Are You Manifesting Your Beauty From the Inside Out?
(As seen in the May/June 2017 issue of Natural Life News & Directory.)
Have you ever met someone who glows from the inside out, and yet, their appeal has little or nothing to do with their physical appearance? In Oriental Medicine, based on Taoism, this inner radiance is described as “Bright Shen or Significant Shen,” meaning bright spirit. These individuals are lit from within and have no problem expressing that through their eyes—and even their skin.
How do we access this kind of inner-to-outer beauty? We balance our mind and our emotions, which in return, affects our health and our overall radiance.
Chinese Medicine has used face reading as a way to access information about what is going on inside the body and mind. Ancient Chinese practitioners considered the control of the five emotions, based on the five elements, to be key to inner and outer beauty, health and vitality. These five emotions are called the five rebels of the body and need to be kept under control: fear from the kidneys, anger from the liver, joy from the heart, worry from the spleen and stomach, and sorrow or grief from the lungs. All of these emotions are necessary and have value when used in balance; however, overuse or underuse of these emotions can cause harm to the organ to which they belong.
Each of these emotions also affects the face in specific ways. For example, dark circles under the eyes can indicate depletion in the kidneys as a result of overuse of fear. When anger is overused, it can create deep lines between the brows. Worry can cause the chi to stagnate, causing unclear thinking and incomplete digestion, and this shows in eyes that appear to have a lost look—glazed or unfocused. Too much excitement in the emotions can lead to chronic redness in the neck, throat and face. Grief can show as a deadness of the shen, where the eyes do not sparkle. Feeling and/or expressing these negative emotions too often will affect the organs and the body, and eventually show up on the face as a lack of overall radiance, as unwanted lines and wrinkles, and as other signs of premature aging.
Three modalities, based on Chinese Medicine, that can help include:
1) Shiatsu (finger pressure on key points on the meridian lines of the face and body) to unblock or balance the energy of the organ systems.
2) Cupping on the back can help to remove stagnation of the chi.
3) Aromatherapy, based on the five elements, using specific essential oils on specific acupressure points to balance the mental, emotional, and physical bodies for deep, restorative healing.
Facial rejuvenation, using micro-current, and light-therapy, and facial cupping, can also help to move the chi, and also working with the meridian acupressure points, resulting in diminishing or softening of some facial lines and wrinkles.
Come into your balance this spring. Move that stagnant chi for your inner and outer beauty and heath transformation!
