Posted by Kimberly Rex

Coming to Your Senses for Your Wellness and Well-being

Coming to your senses when you have been feeling frustrated, angry, afraid, or anxious is beneficial to your wellness and well-being. It’s important to know that you can neutralize and shift your body-mind response by working with your 5 senses. By doing so you create short and long-term changes in choosing what you want to experience in your life.

Coming to Your Senses with Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell

Your 5 senses allow you to experience the world in different ways. Working with the 5 Element and Meridian System allows you to work with each of your senses. Each of the 5 Elements includes one of these primary senses and includes primary emotions, color, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

As an example, let’s consider Wood Element which is prevalent at this time of year. It is at this time when everything is growing, and also a time of year related to “Spring Fever” or acting without thinking. When this element is out of balance, it is important to work with stabilizing the energy that is presenting itself. The primary color of Wood Element is green, the emotion is anger, the sound is shouting, and is expressed through the movement of the ligaments. The smell is rancid and the taste is sour.

Your response to life starts with your thoughts which create emotions. It is important to register the connection between the information your body is giving you to be able to restore greater harmony and balance.

For example, sight or vision is primarily related to the Wood Element and your Gall Bladder and Liver. What is important to note about the relationship between your vision, anger and the organs related to Wood Element is that you can work with all of your 5 senses to bring about greater harmony and balance.

For more on vision: https://www.windowstotheheart.net/what-impacts-your-vision-of-life-four-ways-to-positive-change/

Everything is frequency. Your body-mind system responds to color, sound, movement, aroma, touch and taste. This means that input into your body through your senses can either nourish or deplete your life energy.

Using the example of Wood Element, your Liver and Gall Bladder and anger, accessing your senses to create greater wellness and well-being would look like the following:

1. Sight: When you are angry, your eye muscles tense up and the ability of your eyes to take in light is diminished. This means that your body-mind system limits the intake of energy for breathing, movement, cellular function, blood flow, adrenaline spikes, executive function, and memory. Over time, anger can overwhelm your system with anxiety and lead to depression.
2. Hearing: Anxiety and depression are fueled by fear. In Chinese Medicine, Water Element related to your kidneys and bladder, fear and hearing, feeds Wood Element or anger. It is not unusual when you feel afraid or angry to experience an inability to listen to what is going on around you. Coming to your senses can happen by listening to calming music or getting in touch with your breath.

Take a Mindful Walk in nature. The colors at this time of year paint a palette of nourishment and calm. The greening of plants, the colors of flowers, birds, and pollinators are all reminders of life on purpose. You are working with your tendons and muscles related to Wood Element while taking in the support of the Earth as you walk.

Coming to Your Senses Mindful Walk Audio

3. Touch: Acupressure points combined with steady deep breathing and meditation allow your body-mind system to reset to create more optimal life energy flow in your system where you feel stuck.

a) Let Go Point with Lung 1 on each side. This point is located under the collarbone, in the depression adjacent to the breastbone. You can treat both sides of your body by crossing your hands over your chest. Use your middle finger to contact Lung 1 on each side. Remember to breathe. As you inhale, slightly raise your elbows. As you exhale, bring your elbows back down. Continue in this process for 2-3 minutes. Just let it all go and relax.

b) Calm yourself with Sea of Tranquility/Conception Vessel 17 on the center of your breastbone, in the indentations or dips of the sternum bone. Place your hands together in a prayer position, and push your thumbs into the center of your chest. As you breathe in, feel your chest rise while your elbows rise up. As you breathe out, allow your elbows to come back down. This will relieve anxiety and bring you into your center.

c) Ground yourself with 3 Mile Point/ Stomach 36 located below the knee, on the outside surface of the lower leg. Sitting on a chair or edge of your bed, put your feet on the floor. Press your middle finger in contact with ST 36 on each leg. You can rest your elbows on your thighs as you do so. Get in touch with your breath and on the inhale, slightly lift your head. On the exhale, return your head slightly to a neutral position. Continue for a few moments. Notice how you feel more grounded and energized.

Acupressure point sequences are best done 2- 3 times a day for a few minutes followed by deep relaxation benefits your thinking and emotional response to stress.

4. Movement: The term fight or flight refers directly to the relationship between Water Element and Wood Element. You are wired for survival. Your nervous system can negatively react through panic attacks, tactile defensiveness, or numbing. Rewiring your body-mind system from the effects of trauma and habitual patterns is vital to access alternative responses through natural release with stress-reduction behaviors and actions.

Stretching and squatting relate directly to the Wood Element. It is good to know that exercise has positive effects on anxiety, depression, and mood regulation.

5. Taste: Anger and fear negatively affect digestion related to the secretion of adrenaline. Fear shifts energy from your gut to your muscles in reaction to sensed danger. Anger increases stomach contractions that can lead to upper abdominal pain. It reduces colon contractions resulting in constipation. Fear loosens your bowels. Anger binds you up.

When you are feeling angry, your blood rushes to your head. Drink a glass of water to filter your blood circulation down through your body. Slow down when you eat, look at your food, notice the shape, color, and texture of your food. These are mindful ways to bring your attention to your senses in a nourishing way. Chew your food thoroughly and taste what you are eating. There is a dense nerve network in your mouth that actually calms you down when you take your time.

In addition, what you eat will determine how you feel. Choosing foods that create calm in your system will benefit your sense of well-being in the world.

Foods that nourish your digestions and cleanse your liver and gall bladder stabilize and restore balance in your body-mind system. Sour-tasting foods and greens are beneficial for Wood Element. Choose foods with stalks and eat sprouts. Bok choy, chard, broccoli rabe, spinach, asparagus, and celery are examples. Eat citrus fruit, sour plum, pineapple, or starfruit. Incorporate sour foods like sourdough bread or crackers, vinegar, yogurt, kimchi, pickles, sour yogurt, sauerkraut, and olives into your diet.

Season your food with anise, basil, bay, caraway, dill, fennel, ginger, marjoram, parsley, peppermint, saffron, sage, and turmeric in your cooking. Add them to grains like quinoa, amaranth, brown rice, millet, buckwheat, or wheat. Add them to lentils, lima beans, and split peas. You can also snack on sunflower seeds or cashews to stabilize and calm your system.

5. Smell: Aromatherapy is a wonderful way to shift your emotions, thoughts, and physical responses. The essential oil to create a greater sense of optimism and hope include lemon, grapefruit, coriander, and Ledum.*

Lavender, Chamomile, and Bergamot are also great choices for calming your nervous system and can be used to make teas. These scents are readily available when you include them in your cooking. Their benefits include regulating your mood, detoxification, diminishing stress with greater relaxation. *Be sure to use a carrier oil such as olive, almond, jojoba, or avocado oil when placing essential oils on your skin.

Resonance Repatterning® sessions work with your 5 senses to create greater harmony and balance in your body-mind system. The resonance muscle-checking system identifies your specific needs easily and naturally to benefit your overall wellness and well-being. This allows you to experience tangible and sustainable positive changes in your life.

Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world by Skype, by phone, in-person, and by proxy.

This is your personal invitation to find out how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Set up a personal session or sign up for free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.

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