winter & water
In my last blog, I introduced the Five Element Theory from Alaine Duncan’s work The Tao of Trauma. Alaine’s theory interfaces the Five Elements and the Five Seasons of the Chinese agricultural calendar with self-protective responses found in animal predator-prey relationships described in western neuroscience. You can read about the first Season, Element and self-protective response here.
As we move closer to the solstice and the second phase of the cycle, we can use Five Element Theory get curious about our body’s relationship to Winter and Water.
This cycle can help us understand and normalize trauma symptoms as part of life, determine where in the threat response cycle we’re getting stuck, and guide us toward resources that help us regain our sense of self and safety.
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During the winter, nature rests, animals hibernate, and we too want to sleep more. Within life’s dance of expansion and contraction, we contract socially and energetically. Winter leaves room for more internal contemplation, and wisdom grows in the depth of its quiet stillness.
Stillness, contemplation, and rest require enough safety to trust the vulnerability of turning inward. When disrupted by a sense of life threat, our quietude and rest is transformed into its opposite— consuming fear.
Fear is the emotion associated with the Water Element. Water is life, and in Acupuncture and Asian Medicine (AAM), it is also the signaling center for threat. Water can be as powerful as a tsunami and as still as a frozen lake. It is soft, yet it can chisel valleys through mountains with its persistence and consistency. Without a container, it has no shape and consumes everything in its path.
This winter season can be an invitation to get curious about capacity to sense and trust our body’s signals. How do you know when you’re safe? Unsafe? Is it possible to notice a felt sense of safety in your body? What does safety feel like on the inside? Can you trust it or do you have some side eye? Who or what in your environment helps you find more ease? Can you sense your boundaries, where you and others begin and end?
According to AAM, the archetypal questions for this Season and Element are:
Do I have enough crops stored away? Do I have enough fuel? Can I survive this cold winter?
When winter and water are balanced, we can attune to both safety and danger, and trust our wisdom to know the difference. To me, wisdom feels a lot like trust. Not trust that everything will always be ok, but trust that my fear won’t flood me, and can instead flow like a river into action. I don’t always feel like that, but I’m learning to build more safety around fear. I imagine safety like a wide riverbed, with lots of plants and rocks that hold me steady and prevent erosion. I imagine expanding my sense of self to include the people, animals and landscapes that support me. I’m learning to reach out when I’m afraid.
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Winter and Water Practice (about 1-3 minutes):
Begin letting your eyes, neck and head move around and orient to your environment. What tells you you’re safe, just in this moment? Can your eyes find something to rest on that feels supportive, like a plant, the view out a window, a picture, small token etc? What happens on the inside as you orient to a resource?
Can you let your shoulder blades settle onto your ribcage? Can you let your big joints do one percent less and let gravity do one percent more, even for one breath cycle? For me, finding more ease feels like a horizontal spreading in my body, a solid and steady settling back and down. If you tense back up, can you find a rhythm between bracing and ease? Trauma can impact our ability to find safety in ease and stillness, so it’s ok if you need to oscillate between the two feelings for a few seconds at a time. Even staying with the feeling for one breath cycle is enough.
Yours truly (and happy solstice),
Katie
art by Kaylynn Kim