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mental aspects of acupuncture, women's health

Healing the Mental Aspect of the Liver, the Hun (Part 1)

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The classic Eastern Medicine text, the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon) explains that “ the liver opens to the eyes”.  The health of our physical eyes but also our ability to *see* on a more mental plane is related to our Liver, and the spirit of the Liver, the Hun.  Our vision has two parts. One is the physical ability to see objects outside ourselves, such as reading the words on this page.  The other is a little more subtle: the vision in our mind, the vision where we “see” the life we want, the dreams we weave as we stare out the window in our quiet moments and picture life in 1 year, 10 years from now.  Or it may happen when we see others living in ways that we long for; we light up when we “see” our future dream through theirs.  

From our inner visions, inner seeing, we use dreaming to craft a plan which we then use to bring these dreams into reality.  This planning

aspect is the subtle aspect of the Gall Bladder energy, the sister organ to the Liver.  This is affirmed by the expression “to have a lot of gall” in describing a courageous person.  To have gall, is to have the guts, the courage, the chutzpah to make our dreams real, to plan and act on those plans without fear, fear of what others will think, or what might happen next.  The vision comes first, then the gall, the courage to plan and act out that plan. 

In the same vein, the Chinese character for gall bladder contains the character, “dan”, which means courage, bravery. When someone’s gall bladder is weak, there is the opposite, timidity.  Timidity is a clear sign of gall bladder deficiency. Tonifying points are used on the Gall Bladder channel to bring back courage.  

Inability to plan also shows up when these channels are weak.  Problems with planning curiously can manifest as chronic habitual lateness.  Do you experience habitual lateness even when you conscientiously try to not be late,  or are you embarrassed by your chronic lateness?  It comes down to poor planning which falls under the jurisdiction of the Liver, the mental aspect which is the Hun. All the steps to get to where we need to go, the ability to nail down how much time it takes to do the various things that have to happen before we can get out the front door, and allocating the right amount of time for each part of the journey are the jobs of the Hun.  When our Liver system is working well this happens easily, perhaps without a lot of conscious thought. But when the Liver Hun is weak, well, not so much. So there you have it, a very esoteric (but valid) explanation for being late should you need one.  Your acupuncturist said its your liver/gall bladder (Hun) systems  that are too weak.  

The Liver/Gall Bladder is associated with the Wind element.  When the Wind blows, leaves scatter.  Apply this to your own life.  Are your plans often getting scattered?  Blown around and changed far too often creating little structure or consistency for your dreams to be realized?  What were your goals , hopes and dreams one year ago?  Have you been anchored enough to put those plans into action and see them through, or did things get blown by the wind and scatter, waiting another year?  If one is so often changing ones mind, flitting about from this to that, it actually works against the liver system and our ability to plan and see manifestation in our lives.

But it can get better with the right tools.  One tool I use to help people with this situation is to book their appointments at the same time every week.  So if Thursday works, then Thursday at 11AM, for every appointment, every week.  This  commitment helps patients healing the Hun to develop their planning muscles.  They start to get used to having a clear plan. They can “see” their week in advance because it stays the same, EVERY SINGLE WEEK. 

With this time commitment to work around, people with weak Liver/Gall Bladder systems also find that other parts of their lives start to become more structured and routine.  If you are feeling very scattered, take one small activity and try committing to a routine time to focus on it. See what happens.  This regular stable rhythm is a magic sauce that nurtures our plans so that they come to fruition; providing enough anchoring for goals to be completed, for dreams to come true.  

Women need special advice when it comes to their Liver and the spirit of the Liver, the Hun.  With the blood loss we go

through monthly for much of our lives, our Liver Blood runs low, especially during the menses.   If it’s not  replenished monthly by a diet rich in foods that build the liver blood (dark greens, red meats, beets, egg yolks, molasses), our Liver, and hence the Hun become weak and deficient.  This shows up in many ways in  our lives.  We can be inexplicably held back from moving forward, lacking plans and initiative to move towards our dreams, sometimes from not even having a vision for our life, or lacking actionable clarity in this regard.   This can also show up as depression, feeling stuck in a rut and feeling unable to plan a way out, or envision another kind of life, the one we actually want. This is where acupuncture and correct diet therapy for the Liver help create the physical and mental terrain to support us living out our true calling.

Some keys signs that the Liver Hun is healing:

  1. A steadiness in your chosen path, less shakiness or switching directions too often due to indecision
  2. A greater ability to *see* your life path, why you are here, and envision a healthy, happy future, resulting from a more lavish and vivid imagination
  3. Greater courage to be assertive about one`s beliefs
  4. More propensity to take action on making your dreams come true, with less stalling, delaying or feeling stuck in a rut.

