Maddie

I used to have horrible allergies, and tired everything to get rid of them. The only thing I found that worked, (and it worked well) was a homeopathic allergy mix. Not only did it relieve allergy symptoms in the here and now, but as I kept taking it, it gradually removed all allergy response. Even though I am in TCM school now, and this is kind of like rooting for the other team lol, its the only thing I found that really did the job for me. here is the specific blend I used, but I'm sure any good blend will work. My link

That was Drew Hemphel. I have had a couple experiences similar to his but instead of at McDonalds I was at a book store, and I don't think mine were quite as dramatic as his, yet nevertheless still had a balancing effect. The only reason I did that was NOT because I wanted to replace that with sex, but because I was exceptionally horny and had no one handy to help me with that situation. Had there been someone at the moment to do it the old fashioned way I would have still gone with that, but one must do what one must do. So what happened was I had retained for an extended period of time, and felt my lower dan tien really buzzing big time. I had also been doing a lot of dan tien breathing to help convert that sexual fluid back into jing. Also as an aside I've noticed that when ever I do feel my lower dan tien buzzing like that girls tend to be more flirty than usual. Oppposite to that when my lower dan tien feels empty I seem to become the magical invisible man to women lol. Anyways so I'm at the book store, and my dan tien is buzzing. This girl comes near to where I am sitting and apparently is browsing books on the shelf in front of me, but seems to make an exagerated effort to stick her ass in my face. Drew had mentioned this same behavior with his experience as well, and also had noted that female monkeys do this as a mating thing. So this obviously gets my attention as it was meant to. So I draw some of that excess chi to my upper dan tien so I can get a read on this girl, even though it didn't require a rocket scientist to figure this one out. So apparently when I read her energy from my upper dan tien, the vibe I get is that she subconsciously is feeling my strong chi field radiating from my buzzing lower dan tien. Since she happened to be in heat at the moment, meaning as a female she had an excess of yin chi, and me being male had a lot of yang chi, her energy was leading her to seek balance even though her conscious understanding didn't realize this. So now that I understand what is going on, I now draw a significant amount of my excess yang chi in my lower dan tien, up my MCO to my upper dan tien and shoot it into her ... um... hind parts and into her dan tien on my exhale. I saw her shudder a bit, and look quite pleased, then on my inhale I drew her yin chi out of her and guided it into my lower dan tien which was also a pleasurable experience for me as well. After that the sexual tension that was in the air disapated, we both seemed to be in a state of balance, and then she went about her merry way. What is the point, I don't know? ok wait there is a point lol. The point is that yin and yang are always seeking balance, this is normal and natural. Yang needs Yin, and Yin needs Yang, and that is just the way it is, its part of the circle of life, so rather than fighting nature, why not just go with nature eh?

As modern physics teaches us the observer is NOT seperate from the experiment, as in the case of elections behaving as a particle or wave, depending on the perspective of the observer. In the same way the researchers on hormones and behavior might make the observations on what the hormones are doing, but they point of view might scew their conclusions on how and why they got that way. One big thing I have noticed is that as I continue to do all this cultivation that I am documenting on this thread that my out look on social situations is definately changing. I honestly care less about the things I used to fret about, yet at the same time find it easier to mingle in social situations, even though I care less lol, isn't life ironic?

Yup good point, that would also explain why when I get in those over excited states that I also tend to feel kind of confused.

Good question John. I used to also feel that way, but I've noticed that as I continue to practice and feel better adjusted, that those old views seem very unnatural, and now its easier to just enjoy it as part of life. Previously I had associated a lot of guilt with sex, which is easy to understand growing up in this Judeo-Chrisitan culture. In this mind set sex as seen as the polar opposite of spirituality. In getting rid of the guilt, now I can enjoy it as part of spirituality. :-)

