Sounds menacing, doesn't it?

In Chinese Medicine, each meridian pair is associated with an emotion which arises out of its function.

Traditionally it goes like this:

Lung/Large Intestine: Grief

Stomach/Spleen: Empathy

Heart/Small Intestine & Heart Protector/Triple Heater (they go together .. totally different subject): Joy

Liver/Gall Bladder: Anger

Bladder/Kidney: Fear

Seems clear cut enough, until you ponder the idea that there are different experiences of fear, and here's where it gets interesting.

Bladder/Kidney fear is based on the idea that these meridians govern the fight-or-flight mechanism... Kidney, through its association with the adrenal glands, and Bladder being connected to the central nervous system. A balanced Water element (the element governing the BL/KD pair) allows one the impetus to act quickly and courageously in a threatening situation, and then recover and return to a relaxed state.

Imbalanced Water takes the form of perpetual anxiety, as well as phobias, and irrational fears of the future. This becomes taxing in the long run, as Kidney energy (which is our core energy) gets depleted, leading to chronic exhaustion.

But there are other forms of fear that can be more appropriately placed with other elements.

Lung/Large Intestine (Metal): Metal deals with details, and, as mentioned above, grief. Metal fear is an unwillingness to let go, and I would even say perfectionism. It's about trust .. trust that we we have to offer is good enough and that we can release what we no longer need: stuff, ideas, people, the breath we're holding. And trust that, like the breath, what we do need will always be available to us.

Liver/Gall Bladder (Wood): The Wood element, primarily the Gall Bladder, governs how our energy is used. (Liver stored energy in the form of glycogen, the GB determines where it should go). So Wood fear manifests as the inability to make decisions, and second-guessing.

Heart/Small Intestine & Heart Protector/Triple Heater (Fire): I had read that the Fire element fear is 'loss of control'. I had to meditate on this on bit, and want to expand on it. In TCM, the Heart is seen as the 'Emperor".. the core of our being (also the house of the Shen.. our Spirit, consciousness, however you choose to describe it). Small Intestine holds the function of assimilation (that whole 'you are what you eat' thing). Heart Protector sounds like what it is.. it protects the heart, the Emperor. And Triple Heater, in addition to many other functions to be written about later, serves as our psychic boundary. So, putting these together, the Fire fear deals with our ability, or lack thereof, to 'allow in'.. whether people's energy or ideas... that we take in to become a part of our own core.

Stomach/Spleen (Earth): It was my encounter with this element that got me thinking about this subject in the first place. In dealing with a client who expressed having some core fear issues, I asked for a little more clarity on that. She said specifically she had a fear of being in her home alone at night. This was one of the example of common Water element phobias. (A brief side note: she had also dealt with childhood sexual abuse, and has also commented often that as an adult, she has trouble 'staying in her body' .. a common response to early life trauma).

Based on that last piece of information, I made the resounding connection with her that her body and her home (and her family of origin) are synonymous, and she had learned early on that these were not places to be trusted. Home, the body and relationships are the province of the Earth element. Insecurity is having a lack of trust in very ground under your feet, as well as feeling uncomfortable in your own skin.

So, there are some overlaps in some of these, for example, vulnerability can be seen as both a Heart and a Lung issue. And relationships with others comes under both Earth and Fire.  But within these are subtleties that can be perceived with closer attention.

But that will be saved for another post!

Other writings you might dig:

Wood v Earth

Five Element Theory - An Intro

Orange is the Color of Presence