Healthy Transitions: 6 Keys to Support your Earth During Times of Change

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

The one universal constant for all of us in life is the presence of change. 

During various points in our lives, we all go through periods of transition — from birth to graduation, to marriage, and finally death. Throughout our journey, we see the evolution of our bodies and minds, hormonal changes including menarche and menopause for women and andropause for men. 

Because transition can be challenging and throw off your rhythm, it’s easy to end up sick or so tired that it takes weeks to recover and feel like yourself again.

While the only constant in life is change, it doesn’t have to be so hard — but it is essential that we equip ourselves with better self-care and be mindful of the potential effects of these changes on our health.

According to the Five Element system of Chinese Medicine, transitions are orchestrated by the Earth element which is associated with the primary organs systems that are in charge of digestion, the Spleen and Stomach. 

These organs are responsible for the transportation and transformation of food and thought, and they’re therefore the organs that are most needed, and thus most vulnerable, when something in your life is changing.

Any kind of change affects the Earth element, which is why it’s important to pay close attention to this element during times of transition.

Especially during transitions, it’s essential to harmonize the Earth element and ensure that it’s kept strong and balanced. 

Cultivating a Healthy Earth

The health of your Earth element relates to your digestion, as well as your ability to take care of yourself and others. 

An out of balance Earth type can present itself most often in one of two ways.

First, a person with an Earth imbalance may over-care for people. In other words, he or she will lack boundaries, meddle and offer advice to people who don’t ask, and be overly concerned with other people’s needs. This person may also tend to accumulate a lot of extra weight and present with a pattern of over-indulgence, whether food or relationships. 

In contrast, another person with an Earth imbalance may lack the ability to provide care for herself and others. This presents as poor self-care, as well as a lack of awareness of her own needs. This imbalanced Earth type may complain that she doesn’t like to cook or is always drained from doing too much as a result of her internal disharmony. 

In both cases, when Earth is out of balance, the individual will most often have accompanying digestive symptoms including diarrhea or constipation, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), or simply an excessive or poor appetite depending on the type of imbalance.

The best way to prevent an Earth imbalance is to make sure you’re doing proper self-care, especially during times of transition. 

Times of transition include all seasonal changes, weddings, graduations, menarche, menopause, andropause, back-to-school, moving to a different home or business, and the loss of a loved one, including a pet.

Since Earth is the element that transforms and supports change, it is important that this element be kept strong and vital during any transition or life change. Since the Spleen and Stomach are the primary organs associated with the Earth element, it’s imperative to strengthen and support your digestive system during these times. 

6 Ways to Support Your Earth Element During and After a Transition

1. Eat More Nourishing, Hydrating Foods such as yams, sweet potatoes, and soups. The easier foods are to digest, and the more cooked they are, the easier these foods will be on your digestive system.

2. Commit to a Daily Relaxation Practice. Your digestive system is closely linked to your parasympathetic nervous system, which when activated helps you rest and digest. If you’re under a lot of stress, the sympathetic nervous system— our fight or flight response—will become active, and over time will result in physical and mental tension and focus that keeps you in survival mode thus inhibiting your ability to properly slow down. To protect and optimize our digestive system, and thus the Earth element, you must learn to relax. Yoga, Qi Gong and even a simple 10 minute mindfulness meditation can be immensely powerful to foster this sense of relaxation throughout each day.

3. Optimize Your Self-Care. This involves taking time to slow down and relax, but beyond that, it also means you maintain boundaries with your time and energy. One very important aspect of self-care that’s related to a healthy Earth is cooking for yourself and making sure to take time to eat without distractions.

4. Create a More Regular Daily Rhythm or Schedule. Whether or not you work a 9-5 job, it’s important that you create some sort of regularity with your sleep, eating and exercise. Earth thrives on rituals and predictable rhythms and your digestive system will thank you for knowing when you’ll get your next meal. Changing this rhythm during weekends and vacations is natural and of course acceptable.

5. Manage Your Finances. Earth has to do with all the things that nourish and keep us feeling a sense of safety. In the material world, money is one of those elements. That’s why it’s important to keep track of where your money is going, to balance your checkbooks and reduce debts in order to prevent the worry that is characteristic of an Earth imbalance.

6. Clean and Organize Your Home and Office. Earth types who are balanced keep a clean and very organized home and workplace, whereas those who are out of balance, misplace things and tend to accumulate a lot of clutter. Try to maintain a sense of order with whatever system most resonates with you in the places where you spend your time.

