Five Phases of Emotinal Transformation

Your Biography Creates your Biology

[A Taoist approach to being self-actualised]

An ancient Taoist saying is: Change is the only constant in the universe.  Everything in Nature changes all the time ~ night to day; spring into summer etc; rainy days to sunny days.  Therefore, all things in our bodies and our minds similarly must change.  There is that old saying, “If you don’t use it you lose it.”  In other words muscles that are not used eventually wither; similarly parts of the brain if not used wither and will not function.  Keeping or maintaining the functioning of all of our body-mind is essential to the longevity of the whole being.

As this article is about emotions, I wish to point out right from the start that all emotional states can be changed, and that each individual is responsible for changing themselves ~ whether you like hearing that or not, I am afraid it is Truth.  This is what was taught by Buddha and was the foundation for the Humanistic Psychology movement founded by Abraham Maslow.  It is also what more recent leaders of new thinking have espoused, such as the late Dr Wayne Dyer, Carolyn Myss, Ph.D, and Lousie Hay to name a few.

Maslow was often regarded as being opposed to the psychology of Freud, but Maslow himself pointed out that Freud “supplied us with the sick half of psychology, we must now fill it out with the healthy half”. [Toward a psychology of being, 1968]  As my background is mainly in Taoist philosophy and Chinese medicine, it has always fascinated me that they have always known about these two halves, so to speak, and this is what I want to share.

I had contemplated calling this post: “Your biography becomes your biology” because that is the true nature of what happens when we continually re-run our old, negative emotional transcripts.  Since they are connected energetically to our physical bodies, the negatives eventually drain or block the energy of our organs thus allowing for dis-ease to arise.

Our emotions and feeling states change from day to day and season to season. This is about those changes and understanding them allows you to transform yourself into truly spiritual being.  One who understands the good or positive qualities of human characteristics and who recognises the not-so-good or negative qualities are simply the result of imbalance and can be changed.

To transform yourself is to become whole, complete or in terms of psychology, self-actualised.  A self-actualised person is someone who recognises and lives from their natural spiritual Self.  According to the Taoist Law of the Five Phases of Transformation, each one of us has the innate ability to be either loving, compassionate, honest, gentle and kind; or hateful, spiteful, stubborn, dishonest, fearful, angry, frustrated, resentful and depresed; or any combination of these.  It is a choice we make day to day according to how are energies are flowing.  Since each of our energetic networks are connected to both balanced and imbalanced emotional states it is totally possible to constantly remain in a balanced emotional feeling state ~ even if you’ve had a shit life!!!!

Its an attitude and its up to you what you choose to stay in, regardless of what anyone else may have done to you.  I am not condoning bad behaviour but what is the point of being angry or depressed with someone because of something that may have happened years ago?  It is like picking up a burning coal to throw at someone … it’s our hand that is burning. In other words, you are hurting yourself because you’re upset that someone hurt you once.  Doesn’t make sense.