Welcome to the official podcast of the Grammy-nominated record label Metta Mindfulness Music,
Where we discuss how the ancient wisdom and neuroscience of our sound healing music can improve your health,
Well-being,
And transform your life into an inspired,
Positive experience.
I'm your host,
Pete Serdan,
And this week we are continuing our series on our album Six Healing Sounds,
Discussing the wood element from the traditional East Asian medicine practice of qigong.
You are currently listening to our music track titled Wood from the Six Healing Sounds album by Yuval Ron,
Which was composed in the key of E,
Utilizing the same tonal assignment as the healing sound of wood from ancient East Asian wisdom traditions.
Activating the wood element is tied to the health of the liver,
Reducing symptoms of indigestion,
Headaches,
Depression,
Anxiety,
And relieving anger.
Hua Qing Ni,
Grandmaster of Ancient Taoist Tradition,
Describes each of the six healing sounds as having a psychic influence on its corresponding organ sphere,
Which prompts the expulsion of impurities from the sphere and its manifestations,
And the gathering of fresh energy into each system.
Now we will listen to an excerpt from a seminar given by the president and executive producer of Metta Mindfulness Music,
Dr.
Richard Gold,
Where he discusses the wood element,
Its impact on the liver,
And a demonstration of breathing and stretching exercises you can practice,
Pressure point openings,
As well as dietary habits and herbal remedies to support your liver health and manage unwanted emotions.
The one thing I'm going to introduce and we're going to practice together is the six healing sounds.
And this first concept was written for between 420 and 589 AD.
So this is quite an old tradition.
It's not as old as the Yellow Emperors,
But it's quite an old tradition,
Has had a historical development through the centuries.
Originally,
The six healing sounds was just a vocalization of sounds which vibrated and that sound vibration had efficacy on the organs and brought the organs back into balance.
Later on,
Between 1368 and 1644,
Movement or qigong was added to this breathing exercises,
And this enhanced the efficacy of both.
And what we know now in modern research is the more activities or more of our senses or this kinesthetic,
Auditory,
Visual,
Olfactory taste,
The more of our senses that we involve in an activity,
The more dynamic it is to bring benefit to us.
And this is what we see with the six healing sounds.
So I'm going to start with wood,
The liver.
So what I'd like to invite you to do as I share these few thoughts,
And I'll show you this exercise,
Is let's put our hands,
It's under the right breast area,
And send some love to your liver.
Our livers work really hard for us.
So we're going to send some love to the liver.
Now each of the five main elements is assigned a tone or a key.
The liver,
The tone of E,
The key of E is the vibrational energy of sound,
Which is beneficial for harmonizing and stimulating the liver energy.
And as we do this short exercise,
We're going to consider to breathe in kindness,
Generosity,
Forgiveness,
Self-expansion,
And identity.
And we're going to breathe out anger,
Aggression,
And depression.
We can affirm that you are kind,
You are benevolent,
And you are authentic.
So we're just going to send some love to our liver.
Now what we're going to do,
We could do seated,
Or if you want to stand,
You can stand.
Follow along or just listen.
What we're going to do is we're going to bring our arms up,
And we're going to interlock the fingers.
We're going to rotate the palms so they're out,
And we're going to side lateral stretch to the left.
And this opens up this whole area where the anatomical liver actually lies.
We do all that with an inhale.
And as we come back to vertical,
With our exhale,
We make this healing sound.
And we float our arms down.
We'll do that once again together.
Breath in,
Coming up,
Interlock,
Rotate,
And stretch out,
Side lateral stretch.
And as we exhale.
Good.
So the liver influences our ability to see the big picture in life.
It helps us have a sense of direction in life.
And it influences our creativity,
Our vision,
Both physical vision,
Because the orifice is the eyes,
And our inspiration.
People with good strong livers are good decision makers and great planners.
They have clear vision and goals.
And even in situations when anger is an appropriate emotion,
We're able to moderate the anger and moderate the frustration and be able to steer the energy in more positive ways.
And this is one reason we want to have an open and fluid energy of our liver so we don't get stuck.
Now,
When the liver becomes excessive and stagnant,
Which is sadly very common,
We have the potential for rage,
Fury,
And anger,
And depression.
And one of the things we learned in the Chinese medical model,
East Asian medical model,
Is that unexpressed anger can turn into depression.
What happens here often is we have anger and we use all of our,
So much of our vital force to contain the anger because it doesn't seem appropriate to express anger for whatever reasons.
And as we're using all of our vital force that we can be used for creativity to hold in our anger,
The sense of depression becomes pervasive.
Now,
Physiologically,
We say the liver controls the smooth and even flow of the blood and cheek of our entire being.