When we go through times of change, maintenance of our rhythm and order is what usually falls off our radar first. So the next time you find yourself entering a transition of any kind, try being more mindful of maintaining the simple things including your regimen, a good diet, and a clean home. These simple things can provide a sense of harmony as you move through the uncertainty and constant changes of life.

---

Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Setareh offers clinical services and transformational workshops that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com. 

Setting Boundaries is Essential to Your Health

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

About a year ago, my husband and I adopted a 1 year old Italian Greyhound mix we named Crystal. When we first brought her home from the rescue, she was terrified of everything. In fact, she'd spend most mornings hiding under our China cabinet shivering when we'd take her out of her crate.

She'd obviously been traumatized and likely been abused, so we decided to hire a trainer to help break her out of her fear.

After some trial and error, we hired Mike, an experienced trainer who would gently force her to stay present each time she got fearful and wanted to run away. By essentially forcing her to move into her fear it didn't take long for Crystal to realize she was safe and there was nothing to fear. Through this initially challenging process, Crystal quickly became loving and trusting of our trainer who created a very strong boundary with her.

Crystal loves to feel contained. Boundaries are essential for all beings to feel safe.

The training worked wonders and though she resisted the process during many of the sessions, Crystal became more relaxed, more trusting and more affectionate after each session. Mike also helped us learn how to assertively yet lovingly hold boundaries to heal her behavior. 

The stronger we set boundaries around her reaction to fear, the more relaxed she became.

As a result, the anxiety and fear that once ruled Crystal settled down, and she continues to feel more safe and be more present than ever.

Humans have similar behavior patterns. Healthy boundaries between children and parents are crucial to cultivating healthy relationships and to prevent enabling unhealthy behavior patterns. Held with love, compassion and respect, boundaries help create a sense of stability and safety.

In Chinese Medicine, this sense of safety and security is supported by the Earth element as the basis for establishing healthy boundaries. 

The Earth element rules our digestive system and helps us process both food and thoughts. Energetically, Earth relates to all transitions - seasonal and otherwise - and is the ruling element of the late Summer. It's most important to balance and strengthen the Earth element during these times, but since change is a constant in life and we're naturally always going through transitions, cultivating a healthy Earth is essential to all aspects of our health year round.

Boundaries and the Earth Element

The Earth Element is the fertile soil that allows plants to grow and flourish to provide nourishment and sustenance; it gives protection and shelter as well as stability and substance. 

Earth contains water, creates boundaries to define continents and carries us through space with stability. Earth represents safety, protection and our home base. 

Being centered, calm, and balanced, feeling at home, and having a sense of harmony and peacefulness are the essence of a healthy Earth energy. Creating a comfortable home and cooking for oneself and one's family are essential factors to nourishing the Earth energy in one's life.

Rice fields from our 2015 trip to China. Earth contains water and provides the fertile soil where nourishment can be cultivated.

Cultivating a healthy Earth means understanding and prioritizing our needs. If we pour all of our energy into helping others or work excessively, we'll have nothing left for ourselves. If we don't discipline ourselves around our diet and set boundaries around eating generally healthy foods, our health fails. If we continuously go to bed late because we don't have the discipline to stop working or watching TV at night, we slowly but surely deplete our blood, our Yin, and our essence, which accelerates our aging process.

In other words, strong boundaries around how and with whom we spend our time, what we eat and even when we sleep is fundamental to our health.

In the body, these boundaries are established by the Earth element organs that govern digestion, the Stomach and Spleen.

Nourishment and the Earth Element

Earth energy is about transformation; transformation of food into energy and raw material to rebuild the body, and transformation of our thoughts so we're not stuck obsessing about negative things and can have clarity of mind. 

Earth energy is also associated with our relationships with ourselves and others, which begins with our relationship to our family, especially our mothers. As the archetype for the Earth type personality, the Mother represents unconditional love and the nourishing qualities that exist within each of us.

Loving, supportive and nourishing parents help children understand they are accepted for who they are, which gives them a deep sense of security. Starting life with unconditional nourishment both through food and emotional support supports a calm and secure demeanor. It also prevents the development of excessive dependence on others to have one's needs met. 

Our first experience with nourishment comes from suckling at our mother's breast, ingesting the colostrum that activates our Earth energy.

Colostrum is so potent for the digestive system that it's been well established as a supplement to heal digestive disorders. For one thing, colostrum restores leaky gut to normal permeability levels. Serious health syndromes which we can recognize as Earth imbalances are now known to be associated with abnormally increased gut permeability. These include autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis. Colostrum can also benefit Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, chronic fatigue syndrome, hepatitis, fibromyalgia, asthma, and allergies. 

