominant element) changes during our lifetime.  I, too, have thought carefully about this for many years, as I have noticed that people, particularly acupuncturists, seem to like to change their own element for another one, often perhaps because they may think it has a better press.  As with all my thoughts about the elements, I always start with myself, because that's the person I know best, having had a lifetime in which to study my own particular element.  

I have often thought how fortunate it was for the direction of that part of my life which was spurred into activity when I encountered the elements for the first time that whatever power or force which controls our individual destinies should have placed me firmly into the little corner of the five element circle housing the Heart and the Small Intestine, and in particular into the welcoming arms of the Small Intestine.  For it is this official, with its intense, unending curiosity and inability to be satisfied with anything until it has probed it to its very core, which made it inevitable that I would never allow my thoughts about the elements to harden into fixed ideas.  Instead, I like to ferret away at every new idea I have, and amend it or discard it if my ever-inquisitive mind feels that is necessary.

 

Looking back at the whole of my now very long life, I can never remember a time when I was not trying to sort out the world and its people, particularly my family in my early years.  In fact they would joke that I was always telling them, "Don't you think you ought to....", as I tried to direct their behaviour in a direction I thought was best for them.  And that is still my first reaction to any situation, as my Small Intestine very quickly (and it is probably the quickest thinker of all the officials) decides what it thinks should be done, and immediately wants to put this into action.   

 

From the evidence of my own life, therefore, I can see no change in how I have approached my life from my earliest days to now in my ripe old age which would indicate that the Small Intestine is not my spiritual home.  Nor have I seen any sign of any similar changes in all the hundreds if not thousands of patients who I have treated or observed over nearly half a century of practice.  

 

Do I therefore think our element changes during our lifetime?  To this I give an emphatic answer, "No, I don't."

 

But then other people may well disagree with me - which is fine.

 

22-12 We should all try to make a difference

I recently read an obituary for a film maker, Roger Graef, of whom I had never heard, but who obviously made many excellent TV films concentrating on changing the ways that victims of injustice were treated.  It quoted him as saying:  "All I ever wanted was to make a difference", and that sparked a new line of thought for me. Surely, I asked myself, that is what every one of us, from the highest to the lowest in the land, should aspire to.  And I thought to myself that it would be good if this could be carved into the tombstone of my life, "Nora made a difference".

 

Can I predict now whether my life will indeed have made a difference to somebody, or to some groups of people?  And if so, in what way?  I'm thinking now not so much of a personal difference, to my friends and family, but to a professional one, as a five element acupuncturist.  All the people who have been treated by me, the people I have talked to in my evening classes, the people I have taught at SOFEA, in European seminars and now in China, all the people who have read or are still reading my books or watching my teaching videos, all these together add up to a goodly number of people.  And among these must surely be many for whom what I have done, either by teaching them, talking to them or treating them, has had some effect upon their lives.  And, if this is so, then I have indeed, through my five element practice, made a difference.

 

But the kind of difference I would like to make is less personally focused upon me than that.  I would like to feel that through my actions I have managed to contribute to rescuing five element acupuncture from the peripheral position it was beginning to be consigned to at the time of JR Worsley's death, and placed it firmly back centre stage again in the eyes of the acupuncture world.  I think we have taken the first steps on the way to doing that, but there is still a long way to go to loosen Western medicine's hold upon the practice of all complementary medical disciplines, including still much of acupuncture.  First steps are always the most difficult, but I am happy that, in this battle for the survival of traditional forms of Chinese medicine, I have managed to enlist the help of the Chinese acupuncture world, with its vast resources, particularly through the contributions made by Professor Liu Lihong.

I hope that by the time I am no longer able to teach, more steps will have been taken, and perhaps even, if the Chinese are involved, there may have been giant strides.  Then indeed I like to think that I would have earned the words on my epitaph, "Nora, you did make a difference." 

22-11 Do all Fire people need to share?

I have suddenly realised that one of the reasons that I have felt compelled to teach (and it is a compulsion, a deep need) was because I like to share my joy in talking about the five elements.  And this need to share is, I now know, one of the mainsprings of my life.  It leads directly to my enjoyment in talking about whatever interests me to everybody I meet, and then moves on to my need to teach and to write.  All these different facets of my life have now come together creatively for me in helping me promote five element acupuncture.

I wonder, though, whether all Fire people have this need to share, or is it more a characteristic of Inner Fire?  My Small Intestine, such a curious official, always tries to sort the meaning of life from all that goes on around it.  It likes to work busily at trying to decipher what it sees, hears and feels, and then hopes to find words to explain what it discovers.  My happening to come across the mysterious realm of the elements all those years ago has provided me with perfect food to feed my curiosity.  That I discovered the exciting new world opening before me just at a time in my life when I was ready for new experiences has always seemed to me to be a perfect example of the often supreme serendipity of life.

22-10 Learning to teach at a distance

A surprising effect of being forced into Covid lockdown was my introduction to the delights of recording myself on video talking about five element acupuncture.  I was sitting watching one of the many podcasts that sprang up to help us wile away the many hours we were forced to sit in isolation, when the idea of doing something similar flashed through my mind.  Why did not I, too, start talking to the world out there about aspects of my five element life which people would be interested to hear?  And of course my thoughts then went straight to my Chinese students.  Couldn't I continue my seminar work in this way, but at a distance?