It has a regulatory effect on all the emotions that are correlated to the other main elements of the body.
It promotes digestion and absorption,
Opens into the eyes,
And helps with clarity of vision,
Both metaphorically and practically.
Now,
A very important point I want to teach you about the liver is the point liver three.
It's on our foot.
It has the name of great surge or great rushing.
This is a very important point on this channel because of the wide range of actions and indications.
It's considered one of the four gates points that we use clinically.
It's used in many,
Many treatments.
Physical things it's used for is very calming.
It helps with irritability and insomnia.
It's very important for headaches,
Especially there's an internal pathway of the liver,
Which comes to the crown,
The apex of the head or the crown chakra area from the Indian point of view.
And while we use liver three,
It actually helps pull that energy down from the head.
It's very,
Very valuable for that.
It's good for nausea and vomiting,
Both constipation and diarrhea,
Which are both disharmonies of the large intestine.
And it's a very valuable point for women's issues of dysmenorrhea,
Loss of period,
Which is amenorrhea,
PMS,
And breast tenderness.
Here's where it's located.
If you come off the ridge of your foot between the big toe and the second toe,
And you slide into a little depression there and give a little pressure,
You're going to feel liver three.
It's now,
If it's tender,
It's tender pretty much on everybody.
So don't be overly concerned,
But it's going to be tender and moderate pressure here,
Or just even gently holding it.
And with breathing,
You can change the physiology and the energetics of the liver channel,
And you can affect a wide range of issues.
Now,
Notice I'm not using the word cure,
But we're working to bring the body-mind back into harmony.
A second point I'd like to share with you on the liver is the point liver 14,
Which is really a point about hope.
It's a point for positivity,
Possibility,
And perspective.
This point is going to be located on both liver threes.
We have bilateral points.
It's on the left and the right side.
Like with liver 14,
It's going to be in the intercostal between the ribs here,
The sixth rib here,
Right below the breast area.
And this is a point that's strongly used for depression and distension and pain,
Hiccups and reflux.
And on the level of spirit or spirituality,
When you're feeling utterly hopeless,
Frustrated,
Or stuck in cynicism and negativity,
We want to open this gate of hope.
Here we see the location of it.
It's in the sixth intercostal space directly below the nipple.
This is a point that's very,
Very good to work with acupressure,
But also cupping.
Cupping is,
I didn't even mention it,
It's a very important historic treatment we use in East Asian medicine.
It's become one of the hottest things in the Western world now.
We see cupping on Olympic athletes.
This last week,
The famous actor The Rock was posting pictures of getting cupping for the first time.
Cupping has definitely become mainstream.
And this,
In fact,
The whole liver area is very amenable to cupping because it helps break up blood stagnation,
Blood and energy stagnation.
So that's liver 14.
I've mentioned how important diet and food are.
These are some foods that we say can benefit the liver.
Again,
These are no curative things,
But these are things that tend towards benefit.
I think it's an important thing to understand.
In fact,
The word cure is somewhat misused,
I believe,
In the West,
Because we think if we remove an organ,
We've cured it.
That's not really so.
And we see commercials that say,
Take Tylenol,
It'll cure your headache.
But if the headache comes back tomorrow,
What have we cured?
We've alleviated the symptom,
But we haven't attacked the cause or even affected the cause.
We've created just a temporary change.
So these are foods that are going to be a benefit,
Such as grapefruit.
A lot of people recommend lemon juice and warm water first thing in the morning.
It's invigorating,
Helps things move.
Always remember to rinse your mouth after drinking lemon juice to protect the enamel of your teeth.
Blueberries and cranberries and grapes.
The prickly pear of cactus.
Beets or steamed beets,
Roasted beets,
Beet juice are well known for blood tonics and affecting the liver.
The cabbage family,
The cruciferous vegetables,
Cabbage,
Arugula,
Brussel sprouts,
Broccoli,
Cauliflower.
These are all very good.
True nuts,
Green tea,
Olive oil,
And the fatty fish that have the omegas are going to be very,
Very helpful.
Thinking in terms of herbal remedies,
I want to share a very important herbal remedy,
Which is shaoyao wan.
It translates as free and easy wanderer.
This is a form that's been used for centuries.
It works by clearing liver stagnation.
This is a very common formula.
It's used for a variety of things,
Used for menstrual issues,
Emotional issues,
Digestive issues.
It's one of the great formulas that we use in clinic.
I'm not recommending you prescribe these for yourself.
I'm not prescribing for you.
We're not treating disease or illness here.
Just giving you a knowledge to work with,
Or if you see a practitioner,
You'll have a greater understanding.
