Menstrual Cycle
In Chinese Medicine, the menstrual cycle is known as the Moon cycle. When you look at the hormones and how they wax and wane, you can see how we are indeed a mirror of the moon! In turn, the lining of our uterus waxes and releases at menses.
The Liver is the organ energetically responsible for the flow of the menstrual cycle. The Liver helps us process stress, frustration, anger and in general balanced flow of emotions. The Liver is about flexibility and flow in all aspects of the life and body. The Liver also is the system that helps us express our creative Spirit in all of life.
When you observe your cycle, you have a window into your inner self. If you have been in a state of flow and balance, the cycle will come and go without a big show.
The Liver uses the menstrual cycle as an opportunity for the body to express, release, and renew itself. Any physical symptoms (headaches, breast swelling/pain, back pain, digestive issues, mood swings, heavy flow, clotting) before or during the cycle are a sign of Liver energy stagnation.
There is a gift in the monthly release and a gift in the message it is reflecting back to us. This message is to go within and discover ways to release our blocks and creatively express our Emotions and Spirit in all of life!
Traditional treatments such as the use of birth control pills mask the underlying root cause and can contribute to further Liver energy imbalance over time. Acupuncture, acupressure, herbs and Dragon’s Way Qigong are powerful tools to help alleviate menstrual symptoms and restore Liver balance and harmony within the body. In general, most Liver issues are related to “cold” energy stuck in the uterus. You can integrate warming foods and teas during the cycle to help release these symptoms. These include ginger, clove, cinnamon, scallions, fennel, and warm cooked foods. Applying heat to the lower abdomen and using warming essential oils such as ginger or cinnamon or topical tiger balm are also beneficial.
Check out my article on Women’s Health on DaoCloud
TCM World’s Page on Women’s Health
Fertility
The Liver and Kidney energy together are responsible for fertility. The menstrual cycle provides a “picture” of the flow or lack of flow of Liver energy. Read the above section to learn more. Additional signs of Liver energy stagnation include migraines, seasonal allergies in the Spring, digestive issues, anemia, eye problems, and sports injuries. When the Liver is out of balance for a prolonged time it drains our precious life force, Kidney energy. Signs of Kidney energy imbalance include fatigue, anxiety, low back, knee, heel, or foot pain, any allergies (environmental / food), and auto-immune conditions. You can help restore Liver and Kidney balance to boost immunity with acupuncture, acupressure, herbs and Dragon’s Way Qigong.
Remember that conception requires TWO partners! Encourage your man to review the section on Men’s Health to maximize fertility and support overall health and wellness.
Read more on the TCM understanding and treatment of infertility
Pregnancy is a unique energetic opportunity for both mother and child. During pregnancy you and your partner “download” your child with their life force Kidney Qi. This is the energy foundation of the child’s health, wellness, and intelligence. Encourage your partner to review the section on Men’s Health as he too provides an essential aspect of this “download” for your child! For a mother, the body undergoes incredible transformation to support the developing child. The birth process is also a time of profound energetic shifts for both mother and child.
For this reason, tuning into your body pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, at birth, and post-partum are an essential aspect of a woman’s life cycle. Creating balance and harmony within the body, supports mother and child through this transformative time and beyond.
Pre-pregnancy, you can prepare yourself through acupuncture, acupressure, herbs and beginning a self-healing program with Dragon’s Way Qigong. Because of the energetic combination of mother, child, and the process of pregnancy itself, I do not perform acupuncture, acupressure, or use herbs during pregnancy. However, you can support yourself with Dragon’s Way Qigong, healing foods, and specialized Qigong exercises for the symptoms of pregnancy.
In China, many women choose to take a full month to rest and support their energy with healing foods and energy exercises post-partum. Doing so helps support their future health and wellbeing. It is safe to resume acupuncture, acupressure, and herbs during this time, in addition to The Dragon’s Way practice. Breast feeding creates high demand on the body, so boosting your energy in any way possible helps to keep the flow on all levels!
