If you keep asking yourself the question, How can I let go of the past? you’re not present to life. Getting yourself grounded in physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance is when you’re more able to let go of the past. It’s because you’re living rooted in the now.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) teaches you how to live fully in the now by connecting with your soul. You let your soul—the spirit of TCM’s Metal element called P’o guide you into this serene state of being.
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The word P’o literally means soul.
We write the word P’o with an apostrophe between the P and the o to signal pronunciation. Make a breathy puff of air just after the P and before the long ō.
Every time you ask yourself, How can I let go of the past?understand P’o is ruler of your body. When you live in synchrony with this P’o ruler of your body, you have dominion over your life and emotions.
You’re in charge and not plagued revisiting energy wasting memories of the past.
The Chinese use the term P’o li to describe people in charge of their beings— deeply, fully and presently involved in an activity. They’re rooted, ‘with it,’ excited, maybe even extra-animated. Active with life, the thought of the question, How can I let go of the past? usually doesn’t even enter their minds.
Understand the mechanics of P’o so when you ask, How can I let go of the past? you have your immediate answer.
Both TCM and Taoism believe humans have two souls or aspects of souls.
They believe every living person has both a yin and yang aspect to the soul. And each soul aspect has a name.
As complement to yin P’o, we have yang Hun. Hun is the spiritual ethereal yang soul that leaves the body after death.
This soul aspect is the spirit of the Wood element's organ of Liver. The Chinese gave the name Cloud Spirit to ethereal Hun and formless consciousness.
TCM tells us actual substance composes P’o and it remains with the body after death. The ancient Chinese appropriately gave the name White Spirit to the corporeal soul and tangible consciousness‚ P’o.
Like breath, yin is inward drawing, quiet, softly flowing, and gentle.
“The Spiritual resource is P’o, translated as the animal-soul, which enters our being with the first breath from heaven.”— Gary Dolowich, MD in Archetypal Acupuncture: Healing with the Five Elements
How can I let go of the past, you ask? Start with the breath.
The P’o spirit of Lung is closely linked to the breath. Both P’o and Lung work in harmony to keep us grounded here now through the breath. Once you get grounded in the here now, you’re better able to let go of the past. You are free.
P’o encourages us to draw breath in and inward—deeply, fully and consciously.
TCM considers breath the pulsation of the P’o spirit of Lung. And breath is vitally important to not just healthy body but healthy P’o.
Good breathing roots your soul P’o into the body. Present breathing animates and grounds you in the here and now.
When you develop strong Lungs you create good breathing.
When P’o spirit and Lung are strong and in balance, you’re able to feel bodily sensations. P’o and Lung help you register physical sensations from what you feel, see and hear.
Weak Lung and P’o causes shallow breathing. You’re much less aware of bodily sensations. You feel distanced or cut off from others because you can’t feel.
Lung is very much associated with our innate survival response. P’o guides our instinctive reactions.
For example, when you instinctively reach out your hand in order to catch a falling leaf, your instinctive reaction is your P’o spirit in action.
If your Lung capacity and consequent P’o spirit of Lung are weak, you’re out-of-balance in Metal. You’ll experience disorder in your instinctual drive. With a diminishing instinct for self-preservation you start to feel vulnerable and useless.
The converse of How can I let go of the past? is How can I be less fearful of the future? Weak P’o leads many to obsess and grieve over a future that hasn’t even arrived. It also reduces the ability to bounce back from stress.
Grief is the emotion of TCM’s Metal element. The P’o spirit of Lung gives us the ability to accept the inevitable losses we experience in life as we grieve them. It also gives us strength to let go of what no longer serves us.
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P’o inspires us to breathe deeply and fully and live life to the fullest.
An aware connection to our P’o spirit of Lung support you to participate stop asking the nagging question, How can I let go of the past? and start living rooted in the here and now.
The constant question, How can I let go of the past? means you may not be allowing your P’o Spirit of Lung to bring you to spiritual balance.
The P’o spirit of Lung can help you strike balance between your spiritual life and material desires. Let the breath of Lung and the still small voice of your P’o soul guide you into balanced spirituality.
Spiritual balance means you have balance in all aspects of your life: emotional, mental and physical as well as spiritual.
Most Metal Types—people primarily dominated by Metal’s aspects—relatively naturally achieve spiritual balance.
But anyone who completely shuns the material world to become a full-time spiritual seeker often develops P’o imbalance.
Such people need to fill a gap they feel within. They wander from guru to guru and seminar to seminar looking to fill that sense of emptiness. They often are never able to find the deep inner spiritual connection they seek.
“Metal is very much associated with clear awareness and P’o is intricately involved in the understanding of the impermanence of the form/physical but is death within life and relates to the calmest of all aspects of being.”—David Nassim in The Nature of Classical Chinese Medicine
Support P’o spirit of Lung with physical and mental exercise. These will also help you let go of the past.
Exercise helps us maintain a balanced Metal energy and Lung chi balance.
If you’re a Metal Type or if today’s date falls between August 7 and October 20 inclusive (TCM’s energetic Fall and Metal season):
Exercise outdoors to help you contact the heavenly chi through the breath.
Metal Types often crave being outdoors for this very reason whether they realize it or not.
Exercise for Lung chi balance doesn’t have to be strenuous.
Walk briskly outdoors. That’s adequate. Many Metal Types find stepping outside an antidote to the frequent mental and physical staleness they feel.
Charles A. Moss, MD,(1) offers the following breathing technique to strengthen Lung spirit of P’o:
“… inhale thinking of the Chinese word P’o, which represents the positive qualities of Metal, and exhale [thinking] one of the following words:
inspiration, acceptance, value, respect, appreciation, endurance, resilience or letting go.
The qualities embodied by these words are key aspects of the healthy Metal Adaptation Type. Repetition of the concepts can reinforce their strength within Metal Types. If other thoughts intrude as [you] do this exercise, simply observe them and bring [your] attention back to the breath and the word repetition. Alternate these words while exhaling and inhale P’o each time.”
P’o encourages all of us to be dependable, conscientious, respectful, virtuous and spiritual balanced. These often come easier to the Metal Type.
Whether you’re a Metal Type or not, you can tap into the energetic gifts of the element.
These energetic gifts will assist your P’o to guide you into a more present moment happy and good life. The perennial question, How can I let go of the past? will become a distant memory.
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Endnotes:
(1) Author of Power of the Five Elements: The Chinese Medicine Path to Healthy Aging and Stress Resistance. United States, North Atlantic Books, 2011.
Sources:
Hicks, Angela, et al. Five Element Constitutional Acupuncture. United Kingdom, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2010.
Moss, Charles A. Power of the Five Elements: The Chinese Medicine Path to Healthy Aging and Stress Resistance. United States, North Atlantic Books, 2011.
Nassim, David. The Nature of Classical Chinese Medicine (Book 1 of 2). N.p., HI Publishing, 2013.
Clogstoun-Willmott, Jonathan. Western Astrology and Chinese Medicine. United States, Inner Traditions/Bear, 1985.
Dolowich, Gary. Archetypal Acupuncture: Healing with the Five Elements. United States, North Atlantic Books, 2011.
Jarmey, Chris. The Foundations of Shiatsu. United Kingdom, Lotus Pub., 2007.