Wood: The Pioneer
The virtue of Wood is creativity and growth
As a balanced Wood personality, you’re a confident, courageous and a natural leader. Being a pioneer comes naturally for you, and you could easily be an entrepreneur, a visionary, a pioneer of an important movement, or the CEO of a company or a household.
As a Wood archetype, your natural tendency is to be ambitious, focused, driven, and decisive. While you may crave public recognition and admiration for your talent and achievements, you’re always ready to help others just because and are comfortable considering others as your equal.
If you’re more of a Yang Wood type, you’ll have a more outward expression of this archetype — strong, courageous and enthusiastic. You like to be in charge, be acknowledged and compete. You have a lot of energy and tremendous stamina and drive. Your balanced body type is strong, sinewy and muscular.
If you’re more of a Yin Wood type you tend to be more timid and indecisive (vs the overbearing leader that is displayed by Yang Wood personalities). Though highly intelligent and ambitious, you may lack courage and decisiveness, and even doubt your abilities at times. You are a visionary with lots of ideas, but you might find it difficult to stay focused on a particular project.
Tools to Balance Your Wood Energy
Discipline and regular exercise are essential for balancing any Wood personality type.
Since the Liver is one of the organs associated with the Wood energy, it’s important to reduce stress on this organ by reducing or avoiding your intake of coffee, alcohol and other stimulants.
Since you thrive on challenges and are goal-oriented, it’s beneficial for you to stay engaged by learning something new, and to get involved in groups or organizations who value your contribution.
If you tend to have big goals but feel insufficient in your ability to achieve them, it’s important to nourish your Liver Blood by going to bed earlier (before 11pm) and eating blood building foods that include beef, berries and cooked leafy green vegetables.
Common Wood Archetype Imbalances
When out of balance you can be controlling, irritable, angry, and combative. Your emotional tendency when out of balance is irritability, anger and rage. You must be especially careful to calm your nervous system to avoid elevated cortisol and impaired immune function.
If you’re a Yang Wood types, you’ll be more prone to high blood pressure, heart disease, muscle spasms and stiffness of the neck, insomnia, headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances such as stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome.
With a tendency to accumulate a lot of heat in the Liver system, you can be emotionally volatile with a hot temper, and prone to anxiety attacks or nervousness.
While both Yin and Yang Wood types are success driven, if you tend to be more of a Yin Wood type, your self-esteem or self-worth may be more compromised. As you tend to repress your feelings and emotions, you’re more prone to depression and anxiety, as well as moodiness and emotional instability.
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Hi!
We’re Salvador & Setareh — a husband and wife team of Licensed Acupuncturists with an award-winning integrative wellness center that offers customized services, classes and articles to support your optimal health.
We’re grateful to have you here, and we look forward to supporting your journey to wellness.
Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.
Salvador Cefalu, M.S., L.Ac.
Overview of the Five Elements
The Five Elements of Chinese Medicine are known as the Wu Xing, or five transformations or movements of energy. The Five Element theory first appeared in several books on philosophy in the 10th century B.C. The first medical writings on the Five Elements were found in one of the most important Chinese classical texts, the Huang Di Nei Jing, or Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, around 200 B.C. Further discussion appeared in Nan Jing, or Classic of Difficulties.
The Five Elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. These Elements reflect all levels of human function, including but not limited to, the anatomic and physiologic functioning of the organ systems. These elements help explain the nature of biochemical processes and functions of the organism as a whole, including behavior, psychological state, relationships and career choices.
The power of the Five Elements lies in their ability to show us more clearly the world we live in, the nature that surrounds us, and ourselves.
READ MORE ABOUT THE WOOD ELEMENT