Experience the podcast at:
https://alyssapfennig.com/podcast/041/
Learn more on the TCM approach to Pre-pregnancy, Pregnancy here
Grand Master Nan Lu has a three part DVD series focused on healthy pregnancy. You can access them through the images/links below:
Healthy Pregnancy 1: Reducing Nausea & Anxiety
Healthy Pregnancy 2: Reducing Discomforts & Pain
Healthy Pregnancy 3: Preventing Miscarriages:
Empowered Parenting
The highest spiritual relationship is that between parent and child. We choose each other for a purpose and become each other’s greatest teachers. Parenting children requires immense energy, presence, and creativity. In this fast paced world, many of us are balancing full working lives with full home lives.
As a parent we are the energetic center of our home. If our energy is out of balance we will see and feel it immediately in the faces and behavior of our children. They are a perfect mirror. Caring deeply for your own energy by supporting yourself with acupuncture, acupressure, herbs and a practice like Dragon’s Way Qigong, can help you take parenting beyond the level of “survival.”
In my practice (in office and at home!) I have discovered an approach to parenting that aligns with the vision of Indy Healing Center. The Nurtured Heart Approach was created by Howard Glasser as a way to connect through relationship with intense children at home and in the classroom. When children (including our inner child) act out, they do so because they are in need of loving attention.
Most of the time when our child is “behaving” we smile from afar and go about our daily lives. When they act out on themselves and others, they get us to “show up” in a big way to help shift the behavior. The Nurtured Heart approach encourages us to flip the way we connect in relationship by “showing up” in presence to honor the good stuff (even the “little” stuff) and holding space but not connecting in energetically when the acting out shows up. I call it being a “humming bird parent.” You buzz in to show some love here there and everywhere.
I have personal experience using this approach. Literally within 3 days my child ceased lashing out physically. Within a month, he began to tap into his gifts and passions at a whole new level. He was being nurtured into full bloom.
Learn more about the Nurtured Heart Approach through the Transforming the Intense Child Workbook
Check out local Nurtured Heart Therapist Heather Meyer
Stay tunned for upcoming collaborative programs for parents including healing tips for both moms, dads , and children!
Click here to learn about Meditating WITH Your Children
Join the Facebook Forum for Empowered Parenting
Click here to learn about my approach to pediatric wellness
Click here for the TCM perspective on adolescence
I have been blessed to experience the work in sacred intimacy of Londin Angel Winters and Justin Patrick Pierce. Personal relationships are the playground for our most intense spiritual work. Our partner, if we are open, can see the full us. Allowing ourselves to be fully seen and experienced is both deeply fulflling and equally terrifying.
In the “Yoga of Intimacy,” we position ourselves in our way of relating. We hold the space of possibility of a connection with no weight from the past, no expectations for the future, just the dance of full presence. While holding this space many old patterns arise that threaten to close our hearts and body to receiving. This is when we “open anyway.” We learn how to soften ourselves body, mind, Spirit to recieve the depth of love we so desire.
I invite you to explore Londin and Justin’s work through their book The Awakened Woman’s Guide to Everlasting Love and website londinangelwinters.com. Londin has recently launched an online Awakened Women’s Group with recorded webinar sessions.
In addition, I encourage you to explore how Dragon’s Way Qigong program can help you with processing the physical and emotional patterns that have blocked you from fully connecting to the love that lives at the center of your being.
Menopause
In Chinese culture they do not refer to the term menopause. They consider this transition to be an energetic opportunity to awaken to a new level of aliveness. Prior to menopause, many women have a significant focus of their energy on the creativity of the uterus and raising children. After menopause, if an adequate level of balance and harmony are present, this energy is opened up to new possibilities: a “second Spring.”
All of the symptoms we consider to be a “normal” part of aging and menopause, such as hot flashes, mood swings, and bone loss, are actually a sign that energy is out of balance. Whether you are in your 20’s, menopause range, or post-menopausal, it is never too late to re-establish deeper balance and harmony with acupuncture and Dragon’s Way Qigong. Not only will you help to alleviate menopausal symptoms and associated risks such as Heart disease, but you also will open to a deeper state of wellness, freeing up energy to tap into your unique creative possibility.
The balance of Liver and Kidney determine your experience of menopause.
Click here to learn more on the TCM perspective on menopause
Ancient traditions have long recognized and modern science has confirmed that EVERYTHING is energy. Modern science has also discovered that energy and mass are interchangeable, therefore all breast conditions such as calcifications, cysts, and tumors can be viewed as energy transformed into mass.