Colostrum contains growth factors and hormones to help repair damage to the intestinal lining, including damage caused by NSAIDS and other medications, and restore gut integrity. Colostrum is high in immunoglobulins to help control harmful fungi, such as Candida, and harmful bacteria, such as H. Pylori, which is known to cause ulcers. Colostrum has also been shown to increase the surface area of the intestinal lining to improve absorption of nutrients. And there are no known side effects from using colostrum.

Colostrum reduces inflammation, protects against irritation from toxins, prevents infection and promotes epithelial growth and repair. It's also a useful supplement to quickly boost the immune system following a strenuous workout or periods of intense stress. 

In this way, colostrum boosts Spleen Qi, which is fundamental for supporting Earth energy and therefore our ability to establish healthy boundaries.

Nourishment begins in the gut first with our mother through breast feeding and evolves into how we nourish ourselves. Thus the connection of the Earth element to our digestive function determines our ability to have healthy, harmonious relationships as well as strong immunity, or Spleen Qi.

Earth Element Imbalances

Physiologically, Earth element imbalances most commonly relate to weakness of the Spleen, which manifests as poor digestive function, as well as bruising and hemorrhaging. This is because the Spleen not only transports and transforms food and thoughts, but it is also the organ in Chinese Medicine that's responsible for holding blood in the vessels. A woman who has very heavy flow during her menses for example needs to focus on strengthening her Spleen and blood. Weak Spleen Qi can also cause leakage of Qi, which is a disorder we've discussed in a previous article.

Chronic digestive issues as well as eating disorders are common among people who have imbalances in their Earth element, which may have begun during childhood as a result of lack of nourishment emotionally and physically from one's parents or through excessive consumption of prescription drugs, especially antibiotics, which directly damage the gastrointestinal system.

When there is an Earth imbalance, or weakness in Spleen Qi, dampness or phlegm tends to develop in the body, which leads physiologically to weight gain and psychologically to obsessive thinking. This is why worry and pensiveness are common symptoms of imbalanced Earth energy.

Psychologically, Earth imbalance manifests as neediness, self-absorption, resentment or excessively self-sacrificing and lacking the ability to care for oneself.

A weak Earth also inhibits one's ability to hold strong personal boundaries, making one inclined to meddle in other people’s lives as a distraction from looking at herself or lack the personal boundaries to prevent other people from meddling in her life. 

Earth imbalance often creates a challenging relationship with both food and money, each of which energetically represent a form of nourishment that allows us to feel safe. 

People with an Earth imbalance will not only have digestive issues, but they'll often also have an unhealthy relationship with money management as well as with food, which that may result in eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia or simply addictions to food for comfort.

Balanced Earth means that we know how time, energy, food and money all fit into our lives. It allows us to feel abundant no matter how much we have. Therefore, an imbalanced Earth will cause us to feel lack, especially with our money and our energy.

Balancing Earth to Establish Healthy Boundaries

Having a more balanced Earth element helps us feel more calm, secure and nourished. When we feel more peace within, we can make our needs, and therefore our boundaries, more clear. Strong boundaries and a healthier relationship with ourselves allows us to then cultivate healthier relationships with others.

Here are some tips on how to strengthen the Spleen and your Earth element to help you establish stronger boundaries:

1. Cook - the physical act of preparing a meal nurtures the mind, body and soul.

2. Eat a healthy, low carbohydrate diet - carbohydrates and sugars increase the damp or fungal terrain in the body so it's important to reduce these foods and increase the consumption of leafy green vegetables, root vegetables and clean meats to clear this dampness, cultivate clarity and optimize your health.

3. Eat regular meals - Earth thrives on a regular daily rhythm.

4. Manage your time and money - Earth is about nurturing and abundance. Keeping track of how you spend your time helps you manage your energy. Managing your finances is another way to help consolidate your Earth energy and is an essential aspect to cultivating the feeling of security in your life. Money is energy which when circulated properly helps balance Earth energy.

5. Journal to replace worry and obsession with contemplation and reflection.

6.  Get involved in the community - find what organizations, church groups, charities, etc. interest you and see what role you can play to contribute.

Self-care is therefore essential to rebalance the Earth element. When your food, money, time and energy are properly managed, the mind becomes more clear and you're able to naturally set healthier boundaries that allow you to share the best aspects of yourself with others.

---

Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Setareh offers clinical services and transformational workshops that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com. 

---