New Yin Fall & Tuning Into The Metal Element

[00:00] So today on a Yin Yoga podcast, we are gonna talk about the metal element and what kind of wisdom can we glean from the metal element, so the metal element according to Chinese medicine and Taoism, and how we can take those little glimmers and the wisdom of the metal element perhaps into our life. So stay tuned for more on that.

[00:32] Hello my friends. If you are new around here, welcome to a Yen Yoga podcast. If, however, you are a familiar welcome back, my friends. We are gonna talk about the metal element. We’re gonna do an overview of the metal element. , I did do another episode last season. Last time we were in the fall. So if you are listening live and you’re in the northern hemisphere, we are in fall right now, or autumn.

[00:58] If you are not in the Northern Hemisphere, you can still listen and refer back when you are or if you’re not listening to this live. And I did do another episode last,, last year at this time.. About fall and letting go. And so that’s another one that you could listen to, , if you want a little bit more on this.

[01:20] But I wanted to do a bit more of an overview on the metal element. I know there’s so many of you out there. I get a lot of requests for this five element information. And we do go into this more in depth in my teacher training, but just to know, , that we’ll do a bit of an overview today. Before we get into that, I just wanna give everybody a reminder that although I have the soul of a mermaid, I also have the mouth of a sailor, and that you should consider this podcast an adult podcast with adult subject matter and possibly adult language.

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[05:32] Then definitely get on the wait list. Okay, my friends with all of that said, let’s get into the topic du jour. Should we, I wanna talk a bit more about the metal element today. We have done, I did do a podcast episode last year in the fall. Also as well that’ll come at that, this from a little bit of a different approach.

[05:53] So you could also check that one out. I know I get a lot of requests from y’all about this five element stuff, which I totally understand. So when I was studying Chinese medicine I was loving the program. I thought it was awesome. I was taking my Chinese medicine foundations and my meridians and points and many anatomy courses, all the things.

[06:15] I thought it was really cool, and it actually made a lot of sense to me and it felt kind of natural. But it wasn’t until I took the five element, , module in my program that I was like, oh my God. Well now I’m in love. That’s when the sort of philosophical richness of this tradition, became apparent to me.

[06:34] And I know that for a lot of you, you feel the same way. So this will be an overview of the metal element. And again, as a compliment to this, I did do an episode in the past on, and letting go or fall and letting go. And if you’re ever looking for the old episodes, rather than trying to scroll through your podcast app, which is, that takes a long time.

[06:58] Also, in your episode notes, you will see a little link that says, see all episodes at uh, glance. That is just a simple Google Doc. When you click on it, it will show you all of the episodes I’ve done from season one onwards, and it just links you back to my website. So that you can listen to it on my website or if you would rather listen to it on Spotify from my website, there is the ability, when you look at the player, there’s often a little plus, um, sign that you can click to add it to your episode list.

[07:29] Now there is no easy way to do that on Apple, but again, you can listen to it. , Right there on my website in the player. And you can find all of those by looking in the See all episodes at a glance. So I have done another episode on fall and letting go. I’ve also done, , five element overview episodes.

[07:51] So if this kind of information really kind, gets you excited, you could check those out. Now, a heads up for those of you on YouTube, I do have notes because I have ADD as I’ve mentioned before, and if I do not have notes. To glance at while I’m discussing things, I will get lost and go off on a tangent and forget to circle back, and I won’t cover everything that I wanna share with you.

[08:16] So please know I have some notes here that, I’ll be looking at. So if you see my eye contact moving from being directly looking at you to moving around a little bit, that’s because I’m checking out my notes. Okay, friends, let’s do it, shall we? Here we go.

[08:37] Yin fall vibes and tuning into the metal element. So as we move into fall, we are entering what in Chinese medicine is the metal season. So in Chinese medicine there are actually five elements. They’re different than the Indian elements. So we have fire, metal, , water, wood, and earth. So five. So different than the, , the Indian tradition of Aruveda

[09:05] so as we move into fall, we’re entering this metal season according to Chinese medicine, and we can think of metal like a well-crafted blade, strong and sharp, but also capable of being shaped and refined. So metal heated can be poured into molds. Also metal can bend. So it’s strong and sharp, but also.

