This is great! Will you do one of these for the metal element? (Including a metal element balancing technique?) I’m so fascinated! Thanks!

Hi Claire. I don’t know the context of this quote. But if we take it as is, then TCM would disagree with his statement.

But I suspect that it’s a matter of semantics.

The energy that helps you create healthy boundaries, that helps you to right wrongs, that helps you to fight for justice — that’s righteous anger.

The energy that the Dalai Lama uses to fight for freedom in Tibet, even after all these years — that’s righteous anger.

There needs to be understanding that anger never helps to solve a problem. It destroys our peace of mind and blinds our ability to think clearly. Anger and attachment are emotions that distort our view of reality.

As I understand it you would say that responding appropriately and rationally (without any antagonism or other negative emotion) to any unsatisfactory behavior or circumstance, is a form of anger?

HI Claire. According to TCM, Gandhi and MLK were angry. But it was righteous anger, not excessive anger.

As I mentioned in the article, people in the West always assume that anger is bad, and that it’s always hostile. I tried to explain that the Eastern view is different.

If someone insults you, and you speak up for yourself — that’s anger, but it’s not hostile.

If someone assaults you, and you get angry back, but rather than hit him back, you press charges — that’s anger, but it’s not hostile.

Make sense?

But on your last point, I am still puzzled about what the emotion of anger actually is your view. It is more than just an emotional desire for change I assume?

All the definitions I have looked at involve that element of hostility/antagonism/harm or something similar.

I always thought that people like MLK and Gandhi were great not because they didn’t have that kind of anger but because they managed to transform it into something more positive.

One more thing. Anger need not involve hostility. Look no further than Martin Luther King Jr. as an example.

Hi Claire. Just to be clear, you were diagnosed with Liver Excess by a TCM doctor?

I think that Western psychology could really benefit from the Five Elements. When you understand the interplay between the elements, the interplay between emotions becomes clearer.

For example, fear often leads to anger, but not because fear is necessarily underneath anger.

In TCM, we could describe it as the Water Element not nourishing the Wood Element. When this happens, anger can be affected.

The interplay of the Elements is complex, and needs a lot of study. But it’s a cool model, and it really works well!

I’ll write more about this in the future.