If any of these themes are resonating for you, please reach out and let’s talk about how I can help you get your liver and gall bladder systems running at greater capacity so that you can move forward and make your dreams come true.  

Yours in health,

Cynthia McGilvray, R.Ac.

References:

  1. Dechar, Lorie Eve, M.Ac. 2006. Five Spirits: alchemical acupuncture for psychological and spiritual healing. Lantern Books.

anusitis

Anusitis Pain and Symptoms

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It is clear that anusitis is a case of inflammation. The “itis” in anusitis is Latin for inflammation. Western medicine used to be written in Latin back in the day so learning the meaning of some of these Latin root words can help to decipher all manner of medical language without Google.

In any case, inflammation is another way of saying Heat or Fire which is how inflammation is described in Oriental Medicine. This word meaning gives us clues, but the focus of treatment is on the actual symptoms. Symptoms such as burning (heat) and itching (another symptom of heat) and bleeding due to inflammation, all give direction in how to treat this condition. Then from looking at the presenting tongue and pulse, I gather further information about treating the individual case.

What I have seen with long-term anusitis is bright red tongues (another heat sign), as well as cracking or fissured surface of the tongue and a peeled coating. A healthy tongue coating is thin and white, neither thick, nor totally stripped off.

We must understand the way heat works in the body over the long-term. Excess heat starts to burn up the fluids. In this case, the Stomach Yin that builds the normal healthy coating on the tongue has been burned off by long-term heat of anusistis lasting 5+ years. The fissures or cracks in the centre (the Stomach/Spleen area of the tongue), is further evidence that the moisture of the Stomach/Spleen has been burned off, leaving the internal landscape resembling a dry desert.

Cracks on the tongue look like cracks in the soil of very parched earth when there has been no rain. It’s always helpful to use patterns in nature to understand the body because our bodies are often mirroring things that go on in nature.

Pain in anusitis may come from swelling of the rectal tissues. Both pain and swelling are classic signs of inflammation. Some patients may also have rectal bleeding which can be another sign of inflammation. Bleeding should also clear up as part of the heat-clearing treatment strategy. If the bleeding is truly from the rectum or anus it will be a bright red colour and not a darker colour such as black. Black means bleeding from higher up the digestive track such as in the stomach in most cases, and has become dark because of oxygenation during the passage of time where it takes roughly 18 hours for the stomach contents to get to the anus. In other words, black blood means old blood. The colour of the blood helps us to know which area has the bleeding problem.

For anusitis cases I like to use a Global Balance treatment approach of balancing the Stomach, Spleen, Large Intestine and Lung channels. The reason is, the rectum connects to the Large Intestine channel, which carries the food products stemming from the Stomach. The Large Intestine channel will often carry similar pathologies stemming from the Stomach so it is often useful to treat these two channels together. The Spleen channel supports mucosal lining repair and it supports the Stomach channel as it’s Yin-Yang pair. The Lung channel deals with skin issues (itching, cracking, bleeding) and it supports the Large Intestine channel as its’ Yin-Yang pair. With these four channels, I use appropriate points for inflammation by selecting the Water over Fire Gua #36 elemental pattern because, as we all know, one of the best ways to put out a fire is with water. Applying this Gua to these channels produces a treatment plan as follows:

In addition to those channel points, I also use two points around the navel which is a mirror image of the anus. In this way I can target the anus tissue using the navel points so that I never need to put needles in private areas.

The result of this treatment in my experience has been that the itching and burning sensations have decreased significantly over usually about ten treatments and then finally disappeared. The tongue becomes less red, dry and cracked, evidence of less inflammation and then finally the tongue returns to normal pink colour. The tongue cracks starts to be less deep and then disappear altogether and a normal amount of tongue coating returns showing that the heat is more under control and no longer burning off fluids in the Stomach.

As for the self-care routine, I recommend topical castor oil liberally around the anus because castor oil used topically functions as an anti-inflammatory that de-flames the skin as well as deeper layers of tissues beneath the skin. You may find that its’s best to do this at night wearing a pair of old pajamas because castor oil is very messy and stains clothes badly.

I also recommend avoiding Heat-producing foods until the anusitis gets under control. Heat producing foods include red meat, (especially lamb), peanuts, chili, cinnamon, wasabi, vinegar, chicken and turkey, alcohol, eggs (the yolk, egg whites are fine), garlic, ginger and coffee. Although these foods aren’t necessarily bad foods in and of themselves, for a person with heat issues, they will often make those heat issues worse. When the body has deflammed and come back into balance then you can return to those foods in a balanced way.

Yours in health,

Cynthia McGilvray, R.Ac.