 

The first obstacle, and one that caused me much bewilderment and my patient son many hours of calm tuition, was how to get me to understand how my i-Pad would record what I wanted to say.  Overcoming my initial reluctance to learn ways of mastering the intricacies of this newly acquired piece of computer equipment took many hours and many abortive attempts at recording myself.  Eventually, though, I succeeded, and pride myself now at my growing skill at this new way of teaching.

 

Finding the subject matter and working out how long each recording would be proved less of a problem, because all sorts of new ideas are constantly bubbling around in my mind, ready to emerge in the shape of small snippets of teachings, each in turn becoming a short video.  After a few abortive attempts, the average recording time proved to be between 5 and 10 minutes, time for a topic to be introduced and shared, but not too long to bore the watcher/listener.  Gradually I accumulated a long list of videos, and a shape to them started to emerge.  When I noticed that quite a few seemed to be adding something to what I had written in my Handbook of Five Element Practice, this gave me the idea to arrange them in the order of its chapters, making them into a kind of accompaniment to the Handbook.  This set of videos formed the first group of 30 videos or so which which went out on subscription in China about a year ago, and have proved immensely popular.  

 

To these I have now added a further series, this time for more experienced practitioners, and recently another, together with Guy Caplan, concentrating on long-term treatment for patients, with examples of treatments actually given to patients of each element who have been coming for many years.

 

These videos have proved a surprisingly fruitful substitute to what we offered acupuncturists at our Chinese seminars, and an excellent way of keeping up our contacts despite being unable to teach in person. I realise that what I enjoy about making the recordings is the knowledge that I will in effect eventually be talking to a real, live audience, which will be all those people who download them and sit in their various homes listening to me talking, much as they might do if I was in front of them in person.  I am always much better at thinking my thoughts through as I put them into words when I feel that my Fire element is engaging with others.

 

Another project based on these videos is now in train, helped along very willingly by Gye Bennetts in Australia.  My videos could previously only be seen in China, but this will be an excellent way of making them available for the first time to the English-speaking world.  More of this later, when our plans have firmed themselves up further.

22-9 The importance of practitioners knowing their own element

People often think that the most important thing for five element acupuncturists to learn is gradually getting better at diagnosing their patients' elements.  This ignores the fact that we can't do this until we have familiarized ourselves as closely as possible with as many expressions of the different elements in as many people as possible, and, above all, this includes in ourselves.  I don't think this was emphasized as much as it should have been in my own training, nor, I'm afraid, in the early stages of my own teaching.  This was probably because I only slowly realized the importance of familiarizing myself with the elements at the deepest level possible in as many people as possible.  All therapists have a natural tendency to try to detach themselves from the treatment situation, acting often as if they are outsiders looking in on scenes for which they act only as observers, not participants.  This has something to do with the belief, which is still there despite many observations and much scientific evidence to the contrary, that a human being can observe another human being from the stance of an objective observer, in other words, as though from behind a screen blocking the practitioner off from the patient.

 

And this is a thoroughly false belief, and is patently untrue.  Modern physics has proved beyond doubt that there is no such thing as an objective observation.  Each observer participates in what is being observed, and to that extent affects the person or object being observed in one or more ways.

 

This is particularly true of the kind of human interactions which form an essential component of the relationships between patients and practitioner in five element acupuncture, where what we can describe as the energies of the different elements coming towards either of them from the other person are accepted as directly affecting the other person's corresponding energies. In other words, an Earth patient will inevitably respond differently to a Metal practitioner than he/she would to a Wood practitioner, just as a Water patient will respond differently to these same practitioners.

 

Unless five element practitioners are made aware of all the subtle interactions between the elements in both themselves and their patients, they may well misinterpret the nature of these interactions, and therefore often misdiagnose their patients' elements.  If, however, a practitioner is fully aware of their own guardian element, he/she will be much more successful in accurately interpreting what is occurring between the patient and themselves, leading them to diagnose the patient's element much more quickly and more accurately.  As I have always said, the dictum, "Physician, know thyself" is particularly appropriate for a five element acupuncturist.  If we understand how our own element reacts to the people it encounters, this knowledge will act as a strong foundation for our practice.

 

There are two obvious unknowns which control any relationship between two people.  These relate to how the guardian element of each interacts with the other and influences the other.  If the practitioner is at least sure of one of these unknowns, his/her own element, he/she is halfway there to building a good relationship with their patients.  It then only needs the certainty of having diagnosed a patient's element correctly to complete this necessary first step in establishing a good patient/practitioner relationship. 

 

Of course, both of these factors, a correct diagnosis of both practitioner 's and patient's elements, are difficult to establish unless there is an opportunity for students as often as possible to obtain the help of the most experienced five element practitioners around.  This is where I realise that I was particularly fortunate, as were my students, and I took as much advantage of my good fortune as I could.  For I trained at a time when JR Worsley was still teaching at his Leamington College, and also established SOFEA at a time when he was still available to give all my students the benefit of diagnosing their elements and diagnosing the elements of as many of their clinical patients as possible.  I would encourage them all to arrange to have a diagnosis from him, and would also arrange for him to come at least once a year to the school clinic to diagnose students' patients.  In doing this, I felt privileged to think that I was giving them the best opportunity I could to observe a master practitioner at work.  Looking back, I can see that there could not have been a better start to their five element practice if they chose to take advantage of it.