[09:32] Capable of being reshaped and refined. This is a quote by Worsely from the book, the Five Elements and Their Officials. The metal element represents the father within us, the connection to the heavens, which gives us our sense of higher quality and purpose. The receiver of the Pure Q Energy from the heavens, which establishes and maintains this connection.

[09:59] Metal is the time of new Yin. So the seasons in Chinese thought and Taos thought are either more or less yin or yang. So fire, for example, is the youngest of the yang, and winter is the yins of the yin. And the metal element is that transition between our youngness of summer, but moving into the yin ness of winter.

[10:25] So it’s considered. Yin the season connected to the metal element is fall. The direction is west, the color is white. The climate is dry. The yin channel is the lung, the Yong channel is the large intestine. The sound is weeping. The emotion is grief and the spirit. So each of the, um, elements and organs has , a spirit attached to it as well.

[10:54] Is the po or Corporeal soul and the constitutional archetype is sometimes considered the father in more sort of five element, traditions or in more classical TCM, sometimes referred to as the minister or the chancellor.

[11:14] Also, sometimes the merchant as well. , The Q direction and action is inward. So when we’re in harmony, we feel clear, organized, and resilient, but when we aren’t, we might feel cold, distant, or overly rigid or disconnected. The metal element is all about structure, clarity, and letting go.

[11:40] It’s connected to the lungs and the large intestine. It’s helping us take in what we need and release what we don’t. Whether that’s stale air, toxic emotions, or just old habits and beliefs. So some of these metal qualities, structure and boundaries, metal helps us stay organized and grounded. It’s part, the part of us that craves routine and wants to keep things tidy inside and out.

[12:10] At the end of this, I’m gonna give you a few little journal prompts that you might wanna write down. So if you are not driving or walking, you can grab a pen and a pencil. Take a moment to pause this. If you are driving or walking, you can come back to them refinement and release. Just like metal gets purified in fire, we too can refine our thoughts and our emotions.

[12:33] Especially by letting go of what no longer serves us, which is the big theme of the metal time of year and fall, is letting go of what we no longer need, what isn’t serving us to make space or the things that we’re going to plant in the spring. Strength and flexibility. So metal is solid, but it bends under pressure without breaking and can be melted down and reshaped and adapted.

[13:01] Connection and inspiration. So the lungs breathe in the world around us physically and energetically. And this is where our sense of inspiration can come from. And this can be a a season to connect to , a bigger sense of purpose, grief, and healing. So grief is the emotion connected with metal and autumn, the season connected to metal.

[13:25] It teaches us that it’s okay to feel and release our sadness and our grief, like leaves falling from a tree metal marks that transition time from the full bloom or the full yang of summer into into the quiet of winter. So it’s that bridge between the sort of more yang, extroverted outwardness of summer and the quiet.

[13:53] Cool. Introspective introvertedness of winter. So it is the perfect time to pause and do a little emotional and physical decluttering. So take the time to look around you and go, what is not serving me physically, mentally, emotionally, and to clear that out so that when you go into the winter, which is that time of deep reflection, then you have space.

[14:21] To then in the spring plant new things. So in Chinese medicine, we definitely are focusing on the seasons. If in the fall we don’t take time to clear space to let go, to get rid of either physical, mental, or emotional clutter, , then we won’t have the space to plant for new things in the spring.

[14:46] When metal’s out of balance, too much metal could show up as being overly critical. Perfectionistic, emotionally rigid, physically dry, so physically your skin can be dry, or even constipation the relationship again to that large intestine. So the lung is the yin organ connected to the metal element, and the large intestine is the yang organ.

[15:14] If we don’t have enough metal, we could feel weak boundaries or low immunity because the lung is connected to our immunity in Chinese medicine. Brain fog, or a difficulty processing grief. Now I wanna say, I just said a difficulty processing grief. Grief isn’t easy for anyone anytime, ever, period. Full stop.

[15:35] The end, however. Some of us know that and we can sort of let the grief do what it needs to do, we can process it so that we can not move on. Because I feel like if you, especially if you’ve lost somebody in your life or an animal in your life that you are, really close to, really connected to, you’re never like move on from missing them, but you can process the grief so that it’s not sort of this overwhelming weight and we don’t process grief.