Another observation I've had is concerning the control cycle of the organs and elements. In the case of the heart and lungs which is what I've been working on lately, since the heart is fire, and the lungs are metal, it is the hearts job to control the lung's metal. For example what I have found in my lungs is a lot of grief, sadness, loneliness, and low self esteem. As long as that is in there, and causing me problems the heart has a lot of work to do in controlling all that. Since the emotion of the heart is joy, and over joy (excitement) I've noticed it tends to try to really stir me up as a distraction from the sorrow of the lungs. So I begin to feel kind of sad? the heart says "no problem" and then I go off on a girl crazy tangent, or what ever. And its a sort of effective distraction on the surface level, because I forget all about my sorrow when that is going on. But due to all that sadness the heart is having to work over time to control the lungs, and gets a little carried away and bam now I have heart fire, which is where it goes from just chasing girls, to kind of turning into a horny dry hump your leg lap dog. So I work on my heart, calm it down, reduce the fire, and think all is well and the people did rejoice, only to have another flare up a month or two down the road. Then I begin to wonder if it will ever end as long as I focus only on the heart flaring up as an isolated event. Now that I have gotten down to working on the nitty gritty of the lungs, and have begun to realize just how much stuff there is for the heart to have to subdue, now it makes more sense. Of course this does not just go for the heart/lung relationship, but for any of the organs. Just in the same way that for someone who has a lot of stuffed grief might go through bouts of manic excitement, someone who has a lot of repressed anger (liver) might go through bouts of intense saddness (lungs) metal controls wood. Oh wait that sounds a lot like depression lol. Someone who worries a lot (spleen) might have temper flare ups (liver) wood controls earth, ect...

I've done somewhat of an experiment lately, and have only done 8 Brocades as far as forms go, and no other physical exersices. I have noticed that my muscle tone has actually improved, and my stamina has remained equal, I get sick less often, and don't feel sore, tired, and worn out like I did from regular excercise.

Hadn't posted anything for a while, because there has not really been anything new to report. I continue to work on my heart and lungs a lot. My general observation in doing so is that the lungs tend to relate more about how I feel about myself, and the heart has more to do with how I relate to others, but of course not saying that there isn't both aspects of this in both organs. These two organs and meridians seem to be taking more work than other organs, as I think I have had more issues relating to these organs than other ones. As far as the lungs go, its been quite unusual lately, as in the past I almost never cried, it was very rare. It was not as though I was trying not to, but it just didn't happen. But now lately that I have been working on the lungs I've been getting spontaneously weepy in the most random times and places. On Sunday I drove out to this little German town in the hill country that I love here, and was in this German restaurant, and at the hour all these coo coo clocks went off, and I burst into tears right in the middle of the restaurant, which if you knew me is something I NEVER do. At the same time though I've noticed that in general that the way I feel about myself is improving, and therefore the need for the approval of others seems to be slowly and gradually lessening. In regards to the heart, this one seems to be the most difficult organ I've ever worked on. It almost feels as though the heart does not want to be worked on, it feels very resistant, slow going, and there seems to be a LOT of junk in there, which is taking quite a bit of time to work on. Some of what I feel in the heart is the desire for excessive stimulation and excitement, shyness, slightly anti-social feelings, unusual thoughts, my "dark" side, the male part of me that tends to want to "pick up" most attractive girls that I see, desire, and all sorts of wild and wacky things. I've noticed as I keep working on my heart that I'm slowly beginning to get a little bit less excited at the things that would previously over stimulate me such as women, feeling a little more social, as opposed to kind of shy, quiet, and withdrawn. An interesting observation in regards to not getting quite as excited as I used to, or I guess as the Chinese would call it "over joy", it seems that most Americans don't even seem to realize that this is a problem to be avoided. When ever I get in converstaions with people about this, and I tell them that one of the problems of the heart is "over joy" "over excitement" "over stimulation" they kind of look at me with this confused look on their face that kind of says "but I thought that was a good thing" or "I thought that is what we were supposed to be going for". Yet these same people suffer from anxiety, depression, nervousness, mental disorders and so on. In this culture which is all about stimlulation to the extreme, we just don't seem to understand how except for the past few decades, the kind of stimulation we now have access to and experience daily was just not a part of life for most of human evolution. Our bodies are simply not wired to handel that kind of stimulation, and yet we wonder why there are so many mental problems today. Everyone seems to get that too much sorrow, worry, anger, or fear is bad, but when you tell them too much joy, excitement, or stimulation is bad, this they don't understand. Looking back though I think that if as a child growing up, and as a young adult that if I had not been exposed to so much stimluation, such as so much TV, movies, video games, parties, dating, trips, ect... (not saying that none of this is good, just the excess of it) and had not become used to being and expecting constant stimulation that I'm pretty sure that in the present I would not be having to deal with all the problems in my heart that I am dealing with now. It makes the Buddhist goal of quieting the mind make more and more sense lol.