In the traditional approach, we use screening as a tool of early detection of breast cancer. Whether this be through mammograms, ultrasound, MRI, or genetic testing to evaluate our potential risk factors.
Though these tools have value, they are NOT preventative. In addition, they are only ONE piece of the bigger picture of an individual's overall health.
True prevention must address the conditions and patterns that may potentially lead to the development of breast cancer. True prevention is about embracing the bigger picture of overall health!
At its essence, Chinese Medicine is about creating flow: body, mind, and Spirit. When there is flow, healing follows naturally. When stagnation arises, symptoms and signs will show up to guide us. Early energy stagnation may create symptoms that come and go such as aches/pains, headaches, or occasional digestive imbalance.
If the energy continues to stay stuck, an organ function disorder develops. This will show up as a “diagnosis” such as PMS, IBS, hypertension, diabetes, allergies, autoimmune disorders etc.
If the stagnation progresses, stuck energy can potentially be transformed into mass. However, even if we have reached this stage, healing is possible!
If we have created the condition, we have the power to transform it! This is each and every one of our inherent super powers!
E = MC^2! This is the ultimate healing formula, this is quantum physics, this is natural law, this is our potential! We are always transforming energy between free flow and states of stagnation.
The Body Never Lies.
Organ Function, Emotions, & Spirit: Five Element Consciousness
Did you know that every physical symptom we experience is actually a sign, an inner guide?! These guides are revealing where we are out of balance. Getting to know your guides is essential to empower healing within. When there has been a breast cancer diagnosis, much of our focus goes straight to the cancer. But what about the imbalances that lead to cancer?
When we expand our focus and trace back to discover which organ systems became out of balance we expand our healing potential to the root cause.
The Five Element Consciousness framework maps the connections between organ functions, emotions, healing foods, and all of Nature! We are at our highest state of health and wellbeing when we are in alignment with Nature’s cycles. Explore more now through this link: Organ Function, Emotions, & Spirit: Five Element Consciousness
Join our privarte Facebook group
Breast Care IS Self Care at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/breastcareisselfcare
Based upon these concepts, Grand Master Nan Lu, OMD, has developed a unique program that uses Wu Ming Qigong energy movements to effectively guide energy through the breast area.
When energy flows freely, you can create better breast health.
Wu Ming Qigong for Breast Health directly impacts the meridian lines that run through the breast area: Liver, Stomach, and Kidney.
This program will be integrated into a five part series coming in January 2022!!! Stay tuned...
Enjoy my guest spot on The Breast of Everything Podcast with comprehensive breast surgeons Dr Gold and Dr Brown!
Enjoy my conversation with transformational coach and breast cancer survivor Chantal Leven:
Begin Qigong for Breast Health Today!
https://www.tcmworld.org/shop/qigong-for-breast-health-video-on-demand/
Click here to learn more about the TCM approach to breast cancer
According to Chinese Medicine, the Heart is the King of all organs. All other organs will sacrifice themselves to protect the King. By the time someone has developed heart disease, there have been MANY warning signs of functional imbalance from other organs along the way.
The Heart houses our Spirit. Our Heart depends upon our Liver to allow Spirit to express itself through our work, home, and everyday living. If Liver is flexible and flowing, it follows that the Heart is also flowing. In addition, the Kidney is responsible for maintaining co-operative balance with our Heart energy. Thus, nurturing precious life force is another way to ensure true Heart Health. So as you can see from this multi-dimensional framework a healthy Heart depends upon more than diet restrictions and exercise alone!
Dragon’s Way Qigong provides excellent tools to reduce stress, support Life Force, and connect to Spirit with Qigong and healing foods. In addition acupuncture and herbs, can help address the underlying functional imbalances that can lead to Heart disease.
Learn more on the power of the Heart through this link and the one below:
https://www.tcmworld.org/the-heart-king-of-happiness/
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Organ Function, Emotions, & Spirit: Five Element Consciousness
email: indyhealingcenter@gmail.com
Indianapolis, IN
7771 Spring Mill Road
All content on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any disease or condition. You should consult with your health care provider before beginning this or any health-related or weight loss program.