[16:07] That can lead to other mental and emotional issues later on. So the Lungs house, the po, which is your corporeal soul. Your corporeal soul is attached to your physical body and linked to your breathing. The PO is responsible for psychic protection as well as your ability to ward off infection. Again, I mentioned that the lungs are connected to our,, defensive Qi

[16:36] In Chinese medicine, not only are the lungs considered a fragile organ, because they’re vulnerable to colds and coughs, but also on a mental and spiritual level, we can be fragile. The po gives us this protection on a mental and spiritual level. If we have strong lung qi, we can protect ourselves.

[16:58] If however, the lung Qi is weak, then we might be more sensitive to criticism or emotional attacks. The po is what allows us to not only physically, but also be spiritually alert and resilient.

[17:15] And I mentioned that the fall is the time and the metal element is the time for letting go. I often think about this, and this is just a little bit, this sort of a symbolism in my mind, but not necessarily connected. In Buddhism, there is, one of the Buddha, especially in the Tibetan tradition, I believe it’s Manjushri

[17:38] I may not may have gotten that wrong, who holds a sword in one hand. And this sword is to cut through basically the bullshit, to cut through what isn’t true, what isn’t real. And so I often think of that visual when I’m thinking of the metal element. So on a metaphysical level. A physical level, the large intestine is responsible for letting go of what’s not needed.

[18:05] . So even though I mentioned that the father or the chancellor or the minister is connected to this in classical TCM. Also an analogy for the large intestine is the merchant merchants know the value of things because a merchant’s success depends on their ability to choose the right things, things people want and need, as well as to eliminate what is old or unnecessary.

[18:32] So if a merchant has a healthy business, there won’t be an accumulation of junk in their merchant shop, and what will be found there will be of highest quality. Impeccably. Fresh and clean. So if there’s a disharmony in the large intestine, we could experience difficulty letting go and releasing physically, but also mentally and emotionally as, as well as grief, self-sabotage, control, stubbornness, compulsiveness, confusion, rigidity, guilt, regret hanging on.

[19:08] Or conversely disposing of the things that people really need. So when the metal element in a person is in disharmony, there could be two extremes of how that could show up. That will, we will be very familiar with culturally, most of us. So two modern day examples of an enlarged intestine disharmony are the two extremes of either total minimalism or hoarding.

[19:36] So letting go of so many things that you actually don’t have the basics that you need to live or you have to rebuy them. Someone in my life does this, when her metal element is, , in disharmony, which is often, , she tends to get rid and purge of so many things that then she ends up rebuying them or she moves a lot.

[19:56] And so then when she moves into a new place, she gets rid of a bunch of stuff. Then a year later moves into a different place and needs to repurchase it. So that’s minimalist or that purging and getting rid of letting go of taken to a little bit too far. And then there’s the opposite extreme, which is hoarding an inability to let anything go.

[20:18] And here’s a quote that I enjoy by lazu, by letting go, it all gets done. So some of the themes for the metal element are purging. Getting rid of what’s not working, clearing and making space. So this can be your stuff. This could be, , habits, this could be, , relationships. This could be mental and emotional things that you wanna let go of, especially for you if you were, maybe, if there’s some grief that’s been lingering and lingering and that you haven’t processed.

[20:54] This might be a good time of year to get some support, perhaps with a therapist or counselor to help to work through that grief or, a support group. So this is the time of year of letting go clearing, cleaning out what doesn’t work for us, what doesn’t serve us, what isn’t necessary, so that in the winter we can get reflective, we can go inward, we can decide what it is that , we want, what we need, et cetera.

[21:22] So that in the spring we can plant new seeds. What tends to happen with us culturally is we don’t do the letting go part in the fall. We skip right over the whole reflective part of the winter until New Year’s resolutions kick in, and then we try to add in a bunch of new things and wonder why we’re not successful.

[21:42] There’s so many reasons why that’s not successful. One. In order to make room for new, you have to let go of old two. If you don’t take the time to be really reflective and deep and introverted and go inward, then you don’t have that clarity about what you actually want in your life as opposed to the sort of societal pressure of New Year’s.

[22:04] The third problem with that situation is that, , new Year’s is far too early. , This sort of creating , new habits, all this stuff, brand new me happening in January, which is still like peak of winter for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Also a big mistake. So the time to be planting new seeds, new habits, new creations is in the spring, but we can’t do that if we haven’t let go in the fall.

