Vision to Decision: Liver and Gallbladder Wisdom

[00:00:00] Today we are gonna talk about a couple of paired organs in Chinese medicine, Dao is thought and how they relate to springtime and how they relate to each other. We’re gonna get into the liver gallbladder relationship today. I will say that of all of the paired organs, I do have my favorites, and this one is probably in the number two spot right next to heart and pericardium.

So if you wanna learn a little bit more about the relationship between spring, the wood element, the liver and gallbladder, and how those two compliment each other and harmonize for each other, then stay tuned.

Welcome or welcome back to a Yin Yoga podcast if you’re new around these parts. Welcome. If you [00:01:00] are familiar, welcome back. A couple of quick disclaimers, my friend, if you’re watching this on YouTube. I apologize if the video is a little jiggly. I’m not where I normally like to record. Due to extenuating circumstances, I’m stuck at my dining room table, and so not only does it move when I lean on it, but also if one of my cats jumps up or something, it’s gonna be a little bit of a wiggle.

So my apologies for that. The other thing to note is that I am three quarters, if not more, of my way through a wonderful spring cold that decided to bless my march for me. And so I don’t sound like my familiar self, and hopefully you will not hear this lozenge that I just stuck in my face so that I have voice for this.

, But if you do, again, my apologies, but the show must go on, on that note [00:02:00] of the show going on. After today’s episode, we’re going to take a tiny break, just a wee little sling break, and we will not be back. Until the 17th of April. So just a couple weeks off, , to give myself a break and a chance to kinda get ahead a little bit.

I knew very clearly when I started this podcast that doing sort of 12 episode seasons. I didn’t know it was 12, but I knew there would be a number of seasons, and then taking a break would be key. For not only my own, self-care, mental, emotional health, , but also for this podcast to have longevity.

So many people start podcasting and they make themselves put an episode out every week into oblivion, and then they don’t last. The podcasts don’t last because it’s a lot [00:03:00] of work, and also you need time to like. Create the episodes and to come up with topic ideas and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, all that. So on that note, dear listener, if you have a yin topic idea, a question about yin yoga or yin adjacent things that you would like me to cover, please let me know.

I’ve said this before, some of you have heard it before. If you’re new around here, you probably haven’t, but that my biggest fear with starting this podcast was running out of topic ideas that are, you know, yin ’cause it’s very niched podcast, right? Where we’re not talking about overarching yoga, which you would never run out of episodes then.

Probably. So my worst fear has been that one day I will show up and I will plug in this mic and I’ll be like. I have nothing to say that I haven’t already said in the [00:04:00] many episodes I’ve done. Hasn’t happened yet, but part of the reason it hasn’t happened yet is because of all of you, the dear listeners, when you send me questions or topic ideas, or when I’m cruising through a yin yoga network group on Facebook and looking at the questions and topics that people talk about in the group, that helps to inform.

This podcast and what episodes I can create for you. So if you have not, if you’ve had a little something come up ever in a yin class and you weren’t quite sure how to do it, deal with it, or you’ve got confusion around yin in general, if you’ve got,, issues with particular postures or things like that, please get at me and let me know.

There’s a few ways you could do that. If you are on my blog, you can leave a comment and let me know there. If you’re on YouTube, you could leave a comment and let me know there. If [00:05:00] you are on Spotify, you can leave me a comment and let me know. There topic idea. If you are listening on Apple, they do not have that ability.

So you can find me on Instagram at Nu Yoga or at y yoga podcast. Slide into my dms and let me know. What you’ve been thinking about the podcast and if you’ve got a topic idea that you would love me to cover and I would be super grateful for that. There have been many episodes that have been created because of feedback I have gotten from you, the listener.

So we are gonna take a brief break and then we will be back until summer and then usually summer is off completely of the podcast. Um, so that I can rest and create things. Also podcast listenership drops drastically in the summer. Um, so it’s a good time to take a break if you’re gonna take one. So we’ll come back, after a couple weeks, we’ll take a small break, little [00:06:00] tiny spring break and then we will come back and we’ll go till summer.