Like yourself, then others might follow the trend

good insight Romie!! I'll say again what I posted on non's thread this morning, if the problem is that you feel bad about this topic, and if you feel what you feel on the inside (and you do) then the answer is not to focus your attention externally, but within on what causes you to feel bad about it in the first place.

Um I realize in the past I had offered some advice about tips to get chicks, but I do not think that is the real answer at all here. I think the real issue and thus the real solution is about HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF. Lets think about it for a second, how do you feel about women? frustrated, and where do you feel this? inside yourself. Why do you feel frustrated about women? because you don't think they are interested in you, and where do you feel this feeling of rejetion? again inside yourself. The same could be said about all the other emotions you feel about all the other topics that are somehow women related. So what is the answer? to keep chasing an external solution to an internal problem? No, the REAL solution is to change the way you feel about yourself, as it is within yourself that you feel these bad feelings. Think about it, if you felt good about yourself, then when you saw a woman you would project your self approval upon her, rather than your low self validation (which is what you are really feeling when you see a women now). So how do you do this? SOS "same old stuff" I've been saying, get the negative energy out, put the good energy in. There are many methods to do this, one of the ones I use (because it works for me) is that inner smile and healing sound method. Do you see a woman and feel inadequate? work on your lungs since they are realated to self esteem. Do you see a woman and feel timid? Then work on your liver as this relates to assertiveness. Do you see a woman and are unsure about how to approach her? Work on your heart as this relates to propriety in social interactions. Fear women? work on your kidneys. Fret about if they like you, what they think about you? work on your spleen, ect. The ironic thing is the more you do this the less you will care about what women think about you, the better you will think about yourself, and most ironic of all once you feel good about yourself, then others (including women) will be able to feel good about you too ;-).

Well I didn't exactely mean that you can never get to the point in this life time. What I did mean was that if you focus now on accepting yourself, loving yourself, valuing yourself, then after a few months, years, ect... you will naturally feel good about yourself, and when you feel good about yourself then that draws other people in to feel good about you too. I guess its like Wuji, doing with out doing. All the dating and relationship advice we get here in the west is usually outward focused and effort based. You are taught techniques to go out and find/get someone else. What this monk was saying I think was that the Taoist/Wuji way is to not focus on finding someone else, but rather to focus on finding yourself. Then once you have found yourself, others will just natrually be drawn to you with out you having to go out and get them. So I guess how this would translate to us guys is to now worry about how to pick up chicks, or why girls are this way or that way... no. The focus is to find out who we really are, to accept ourselves, and then just like air flows into our lungs when we breathe, the right people for relationships will flow into our lives naturally, with out trying so hard. p.s. I think this even is very syncranistic with my recent work on my heart and lungs. For the past almost week now I've really done no other form of Qigong other than the heart and lung inner smile/healing sounds. Its been a very eye opening experience.

I found this very interesting. This Taoist monk talks about relationships. What I found particuarly interesting was where he said the key is not to look outside yourself for the answer, but to develop yourself, and your own energy, and that will naturally attract the right person for you when your ready with out trying too hard. I must admit I have not been doing this lol, but it makes a lot of sense.