[22:31] ’cause we won’t have any space or take in the winter to rest and reflect. So that in the spring we can plant these new things that we want. So that’s a couple of things to think about with this time of year. So I have some little prompts for those of you that like to journal that I’ll share with you. So if you’re not, again, in a place where you can journal, you can, just download this and keep it.

[23:01] And, uh, come back to it. So here are some journal prompts that you might wanna explore this fall.

[23:08] You may want to write down in a journal. So you could get cozy, get your favorite cup of tea or coffee or whatever it is, some kind of warm beverage. Get your sweaters and your blankies out.

[23:21] If you are driving or walking, you can just download this and pause it and come back to these little prompts. So here are some journal prompts that you could use. Are your boundaries clear right now?

[23:40] Are your boundaries clear right now? Where could you look at your boundaries and find where are your boundaries clear? Where are they wishy-washy? And where you might be overly boundaried, because that can also happen with a metal disharmony. People are overly boundaried or rigid. So are your bound boundaries clear?

[24:01] And are your boundaries serving you right now? Metal has this quality to bend under pressure without breaking. Can you stay strong and steady and adapt to change? Or how can you stay strong and steady, but also adapt to change?

[24:23] Take a moment to write down a few things in your life that give you a bigger sense of purpose. What do you value? What are a few things that give you a bigger sense of purpose?

[24:42] It’s a great time to pause, to reflect.

[24:49] You could ask yourself, what am I ready to let go of? What am I ready to let go of? And this could be a. Mental, emotional, physical relationships, whatever, it’s, you could ask yourself if there’s something you haven’t fully grieved, and if so, maybe you could do some grief work over the fall, whether that’s with a counselor or just reading really good books on grief or maybe in a support group if you’ve got some grieving that needs to process.

[25:28] Where do I need more structure in my life? Where do I need more structure in my life? And where do I need more softness? So remember this ability for metal to be structured and strong, but also to be remelted malleable, soft fluid. So where do I need more structure or more softness?

[25:56] How could I make space so that I could breathe a little deeper and make space for what’s next? How could I make the space in my life the letting go so that you can breathe a little deeper and make space for what is next?

[26:23] So my friends, I hope that you enjoyed this kind of overview of metal. , I know that I get a lot of great feedback about these sort of five element episodes, so hopefully this tickled your, , five element nerdy brain a little bit. If it’s one of you, those of you who. , Love this kinda information. And remember I did do another one on letting go for fall.

[26:48] That might be another one to check out. If you’re listening to this live and you really like this kind of fall metal theme, you could check that one out. I have also done a five element overview. I have also done winter episodes. Summer episodes. You get the idea. All of those can be found when you click that document that says, see all episodes at a glance, and you can see them all.

[27:11] You could check those out if this kind of information is good for you. So overall, I think in closing, let’s take a moment to just check in with yourself and maybe pull out your calendar since it is fall, and schedule in some time to do some letting go. Some clearing. Now, I do this every year in the fall.

[27:37] I’ve mentioned this before in that other episode where I go through my stuff and anything that I haven’t used in the last year or that I don’t love. Or don’t need, I let go of. So if I need it, but I don’t love it, I’m gonna keep it like underwear. Don’t really love underwear, but you need underwear. So I keep it right. I keep anything that I absolutely love. So anything in my home that I look at and it brings a smile to my face that gets kept. But anything that is just sort of been there for a long time, didn’t even really remember I had it.

[28:13] I’m gonna go through and purge. So for me personally, you may have a different zone. Always go through clothing and books. Uh, books are my weakness. I must say. I have more books on my shelves right now, then I have years probably left in my life to read them all unless someone’s gonna pay me to be a full-time book reader.

[28:32] Anyone wanna pay me for that, please let me know. So I go through my books every year around this time of year, and I either get rid of the books that, maybe when I bought them at the time, I was really into, , what they were about. But now as I’ve grown and changed, I’m like, oh, that’s still on my shelf.

[28:48] I don’t, not really interested reading that actually. So I’ll take them to a used bookstore, or if I’ve already read the book now, I do keep some books that I’ve already read because I know I’m gonna refer back to them. Of course I’ll keep those. Um, but I go through my books and that is hard for me.

