There are countless theories about what it means to be healthy. The one right diet. The one method that will finally change everything. The one piece of the puzzle we are working on right now. We try so many things, with a lot of hope and often a lot of discipline. And when it still doesn’t help, at some point we give up again.
What if we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture?
From the perspective of Chinese medicine, every organ is more than its function.
Each one needs something different: in your diet, in your life, in the attention you give it.
A new question moves into focus. Instead of searching for the one right solution, we ask: What do you really need?
It doesn’t take a strict diet. It takes your willingness to listen to your body, to understand it and to give it what it needs.
What Your Organs Need in Life
In Chinese medicine there are five major organs: the Liver, Heart, Spleen, Lungs and Kidneys. Each of them works closely with a partner, belongs to one of the five elements and to a season. And each has an emotion it is especially close to.
When we understand what an organ stands for, we often understand ourselves a little better too: why some things come so easily to us and others are so hard, why the body keeps speaking up in the same place. Perhaps you will recognise yourself in one of the organs. Perhaps in several.
The Liver
Element Wood · Spring · Partner: Gallbladder · Emotion: Anger
The Liver keeps everything flowing: your energy, your blood and your emotions. It is the planner within you, the part that sees the way ahead and gives you direction. Together with its partner, the Gallbladder, it helps you make decisions and take the first step.
Today your Liver faces two challenges at once.
On the one hand, achievement is celebrated and rewarded. So it speeds up, wants to grow bigger, faster and stronger, wears itself out and loses its own direction along the way.
On the other hand, this leaves little room for its true vision. What if it doesn’t want to fit in? What if it wants to choose a different life, one off the beaten track?
This is exactly where the real strength of the Liver can blossom: rebelling, questioning, being creative and thinking in new ways. Shaping its own vision and planning, step by step, how to live it.
The Heart
Element Fire · Summer · Companions: Small Intestine, Pericardium, Triple Burner · Emotion: Joy
The Heart is home to your spirit, the Shen. It stands for awareness, warmth and connection, with yourself and with other people. When the Heart is calm, you sleep well and feel at home in yourself.
Your Heart wants to be protected. In Chinese medicine it has three guardians for this: the Small Intestine, which sorts out what is good for you and what isn’t. The Pericardium, which wraps around the Heart. And the Triple Burner, which mediates between inside and outside. Yet often the door stands wide open. Every message, every mood, every sorrow of others goes straight to the Heart, until it can no longer find rest. Or the door slams shut, for protection, and it becomes quiet and lonely inside. The strength of the Heart lies in between: open enough for joy and closeness, and protected enough not to take everything to heart.
The Spleen
Element Earth · Late summer and the transitions between seasons · Partner: Stomach · Emotion: Overthinking
The Spleen is your centre. It transforms what you eat into energy and blood. And it also processes thoughts and experiences. What you learn becomes part of you through the Spleen.
Your Spleen’s task is to nourish, both you and the people around you. It wants to take in, digest and transform, so that food becomes strength and experience becomes knowledge. And sometimes it carries too much. Other people’s worries become your own. Meals are eaten on the side. Thoughts go round in circles until nothing more can be digested, neither on the plate nor in the mind. And what you have learned stays where it is, unlived.
The Lungs
Element Metal · Autumn · Partner: Large Intestine · Emotion: Grief
With every breath, the Lungs take in what you need and let go of what you no longer need. They form the boundary between you and the world, through the skin, the mucous membranes and your defences. Everything to do with taking in and letting go belongs to them, in the figurative sense too.
Your Lungs’ task is to let go, and sometimes that is exactly what they find so hard. They want to grieve, to release, to make space so they can breathe freely again. And sometimes they get caught up in it. Letting go is postponed to another day. Tears are swallowed. The darkness is avoided, and so the gold within it stays hidden.
The Kidneys
Element Water · Winter · Partner: Bladder · Emotion: Fear
The Kidneys are your roots. They hold your essence, the core strength you started life with. They carry you through growth and the phases of life, strengthen your bones and back and give you the stamina for long journeys.
Your Kidneys’ task is to carry you through your whole life. Their essence is used up naturally along the way, year after year. But when our Spleen can’t take in nourishment and our Liver squanders our resources, we live off the Kidneys’ reserves, beyond our limits. When the Kidneys grow weak, fear arrives: of the dark, of what lies ahead, of life itself. The need for safety grows, and at some point you feel drained, empty, exhausted to the bone. And yet the Kidneys hold a deep strength. It shows itself in stillness, in retreat and in the trust that life will carry you.
One Step at a Time
Perhaps you discovered yourself in one of the organs. Perhaps in several, or in all of them. That is completely normal. The organs need each other, and when one falls out of balance, the others feel it too.
There is no need to feel overwhelmed. It isn’t about doing as much as possible, but about doing the right thing. One thing at a time.
Recognising yourself is the first step.
From there, you can gradually discover what each organ stands for, which patterns it can show and what those patterns really need in everyday life. And you can explore where each element shows up in your life: whether it takes up a lot of space and gets stuck, or barely gets any room at all.
You don't need to know all of this at once. It unfolds little by little, month by month.
At first glance, the bigger picture can seem complex. Step by step, it becomes clear. And with every step you bring into your everyday life, knowledge turns into something you live. You don’t have to turn your life upside down to do it.
A Year with Chinese Medicine
This is exactly how the DaoSense Membership is built. Each month we focus on an organ or an element, alternating between the two. You learn what it stands for, recognise its patterns in yourself and discover what it needs in everyday life. One topic at a time, at your own pace. No prior knowledge needed.
Every month in the membership follows a steady rhythm and helps you bring knowledge into your everyday life on several levels:
On the 1st your workbook arrives. It combines theory with reflection and guides you through every week of the month with small exercises.
On the 8th comes a short Qi Gong practice with Eileen Murray, tailored to the organ or element of the month. A few minutes a day in which you give the topic space in your body too and feel your energy begin to flow again.
On the 15th an in-depth article takes you one step further into the topic.
On the 22nd there is Sound Healing with Nanjing Deng, matched to the month’s theme. Sounds that help you settle and arrive fully in yourself.
Every Sunday you receive a small impulse to take with you into the week.
You get guidance and a clear thread, and the months build on one another. You never have to catch up, and you don’t have to manage everything every month. You can join at any time, and everything you receive is yours to keep, even if you cancel one day.
With every month you grow more confident. You start to see connections that were hidden before, and you see your body with new eyes.
The journey through the year with Chinese medicine: $140 for a year or $14 a month.
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