Ok well this info isn't about the Heart meridian per se, but its about the Lung meridian which the heart meridian keeps under control (fire dominates metal), and both of them run through the yin side of the arm. I worked on my lung meridian today because even though as I mentioned in my last post a lot of "junk" was in my heart meridian, a lot of "junk" was also in my lung meridian as well, and both the heart and lungs are in the middle dan tien/ upper burner area together. The lung meridian's positive attributes are good self esteem, boundries, righteousness, courage, ect.. While its negative aspects are saddness, sorrow, low self esteem, poor boundries, ect... And while its not the "heart" its also very relevant stuff. As I had mentioned in my other post, a big problem was odd thinking that I had found in the heart, but another problem was a poor self image, self esteem, self worth that I found in the lungs. Either issue is obviously a problem, and needs to be dealt with. So this time I did the lung inner smile and healing sound, and once again got rid of a lot of "junk" related to the issues that I just listed. While the heart may have had me think about interactions with others in a "disturbed" way, the lungs had me thinking of interactions with other people in a "I feel rotten" way. Either way a problem. Working on this meridian has shown me how this imbalance has played out in my daily life. For instance, when one does not have much self value, then one seeks value from an outside source often as a method of compensation. Often this form of self value compensation comes in the form of validation from another person. This is why one often sees people go from one relationship or fling to another constantly, because alone they feel no source of self validation, so they seek validation like a crack addict seeks another hit. In being perfectly honest with myself I realized that this has been a big part of my own motivation to meet women. I'm not saying that wanting to meet women means that you have low self validation, but it can be, at least to unnatural extremes. Often this can be varified by being devistated by rejection (validation taken away) and elation at being accepted (validation granted). Also the lungs have to do with personal boundries, so people that have a hard time saying "NO" to either others or themselves, also show a tendency towards lung meridian imbalance. If anyone had read about my experiences with my soon to be ex wife, it was pretty obvous that when I met her my personal boundries were not all that good. Probably the most well known aspect of the lungs is sorrow. Sorrow can come in many flavors and varieties. Grieving lost loved ones, the sorrow of being alone (lonliness/rejection) which goes back to poor self esteem, the sorrow of regret, which is the exact opposite of the positive lung virtue of righteouesness (feeling that you are a good person). So in addition to my work on the heart meridian, I've also been working a lot on the lung meridian this week as well, and the results have been encouraging. :-)

Some things you said are very insightful. You seemed to be aware of how fear led to hate. Fear is in the kidneys which are water. Water feeds wood, which is in the liver, which is where anger is. Your fear (kidneys) is feeding your anger (liver). I would suggest working on your kidneys and liver to get this type of negative energy out. Usually I use the inner smile/ and healing sounds for this, which I have fouond to be very effective for such situations.

Hey I realize this isn't exactely what you were getting at on this post, but the syncrinisoty of what I experienced yesterday was too uncanny for me to not comment. Yesterday I sat down for over an hour and did nothing else except the heart inner smile and healing sound. Why? because frankly I'm tired of experiencing the symptoms of a heart meridain imbalance. As I did the healing sound for the heart yesterday, I felt all this very bad energy that I can only simply describe as "disturbed, dirty, bad" come out. See I got tired of going through extreems of being very stimulated for a while, and not only "stimulated" but stimluated in a kind of odd way. It was as though I was wound up too high, and in addition my thinking became bizzare. Then I would crash and feel totally down, totally disinterested in pretty much everything, until the other extreme kicked in again. This to me actually sounds like bi-polar disorder :-/ , at least from the western perspective. From a TCM point of view though it would seem more like a heart/kidney imbalance, as the kidneys are deficient and can no longer keep the heart fire in check, which then blazes out of control (over joy) until its burnt out (lack of joy). What I think I am beginning to understand now, which I did not fully understand earlier is what the full meaning of the hearts function in the emotional/mental realm is. Most texts on TCM would state that the heart's emotion is "Joy" or at most they might say its negativce emotions is "Over Joy". I don't know about you, but to me the term "over joy" does not tell me much. To me the notion of being a little "wound up" or "giddy" does not convey to me the idea of disturbed mental process. But after further searching I found some sources that mentioned that the heart is center of sound mental and emotional being and that a disturbance in the heart can cause this aspect to become disturbed. So I sat down, and began to do the heart healing sound to see what that might do. I was very suprised as that is preciecly what I found in there, which was quite disconcerting, yet a relief at the same time. The only way I can describe what I felt come out of my heart was that it felt like my "dark side" or the evil side of us that we rarely want to face. I have worked on just about all my organs extensively and have never felt anything like that before. For the most part what I found in the other organs pretty much fit (more or less) with the standard descriptions of them. In my liver I always found anger, or some variant of it, in the kidneys fear, in the spleen worry, in the lungs sadness and sorrow, but up until now I never really connected in a similar fashion with the heart, I mean who wants to get rid of joy? lol. But yesterday when I really made an effort to find out what was in there regardless of what the books say, I was stunned! I did not find "joy" rather I found basically the most disturbing apsects of my nature, what I would be inclined to call the "bad" side of me. Yet I am hesitant to lable them as "bad" or "evil" because isn't that against the nature of the Tao? The effect that I felt afterwards was amazing, I felt so much better, very light, free, innocent, good. It almost felt like some people describe religious conversion experiences. Now I'm not saying that I'm all done, as I do plan to continue working on and with my heart, yet the progress I made in that one session was amazing and encourages me to continue. I just don't understand why just about every TCM description of the heart says its emotion is "joy" or negative emotion "over joy"? That does not seem to fit at all with what I found in my personal experience. But since I begin TCM school this week, I'm sure I will have an excellent opportunity to ask questions about this. Yes I am excited about going to TCM school lol :-). If anyone else has any insight into the heart meridian issue, I would be happy to hear it.