The other thing to remind you about, dear listener, is that I have the mouth of a sailor and the soul of a mermaid. So there may be colorful language, and if you have small people around, you should grab some headphones now. This is an adult podcast with adult subject matter and adult language, not likely suitable for small ones.

Alright, let’s get into today’s topic, shall we?

So if you are watching this video, I have some notes once again to make sure that I do not forget anything that I wanted to touch on or that I don’t get distracted and start talking in circles and forget to come back to where I started. Alright, my friends, so I’ve talked about spring from the Chinese medicine perspective in a previous [00:07:00] episode.

It feels like there should even be two by now, but I know for sure there’s one and I will link those in the episode notes. And so when I’m thinking about spring and what kind of an episode I wanted to do for spring, I didn’t wanna just repeat what I’ve already done. So this one we’re gonna focus, we’ll touch briefly on spring and the element of wood, but I wanted to touch more on the paired organs.

Are connected to the wood element and to spring, why these organs matter, what their relationship is, both physiologically, what is their actual function according to Chinese medicine. But , more fun for me is philosophically what is their, , relationship and how they support each other. If you haven’t studied Chinese medicine, you may not know.

That there’s a lot of philosophy behind all of this stuff about [00:08:00] meridians and organs and seasons that the Chinese don’t just look at the liver as a sort of organ of the body, but that it also has a mental, emotional realm as well, and so does the gallbladder. And so those are the paired organs for springtime and the wet element, the liver and gallbladder.

Vision and decision in our Chinese medicine. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So why these two organs matter? Well, as I just mentioned, that the organs are not just physical structures. They represent functionals qualities, ways of being philosophies. They each have roles as far as the mental emotional realm as well, which is one of the things that made me absolutely fall in love with Chinese medicine when I was studying it, was that we weren’t just sort of talking about these organs as a purely [00:09:00] physiological thing there.

There’s nuance to this. The liver and the gallbladder are paired organs, yin and yang, liver being the yin, gallbladder being the yang, paired organ, and they are connected to the wood element, which is the element connected to spring. Together, they govern direction, movement and decision-making. So the liver helps us to see the path and the gallbladder helps us to walk it.

So the physiological relationship, liver key functions, so the liver ins ensures the smooth flow of chi, emotional flow, digestive flow, menstrual flow, movement of the energy through the body. The liver stores blood and controls the sinus of the tendons, which you, another word for that would be the fascia of your body.

A deep fascia of your body. [00:10:00] And that it opens up to the eyes. It’s responsible for flexibility, movement, and expansion. Some signs of an imbalance in our liver could be irritability or frustration, overly tight muscles or tendons, perhaps headaches, especially sort of around the eye PMS or menstrual issues, feeling stuck or stagnant.

And then let’s talk about the gallbladder. So the key function of the gallbladder is that it secretes and stores bile. It governs our decision making and our judgment. It supports our courage and our initiative. Themes for the gallbladder are clarity, decisiveness, and courage. A sign of an imbalance in the gallbladder energy is indecision.

Timidity resentment [00:11:00] or difficulty making decisions and taking action. So how they work together, the liver creates the vision and the direction the gallbladder executes the decision. Without the liver, we lose direction. Without the gallbladder, we cannot act on the vision of the liver. The liver is the sort of.

Creative, the envisionary, the bigger picture vision, and then the gallbladder is often said to be the general, it’s the one that takes care of things and makes it so, so to speak.

So the emotional and physiological layer of the liver. So the associated emotion with the liver can be anger, frustration, or resentment. Also a healthy expression of passion and drive. [00:12:00] And I wanna just mention that, you know, sometimes anger gets a bad rap, but anger, if it is used skillfully, cannot only teach us about what’s off in our world, in our world, globally or individually, and what we’re not getting.

, Enough of, or what we want from, and so anger can be used in a really healthy way. If you think about evolution and revolution, that comes from a place of anger being used in a healthy way. So every major movement that you’ve ever seen comes from a point of frustration or anger. Then moves into a movement.

So for example, if you look at the civil rights movement in the United States, it’s a perfect example. So anger is, can be challenging for us culturally ’cause we’re a not taught to feel it, and we’re also not taught how to feel it in a healthy way, what to do with it. But [00:13:00] don’t forget that without anger and frustration, there would be no evolution, revolution, or change.

