The Fall energetic season, season of the Metal element, begins August 7 and ends October 20 according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Here’s how you can achieve Autumn wellness with lifestyle practices sure to balance and uplift you.
As the wheel of the seasons turns to Fall, the days shorten, the earth cools, and the expanded energy of summer begins to consolidate. – Nishanga Bliss in Real Food All Year: Eating Seasonal Whole Foods for Optimal Health & All-Day Energy.
Best lifestyle practices create Autumn wellness.
No matter the season always take your cues from nature. TCM’s Five Element Theory provides a framework of seasons and elements to help you learn to live in harmony with the natural cycles of life.
Each of the five seasons associates to an element. You will most probably find your own PHYTO5 skincare line from one of the five elements.
Autumn wellness begins at the level of emotion. And the degree of Autumn wellness you enjoy shows up in your skin.
If your skin, for example, looks and feels dull and congested presenting fine lines and the start of loss of elasticity, the Fall quantum energetic Metal line will help you bring those symptoms into greater balance.
It will also help you balance emotion since all the five element lines are quantum energetic. Lesson worry, grief and regret and gain a sense that all is well.
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Align with the season’s Metal element for Autumn wellness.
Understand the attributes of the Metal element and you can reflect them in your lifestyle practices.
Metal energy is consolidating with an inward movement much like a flower closing its petals.
Focus on being one with nature. With Autumn ushering in a more inward yin energy, it’s time to start closing your petals for awhile. Autumn wellness comes from your beginning to slow down at this time of year.
We mine Metal from ores in the Earth’s crust—the thick outer shelf of rock. Metal’s motion is determined, forceful, strong, unyielding, self-reliant, reserved and sophisticated.
Every element in the Five Element Theory associates to organs of the body. For Metal, the yin organ is Lung. Through the lungs we not only regenerate ourselves from the prana in the air we breathe, we also eliminate carbonic gas produced by cell metabolism.
Your respiratory system and nose are key during energetic Fall. Consciously breathe in the heavenly qi (also known as chi or prana). A good exercise for Autumn wellness is the six breaths a minute exercise you will find here.
Metal associates to the yang energy large intestine—organ of elimination.
Understand that elimination and cleansing are both physical and psychological activities. And they’re important lifestyle practices for achieving Autumn wellness.
Worry, grief, and regret relate to energetic Fall and Metal.
Bringing balance to these emotions means you develop courage. You arrive at a sense that all is well.
Sadness and discontentment prevail for people who are out-of-balance with their emotions in the Fall. If you’re feeling sad or stuck, remember the Law of Impermanence. This too shall pass. For emotional Autumn wellness allow yourself to weep when you feel to. But also summon the courage to face what's ahead.
Metal represents the Westward direction—the direction of dreams and visions. In Taoist mythology, the White Tiger guards the West. White Tiger stands for righteousness, independence and determination.
For your Autumn wellness stand facing West and consciously honor the Westness of Autumn and your own morality and independence. Imagine your loftiest goals. Intend before you go to bed at night that you receive messages from your subconscious by remembering your dreams.
Various colors represent TCM’s seasons and elements.(1) Energetic Falls colors are yang steel blue and yin white or silver.
As you amplify your inner journeying during this appropriate season for introspection, light yin energy white candles. This Autumn wellness lifestyle practice counters the growing darkness of the season.
As we let go of the previous season of Earth, symbol of harvest, embrace the letting go attribute of Metal.
Practice letting go in all things. Lung and the breath will help you with this. But for more ideas, visit our blog on this topic of letting go in Autumn here. For serene Autumn wellness, allow Metal’s energies assist you to release old resentments or hurts and begin anew.
The cooler weather of energetic Fall almost forces us to slow down, retreat and enjoy life in a whole other way.
For your Autumn wellness prepare yourself for the even deeper introspective dive you’ll be taking once Winter comes. Bring negative and destructive habits to a minimum. They could be uncomfortably intrusive during both Fall’s and Winter’s times of withdrawing and hibernation.
In keeping with Metal’s inward drawing yin energy:
Meditate or pray. Autumn’s the time of year when spiritual vision will come easier to you. Take advantage of these energies for your spiritual Autumn wellness.
You consumed lots of fun food during energetic Summer. Metal and Fall support internal cleansing.
Eliminate impurities from your body and skin. Consume more plant-based foods and less animal products. This will encourage impurity elimination.
Sour foods and energetic Fall go hand in hand for dietary Autumn wellness:
Sour foods like lemon, plum, pear, and mango work to obstruct bodily functions, which makes them helpful in alleviating diarrhea, excessive perspiration, and hemorrhoids, among other conditions. Sour foods are most active in the liver, where they counteract the effects of rich, greasy food. Sour foods are related to the Fall season. —Rosa Ross and Suzanne LeVert in Chinese Healing Foods
Start eating root vegetables. They increase Autumn wellness.
Your diet should be dictated by the rhythms of the external world. Food gains power to maintain health from its relationship to the external world... Root vegetables such as burdock and turnips have downward-moving energy so give in to the natural desire to eat them in the Fall. — Misha Ruth Cohen in The New Chinese Medicine Handbook: An Innovative Guide to Integrating Eastern Wisdom with Western Practice for Modern Healing
Metal signals a time when you have to start being more vigilant with hyration. The Westward winds and lower humidity dry the skin.
Help your body rehydrate for Autumn wellness. Dink lots of pure water and eat juicy high water content produce. The produce of Winter will have lower water content. So take advantage of more watery produce in the Fall.
The crispness of Metal and Fall have arrived.
Breathe in and appreciate the new scents of nature and the season. Note the subtle or remarkable changes in the quality of the air you breathe.
Skin needs Autumn wellness too.
PHYTO5 offers a complete quantum energetic skincare line for each season and element that not only works at the level of skin but emotion and vital energy too.
Spring • Wood (green and blue green): Clarify oily skin, lighten spots and stimulate blood flow and vital energy for a matte finish. Develop emotions of kindness and self-confidence.
Summer • Fire (red and purple): Soothe irritated sensitive skin, reduce excess redness, cool and calm skin. Regain a sense of joy-in-balance.
In-between seasons • Earth (warm yellow and ochre; there are four of these 18-day periods in the year): Detoxify impurities, balance blemishes and acne, reduce enlarged pores. Feel more free to express yourself creatively. Finish unfinished projects.
Autumn • Metal (blue and white or silver): Eliminate impurities, decongest and brighten dull skin, plump fine lines. Have a sense that all is well.
Winter • Water (violet and blue-black): Super-hydrate mature very dry skin, increase elasticity and balance moisture retention. Gain a sense of zenitude.
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Sources:
Bliss, Nishanga. Real Food All Year: Eating Seasonal Whole Foods for Optimal Health & All-Day Energy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2012. Print.
Ross, Rosa and Suzanne LeVert. Chinese Healing Foods. New York: Pocket, 1998. Print.
Cohen, Misha Ruth. The New Chinese Medicine Handbook: An Innovative Guide to Integrating Eastern Wisdom with Western Practice for Modern Healing. Fair Winds Press, 2015. Print.
Photo courtesty of Lolame at Pixabay