Your Kidneys Relate To Your Brain health, Learn How To Tend To Them.
According to Chinese medicine, balancing fire and water energy, or chi (Qi), is the root of health, which is achieved when our energy is running smoothly and efficiently. Balancing our yin and yang energy creates homeostasis, where healing can occur on an energetic level, which often brings the emotional and physical issues back into balance.
The energetic level of our being is deep and subtle and often the root cause of emotional and physical dis-ease. When the energy is tended to and brought back into balance, the challenging emotions and physical pain often correct themselves.
Winter is the extreme Yin season and corresponds to the water element. The early summer is the extreme Yang season, which corresponds to the fire element. During these polarized seasons, we are always working to balance, the water and fire energy, the yin and yang.
In this winter water season, the energy of the kidney and the bladder are running the strongest. Kidney Jing is our inner essence, and the maintenance of Kidney Jing is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves to age gracefully. This is done by consistently engaging in practices of the Meridian Flow practice that restores kidney chi, by balancing energy and form. This is the wisdom of the kidneys that determines our rate of biological aging.
Energy, chi, is the animating force of all things in the natural world. There is chi in plants and minerals, animals and humans as well as universal chi. In the Meridian Flow practice we work on balancing chi in the physical form, the Jing form. This balance of energy can be compared to when there’s too much chi in a lightbulb, it explodes, which is an excess of yang energy. Not enough chi makes the lightbulb flicker or dim, which is a yin deficiency.
Yin and Yang kidneys
The yin kidney, the left kidney, is the vital essence of all material structure. It’s the foundation of all yin energy in our body. The yin kidney nourishes the bodily tissue with a cooling essence. When women experience hot flashes during menopause, this is not always excess yang fire but usually a yin chi deficiency, resulting in the build-up of heat. Tonifying the kidneys, or increasing their chi, is needed, not sedating them.
According to Chinese medicine, men also have menopause but it occurs in their mid-40s when they’re heading towards their middle age season. Often men become more emotional as the yin kidney becomes deficient.
The yin kidney nourishes and supports the movement of fluids, including the cerebral spinal fluid. Energetically the brain is considered to be the second set of kidneys. That’s why it’s so important to cultivate the water/kidney energy rising to hydrate the brain, so we stay sharp, not dry up and lose our memory, hair, and hearing.
The left yin kidney rules the life cycle, growth, maturing, and aging. It’s the water of life for the liver, heart, and lungs. When we stimulate the ‘kidney one’ point on the base of the foot, we create water energy rising up the inner legs, where the kidney, liver, and spleen meridians run up, known as the Fountain of Youth. Strengthening and stretching the inner legs is how we stay youthful, strong, and healthy which ample chi flowing.
The right yang kidney governs the heat and moves the chi. Lower abdominal breathing creates steam rising, by creating heat in the abdomen, and warming the kidney water chi, which nourishes the endocrine system, including the pineal gland. If the yang fire kidney isn’t strong enough to move the chi and create steam, we need to foster more abdominal breathing to light it up.
The yang kidney essence leaves the body during menstruation and childbirth for women and ejaculation for men. Excess stress depletes the yang kidney. The metabolism depletes as we get older and if our yang kidney is deficient we don’t have the ability to assimilate the nutrients from the food.
Interestingly, even if the kidney (or any of the organs we can live without) is removed, it doesn’t remove the meridian or the energy of the organ. Chi is invisible to the naked eye. With advanced technology, the meridian circuit, chakras, and auras have been shown in Kirlian photography. Emotions are energy, and can’t be seen either. Neurosurgery wouldn’t find our memory, nor would a cardiac surgeon find love, yet we know this energy exists.
The Meridian Flow practice tends to the physical body known as the jing, the emotional body, the chi, and the consciousness or spirit body, the shen which creates an inner harmony where we touch peace. This practice is complete.
A recent student responded, “this practice is like going to the gym, therapy, and church all in an hour!”
We are ultimately responsible for our own healing.
The Meridian Flow practice transcends chronic pain, anxiety, and autoimmune issues naturally.
From my heart to yours
Namaste,
Maggie