Our emotions and their energetically paired organs

Over the last couple of months, I have found myself being able to immediately put into application some newfound knowledge. In the past, I may have learned something from a class or a program and any connection it would have for my life or work just didn't really click right away. I can’t even begin to tell you how my career path has been limited in the type of education that I have been seeking. Most classes were repetitive or sales-driven so my experience with clientele was my preferred form of continuing education. Each individual would have such a special case that I would find myself needing to do extensive research to help them get to the root of their case. From doing this type of custom care I found myself really getting to know the ins and outs of how the body works on a physical level. What recently clicked for me was the connection between emotion and your internal systems. So when you are experiencing a chronic emotion, what physical part of your body is out of balance?

I recently shared my experience of why I left a business I co-created and how that connected me to what was going on with my body. What I was unconsciously avoiding for so long was the connection between physical symptoms and my emotional health. When we think of our organs and the systems they work in, we tend to think of them on a very physical level disconnected to our emotional experiences. But there’s no way our emotions are not immediately impacting our physical bodies, just like when we’re sad we may need more sleep or are drawn to food for comfort (or at least I do). But what if we are going about our daily lives with nothing seemingly wrong but we still don’t feel emotionally healthy. Have you ever felt stuck in an emotion? Like regardless of the work you do for yourself, you can’t seem to shed it? Some of us simply can’t shake sadness, loneliness, anger, or even euphoria. What we may not think about is how that some organs have an energetic pair and the two can be connected to a very specific emotion. If you neglect or ignore the health of an organ it cannot only start to energetically stress it’s pair but it can also make you feel stuck emotionally regardless of what’s going on in your life.

I want to shed just a little bit of light on some of those combinations and some signals to help you tune into them. I’m bringing these up because I will be referencing them a lot in future posts to help drive in the concept that health is about a full system approach and your emotional state is a great place to look for answers. I’ve ignored the fact that parts of my life have been sad, regardless of the lack of reason. I’ve also ignored times where my anger was something I felt powerless in my control over even when I didn't think I was really angry. I hope shedding some light on this can show you that not only are you not alone, but there are so many ways to try to find balance as long as you’re able to get real and see yourself fully.

The first pair I want to discuss would be the lungs and large intestine. Their key emotion is connected to sadness which is can be very difficult to breakthrough depending on the events going on in your life. If you’ve been faced with trauma or back to back letdowns, it can be natural to feel sad. Since the lungs tend to govern the skin’s health it is one of the first things we notice when someone is feeling off with their skin. The large intestine also plays a huge part in this balance of emotions because it’s a crucial factor in healthy digestion. When I sprained my ankle last January I found myself unable to go a day without a breakdown of tears. I found myself feeling so sad and not really having a reason why. I went to an acupuncturist (a couple actually) who educated me that the exact area that I had a traumatic injury was connected to my large intestine meridian. My digestion became almost impossible to regulate and the sluggishness of my large intestine was causing my food to stop breaking down. When your food doesn’t break down, it has to come out somewhere so it comes back up causing potential nausea, brain fog, an excessive coating on the tongue, and, in my case, a stress thyroid. Once I regulated the large intestine, all of those symptoms, including the unprompted sadness went away. You can start by working on circulation and your breath which can come from daily stretching, yoga, and breathwork. In addition to that, you can help support your lung function by promoting a clean and healthy air quality with tons of air-purifying plants in your space as well as going to your favorite place in nature a few times a month.

The second organ pairing I want to discuss is for those of you who may be living with anger and/or bitterness and how this can be correlated to both the liver and gallbladder. Our liver is often known as the "stress" organ because it holds a lot of responsibility in our detoxification system. The gallbladder is shaped like a pear and is conveniently located under your liver in the upper-right section of your abdomen where bile is stored. I have yet to master having a really high functioning liver because of the years I spent on medication as a kid followed by my years of excess drinking as an adult. The key for me is full-on liver support with supplements such as milk thistle/selenium and castor oil packs (this video is simple for the sake of showing easy it is) located specifically on the liver. When I’m feeling extra angry or bitter, I go straight to an acupuncturist for a liver supportive treatment followed by as much rest as I can get.

As a perfectionist and an empath, it’s as though I have been created to live with anxiety and worries. That’s why I have tended to have issues in my stomach and, occasionally, my spleen. If you identify as a worry wart this organ combo will probably immediately resonates with you. Whenever anxiety or an excess of worry is chronic in an individual they tend to really feel it in their stomach. The stomach is a huge muscle that’s responsible for secreting the right acids and enzymes needed to break down your food. The spleen acts as a filter for blood as an essential part of the immune system. When this energetic pairing is balanced not only do you digest food and experience strong immunity, but you also feel a lot fewer worries or anxious. In order to help assist those emotions, you can start by nourishing the stomach and spleen so that they don’t have to overwork. One of my favorite ways to do so would be following a few simple ayurvedic techniques such as eating at the same time per day so your enzymes and acids release at the appropriate time to help digest foods. Another technique would be to help support your immunity by getting a lot of extra rest. According to your Ayurvedic dosha, you may have different sleep patterns that could help you optimize your resting potential.

What’s funny about the last set of organ combinations is that I never really have had a problem with them up until recently when I embarked on huge life change. The kidneys and bladder have an emotional association with fear. So it makes sense that when I was taking a huge leap of faith that all of my fears were coming up for me. And my bladder has never felt tinier. I started to constantly need to urinate because my kidneys were working hard to help eliminate toxins no longer needed in my body. The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist. They are located just below the rib cage, one on each side of the spine. Every day, the two kidneys filter about 120 to 150 quarts of blood to produce about 1 to 2 quarts of urine, composed of wastes and extra fluid. And your bladder is obviously a sac in which the urine collects before you release it. So your body is filling up with natural waste and the collection in the bladder can start to become that signal for holding on. When we release the urine it is sort of like the release of fear. You can start supporting yourself in those times of fear with a little cranberry juice or dandelion root tea so your body isn’t holding onto the excess of the fear.

I hope this helps shed some light for some of you who are dealing with any emotional turmoil and haven't found a root reason why. There doesn't always need to be a reason so it's important to know that there are a few simple things to try if you feel called to. I'll talk about these a lot more coming up so that I can elaborate on specific cases with skin conditions as well. Feel free to comment below with any questions in the meantime. Thank you again for reading and until next time, take care.

xo - Hayley

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