And so we need to have our anger. We wanna try not to do is repress it or express it inappropriately. We wanna try to find a healthy expression of this anger or this passion and drive

A balanced liver will include things like creativity, adaptability, and emotional fluidity. Our gallbladder. Associated qualities are courage, confidence, and initiative. So a balanced gallbladder is decisive, bold, and able to take risks. If the gallbladder isn’t feeling imbalanced, then that’s where that timidity and indecisiveness and lack of courage can come in.[00:14:00]

When the pair are balanced, you’ll experience clear vision. Confidence in your choices, the ability to pivot and adapt and a forward momentum in life.

So the Daoist philosophical perspective, these organs are connected to the wood element and to the season of spring. So the wood element is responsible for growth, again, connected to spring, new beginnings direction. So just like plants. Seeds start to burst forth out from , the dirt towards the sun.

This liver can help us grow towards our purpose. The liver gives us vision and direction, imagination, planning, and foresight. This is why the liver opens to the eyes in Chinese medicine.

Courage And action. So the [00:15:00] gallbladder gives us bravery, resolve, and a commitment to action. And endows thought courage is not aggressive. It’s clarity plus action. So this can show up in our yin practice. If we wanted to teach a class that was focused on the liver and gallbladder CNU channels, or if we wanted to teach a class for the wood element or for spring, so how this might show up in teaching in your classes. So if you wanted to offer a class or a workshop on the spring, according to Chinese medicine and Daoism or the wood element.

Then you could include the poses that are designed to access the liver and gallbladder meridians, or more importantly, the sinew channels, because that’s actually what we’re dealing with more in our, um, in yoga practice. Right? We’re [00:16:00] not acupuncturists, we’re not putting needles into specific points or acupressurist unless of course you’re listening to this and you are an acupuncturist or.

An acupuncturist, and then in which case you would be doing that. But for most of us, we’re not doing that. And so it’s more important the sinew channels than the meridians themselves. And these channels run through the inner and outer legs. So inner leg is our liver, outer leg and hips, and then the sides of our body.

So the gallbladder’s a large channel, and it goes up through the whole side body and also into that hip and butt area. And so if you wanted to offer shapes for those particular sinu channels, you would focus on ones that open up the inner line of the leg, the side body, and your hip and butt. Now, to, just to be clear, there’s no way to do a practice only accessing certain.

Meridians and senior [00:17:00] channels, you’re always gonna be accessing a neighboring one or one that’s close by. So I’m, I’m expressing it this way for simplicity, but no, there’s no way you’re gonna open up the inner line of the legs to access the liver without also accessing the kidney and the spleen. All right?

Signs that the liver gallbladder system might need support, feeling stuck in life, difficulty making decisions. Irritability or pent up anger, waking up between one and 3:00 AM which is liver time on the Chinese clock,

and practices that support the system walking in nature, especially in the woods. The wood element. Get in the woods, go see some trees, go hugs and trees, um, you know, stretching the hips and the sides of the body and the inner line of the legs. So doing a yin practice, [00:18:00] journaling perhaps to clarify decisions.

If there’s areas where you’re feeling confused about where to go, what to do, taking a few moments to journal, to write about it, creating space for anger to move through you in healthy ways instead of suppressing or repressing it.

So this relationship between the liver and the gallbladder, as I mentioned, is kind of one of my favorite paired organs.

When they work together, life just feels different. We can see where we want to go. We can trust ourselves to take the first step. We have vision plus courage.

And I often say that if in my teacher training that if the liver and gallbladder aren’t working together, then that’s when we can get that frustration, right? So the [00:19:00] liver sees the path and the gallbladder takes the step. If we have vision but with no action, then we’re not gonna get anywhere. And that’s gonna build up that frustration.

So if the liver is envisioning, daydreaming, and, um, you know, doing that creative work, but then the gallbladder isn’t able to make that decisive action and take the courage to make it, so then we’re gonna feel frustrated. These are the organs again, between courage and direction. Being able to see the path and walk.