[29:03] Actually. Books are my, like, as I said, my weakness. , My other weakness is , bags and purses. So every year I’d go through, I put them all on the bed. I used to have a very different lifestyle. I used to be a hairstylist who only needed to carry small, cute bags. And because I always bought my lunch out and, was just going to the salon and back, and I didn’t need a backpack.

[29:25] And so I still, every year will go through some of the bags and purses that I have from my former life, which even though it was a long time ago, I have trouble letting go of some of them because they’re amazing and cute and in great shape. And also, sadly, personal note, the consignment store that used to live here in the city.

[29:47] Shout out to Duchess and Duke. I miss, oh, so much that used to take a lot of my stuff and sell it for me. Um, close down as a COVID casualty. So now I have these really cute bags that are in amazing shape, and I’m like, what am I gonna do with these? But every year I put them out on the bed. I narrow it down, I bring in my partner for emotional support, and I say, okay, which one of these five should I keep and which ones need to go?

[30:13] . So I’m sure everybody’s got something. Some of you are collectors of something, so for me it’s books and bags. For you, it might be something else. I also do go through my clothing and just look at, um, anything I haven’t worn that I don’t love if I haven’t worn it, but it’s because it’s super dressy, like something I would wear to a wedding or a big event and I haven’t gone to one.

[30:33] Well, I’ll keep it. But if it’s just something that’s like, , do I need that many sweaters actually, and do I always wear the same ones? Maybe I can get rid of a few things. So it’s a good time of year to go through your clothing, books, anything else that you collect, your kitchen stuff, you know what you know, you know for yourself, what you tend to collect more of than you need, and to go through those things and get rid of some things.

[30:57] Also, habits, beliefs that no longer serve you. That you could let go of. So take some time for some journaling relationships, perhaps. Now I do wanna say, speaking of me getting rid of books, this is the book. I’m not getting rid of that. If you want a bit more, if you love, we did do a podcast with , Stephanie Nosco.

[31:20] Follow your Tao. Here is the book. If you’re watching on YouTube, we have done an interview with her and I would say that if you wanna learn more about this sort of five element stuff, this is a great book to get. Again, it’s called Follow Your Tao it’s by Stephanie Nosco. , We did do an interview with her, um, so you can listen to her talk about it.

[31:39] But it’s a really good book, not only because it gives you some great,, nuggets about the elements and the seasons and the physical and the mental and the emotional stuff, but also in a way that is totally easy to understand and read. And the book is beautiful, . I’m not an affiliate.

[31:57] Stephanie did not pay me to say this. I just love this little book. So if you really wanna nerd out a little bit more about this kind of stuff, that is a book that you could check out. Follow your Tao, a Simple Guide to Balancing Your Energy for Inner Harmony by Stephanie Nosco., Yeah, and take advantage of some of those journal prompts.

[32:17] Take the time in the fall to Clear Space. Clear space so that in winter we can do the sort of soul excavating, reflection, , looking inward that we need to do in the winter so that we can plant seeds in the spring. If you jump right to planting seeds, new habits, new things, but you haven’t cleared space and fall, you don’t have any room for them.

[32:38] This is why everyone, first of all, they plant their New Year’s resolutions way too soon. The Chinese New Year would be a better place to make New Year’s resolutions than our Western one. So that’s problem number one. They’re in the middle of the reflection, cultivating that inward awareness time of year, and they’re trying to create new habits.

[32:56] But the other problem is that people have, recent people have trouble in implementing change, is that they’re delusional as to how much time and space they have in their life, and they haven’t done the clearing and the purging in the fall to make space for the new. So with that, I think that’s probably enough of me rambling on about the metal element.

[33:19] , I would love to hear back from some of you who love this sort of Chinese medicine and Taos and five element stuff, what you thought of today’s episode. Here are a few ways that you can leave me some feedback.

[33:29] One, you could rate the podcast, gimme five stars somewhere. Spotify or Apple, if you love the show. Um, you can also leave on Apple. You can leave a written review so you can let me know what you thought of this episode or any of the episodes. And on Spotify, you could leave comments now. So you could leave me a comment.

[33:48] If you are watching this on YouTube, leave me a comment below the video and if you’re not watching it on any of those, or if you’re on, apple and you wanna leave me some general information or comments, just find me on Instagram. At Nick Dan Yoga or at Yin Yoga Podcast and let me know. Alright, my friends.

[34:09] That’s it for today. Until we meet again. Bye for now.