I used to try to hard to lessen my sex drive, UNTIL I realized that the reason I was trying to do so was because of GUILT. I had been made to think that sex was bad, dirty, sinful, shameful, ect... That was the real problem. Wanting sex is 100% natural, normal, and healthy!

I have associated the spleen with the solar plexus for the same reason as you due to its relation to digestion, and the fact that it like the liver lies at the level of the solar plexus. I have also noticed similarities with the spleen and the root chakra due to the earth element aspect. Its funny you mention the Fusion practice because I had been contemplating if perhaps that might be a good next step for me.

Ego That seems to be the latest shift in my chakra work. I have been working on both the sacral and solar plexus chakras at the same time, with just a shift in emphasis on one or the other. Working with the sacral chakra has seemed to help a lot with sex drive issues which has cleared things up enough for me to become aware of other issues such as ego. Ego is to be found largely in the solar plexus. As I have been shifting emphasis back to my solar plexus as ego issues seem to have come to the forefront rather than sexuality issues. As I work on the solar plexus ego stuff, I seem to be feeling it affecting my lungs and liver. I suppose this makes sense as the lungs have a lot to do with our self esteem, pride, or the lack thereof such as feeling sad, low self esteem ect. The self-esteem aspect of the solar plexus then is very much related to the lungs. Plus the lung meridian's internal path goes right through the solar plexus. The liver's virtue of kindness and generosity, and emotions of anger, competitivness, and control also are very related to the other aspects of the solar plexus and ego. A healthy ego is generous, while a weak ego get angry easily at percieved injustices and slights against it. The liver's position right in the solar plexus area is easy to understand in its relation to it. It seems that as I work more on the solar plexus I become more aware of how much ego plays a part in life, and how well it explains a lot of the stupid crap that we do.

If you have truely not stimulated yourself for as long as you say, then your testosterone levels are probably very low, which would exlain the lack of morning wood. Since testosterone belongs to essence, you would be doing yourself a service to stimulate yourself in order to increase the amount of testosterone essence/jing as being a male it is vital to your health.

You know thats very interesting, because when I lived in Alaska my dan tien felt lower down. Now that I'm in Texas it feels slightly higher... weird.