It is the wisdom of the liver and gallbladder and the wood element, this vision, courage, and moving forward. The liver and the gallbladder give us our vision and our courage. The liver plans, the gallbladder acts. Another one way that I often think about this is that the liver is the dreamer or the architect.

It’s the one that’s. [00:20:00] Going inward and knowing what you wanna do and making the plans and planting the seeds and the liver is a envisioner, and the gallbladder has the energy and the courage to make it so. So the liver without good gallbladder energy is nothing but a frustrated dreamer. And the gallbladder without the liver energy takes action and makes plans that have no inspiration and no resonance and no soul.

So this is \ one of my favorite relationships. As I mentioned, spring is also one of my favorite times of year. I absolutely love Spring. It is actually my favorite time of year. My second favorite would be fall. I love the energy of spring. I always have, , I don’t know, depending on when you’re listening to this and where you’re living, whether you [00:21:00]are just in coming into spring, if you’re listening live and you live in the northern hemisphere or if you are down under and you are in the opposite climate,, or if you’re listening to this in the middle of summer or winter, who knows when you stumble across this, but I just wanted to share a little bit about the liver and gallbladder.

About how these two organs work together so that we can not only, , get things done, but also get things done that we feel inspired and excited about, that we’re feeling creatively. , Jazzed about, and I’ve talked about this in the past, uh, especially in the winter episodes over and over and over again, about how New Year’s is not the time.

To make resolutions to try to create new habits, et cetera, et cetera, that actually springtime or maybe starting at Chinese New Year, but I actually think springtime. Springtime now, [00:22:00] this is the time that we plant the seeds of what we want in our life. So in the winter, hopefully you’ve been doing all that soul excavating, that deep work, the journaling, the going inward so that you have the ideas for the liver of what do I want?

What do I wanna put into practice? What new things do I want? What new habits? What new hobbies even do you wanna pick up? And then this is the time of year that we would start to implement those things. The liver will give us the vision and the gallbladder will to quote John Luke Picard, make it so. So this is the time of year that I’m actually about to hop into creating my new vision board.

I did not do it in January. I cleared it out in January. I looked at my vision board and I pulled off the things that either I had already done and, you know, dealt with and or things, or maybe things had shifted and I was like, you know what, actually [00:23:00] I’m really so jazzed on that anymore, or I’ve, I’ve got other things I’m more excited about.

And so in the winter I removed all those excess things and I started going inward and I learned about what do I want? What I wanna see for my next year. What do I wanna work on? What do I wanna create? What do I want to envision? And now that it is springtime, just around the corner, actually, when you’re listening to this, believe spring will have hit, just so it’s springtime.

Now’s the time to envision to create. To plant the seeds, to bring in new habits because we’re gonna have that forward moving energy and the energy of the gallbladder to make these things happen. So that’s a little bit about the liver gallbladder relationship. Again, one of my favorite sets of para organs.

The other set of my favorite [00:24:00] is heart and pericardium. Maybe for the last episode, for summer, we’ll do a little heart and pericardium jam. And why I love that relationship so much, but I hope that you found this interesting maybe for your life or for your teaching, this relationship between the liver and the gallbladder.

This vision or envisioning and courage and how really it takes both of these energies in order to get anything done. So clear vision in bold decisions from vision to action. This is what we need, this organ pairing for. That if we do not have the liver, then the gallbladder’s just marching around, taking action on things that are sort of uninspired and may not even make you happy, may not be what you want.

And if we only have good liver energy, but not good gallbladder energy, then the liver just ends up being a frustrated dreamer. It has all these ideas and visions and things it wants to create, but it doesn’t have the wherewithal to make it happen. So this is why [00:25:00] a balance or a harmony. So this is why a harmony between the liver and gallbladder energy is so key.

And again, this is connected to springtime. So I’m about to take a very brief spring break and then I will be back with you again. Remember, please let me know your ideas. Either leave them in the comments, if you’re on my blog or YouTube or , on Spotify. You can leave me ideas or if you wanna be shy about your ideas and you don’t want them to be public, you can always send me a dm.

If you’re listening on Apple, send me a DM and let me know what do you want me to work on for the spring? For the pod? Okay, my friends. I hope you found this helpful, and until we meet again, bye for now.