The inner smile is one of my most used practices, along with the healing sounds which I usually combine. Anyways there is a saying about doing the inner smile, which is "fake it till you make it" (thats what she said, lol sorry). Basically even if your not feeling it at all, you just keep that slight smile on your face, and keep smiling down to which ever organ your trying to make smile until you actually feel that organ begin to respond. *edit: this just occured to me. If she is having post-partum depression, then probably it would be most beneficial for her to smile to her liver, as a liver blood deficiency (which is common in women who just had babies) can lead to depression. The liver stores blood, and a lot of blood is lost in delievery. Adding the liver healing sound "shhh" would help as well. I'd also recommend some good liver cleansing herbs like Dandilion and Milk Thistle, as well as some good blood building herbs... http://www.livestrong.com/article/364777-medicinal-herbs-for-blood-building/

Ok I've been working on the sacral chakra for a few days now, and good god almighty what an adventure that has been. The solar plexus did raise my libdo, but not like this. This is insane, but I guess it makes sense too. So I guess the traditional explination of the sacral chakra hold legitimacy. The primary organ that this chakra has brought me to focus on, was predictably the kidneys. I've been doing lots of kidney inner smile/healing sounds and this has been bringing up lots of unhealthy and negative attitudes towards sex that were in there.

Now that I have some what improved my solar plexus (emphasis on somewhat) I am beginning to notice a shift in the focus of my desire. Prior to my solar plexus work it had primarily been an emphasis on the ego related issues of the solar plexus such as status, being attractive, "getting the girl", how I felt about myself, stuff like that. Now that this is a wee bit more balanced than it was I am now noticing a shift, just like when you finish scratching one itch, you become aware of another that had been there all along. I now am beginning to have a greater desire for the simple physical sensation. This leads me to believe that this issue is primarily a sacral chakra issue, as the sacral chakra has more to do with sensation, and pleasure. The primary reason I'd want to work on this is because now that I've worked on my solar plexus women are definately more responsive, but I do not want the strong desire for physical pleasure to cloud my better judgment about who I choose to be with (I don't want to be with someone who would be bad for me just because they put out). Connected with the sacral chakra I believe are the kidneys, as both the sacral chakra and kidney's elements are water, both are related to sexuality, and if not in balance both can result in excessive desire for physical sensation. In regards to the kidneys if one has yin deficiency then they develop an empty heat condition that causes their kidneys to become too yang, thus causing their desire to be very strong. I want to state that I don't find anything wrong with desire in and of itself, but if it is so strong that it clouds better judgment, than this can certainly be a problem. One thing I have learned from working with the lower chakras is that they all seem to be related to sexuality in some form, and this has shown me that sexuality is multi-layered and much more complex than I used to think. So for now I'll beging to work on my sacral chakra and bore everyone to death with the results of that.

Just a few more insights into the whole solar plexus-liver-ect.. As I stated I've noticed consistently that everytime I do the "hold the ball" posture at the level of the solar plexus that my sex drive becomes extremely high. I know that the liver lies with in the energy field of the solar plexus, and that the liver meridian is the meridian that runs through the genitals. So I add energy to the solar plexus, which in turn increases the amount of energy running through the liver meridian. The liver meridian runs through the genitals which therefore adds energy to this region, and then my libido goes through the roof. This led me to sort out the role of the kidneys in the sex drive as everything I've read states that they play a role too. Everything I've read also states that the kidneys never have an excess condition. This leads me to believe that you don't get an excess of kidney energy which leads to a high libido. Also I believe the kidneys play a different role in the sex drive than the liver. To me it seems that the kidneys are in charage of producing the fluids, and making sure everything down there works properly, while the liver is more related to the drive and desire aspect of it. In regards to the heart/shen issues, I think I have reached an understanding of this too. The liver's wood, feeds the heart's fire. If the energy level of the liver is increased, suddenly you have more wood stoking the fire of the heart, causing "heart fire" symptoms. As far as the liver's own attirbutes, it feels to me that a healthy liver is kind of like the notorious "alpha male".. very confident, generous, ect.. while a weak liver is the opposite of the alpha male, desperate, bitter, timid ect.. Of course these are also attributes of the solar plexus chakra as well, which shows how the liver and solar plexus are very closely related. In regards to my practice and working on this area, all I can say is that its been quite difficult, yet pretty important. I'm using the inner smile and healing sounds for the liver to get rid of all these negative attributes like desperation, depression, non-assertiveness, and to replace them with confidence, assertiveness, and generosity.