FEAR AND NERVOUSNESS ARE NATURAL RESPONSES to physical or emotional danger. A little fear or nervousness can help us enormously by giving us the extra adrenaline we need for a challenge. When we’re facing a real danger, it gives us more energy to run away. When we’re interviewing for a job or a special opportunity, mild fear energizes us to do our best. When we’re speaking or performing publicly, a little fear can spark a newfound eloquence in us. Singer and songwriter Holly Near shared this thought with the audience at a concert Dena once attended: “I like to turn fear into fascination — or fun! — to figure out what I can learn from my fear.”
Let’s distinguish between caution and fear. Caution is a healthy instinct: it warns us to be careful in a potentially dangerous situation. It’s wise to be cautious when we’re crossing a busy intersection, when we’re building a fire, or when we’re driving on the freeway.
Excessive fear or nervousness is self-defeating. It paralyzes us; it keeps us from acting on our deepest desires. Fear is the opposite of love. Fear is the yin contraction opposing the yang expansion of love. Fear makes us smaller, heavier, drier, more rigid, and restricted. Fear blocks everything in our life: our body, our thinking, our actions, our spiritual progress. Even a small amount of love makes us larger, lighter, more flexible, more creative, more daring. A deep love for another person, an animal, or nature, or for a creative expression such as music, art, athletics, or gardening has a profound effect. This love releases the blockages and allows fresh energy to enter and renew us on all levels.
Many spiritual teachers have said that there are only two major emotions, love and fear. What about hate, anger, worry, sadness, and arrogance? These, they say, are all the offspring of fear. Fear is a lack of confidence in our future, a mind-set that convinces us that dire consequences are just around the corner, consequences we can’t avoid or control. But feeling helpless is so painful that we push it away. We convert our fear into anger or hate against the perceived “enemy.” Or we adopt an arrogant attitude to hide our fear. Or we channel the fear into excessive worry or depression. Or we become reckless daredevils who scoff at fear.
Society imposes some common gender imbalances concerning fear. It’s more acceptable for females to express their fear, but less acceptable for them to express anger. The opposite is true for males: anger is more acceptable, and fear is a sign of weakness. Clearly, both genders can benefit from balancing emotions.
Unfortunately, we live in a society largely ruled by fear. Many of us have been raised with large doses of it. We can still hear echoes of our parents’ teachings: “No! Don’t do that! Don’t take chances! You’ll get hurt! You’ll get punished!” The media reinforce our fears by focusing on calamities, murders and other crimes, and wars. Some political leaders do their part by convincing us that this is a dangerous, treacherous world, and that they’ll protect us if we subscribe to their policies.
FIGURE 7: Kidneys and Bladder
Chi kung and Traditional Chinese Medicine recognize that fear is stored in the kidneys and bladder. Many of our students, and some of our instructors, are acupuncturists, and they all agree: kidney weakness is the norm in our society. No wonder.
The kidneys and bladder also house the positive emotions of gentleness and calmness, as well as the psychological traits of willpower and wisdom. A buildup of unresolved fear or nervousness weakens these desirable qualities.
The functions of the kidneys are essential to life. Allopathic (Western) medicine tells us that they filter our blood and excrete the waste materials as urine. They aid in maintaining the crucial balance of water, salts, and other substances in our blood. The kidneys also regulate the acid-alkaline balance in our body fluids, and they produce hormones to regulate our blood pressure and oxygen level and to stimulate the production of red blood cells.
The kidneys send waste material, as urine, down the ureters, the tubes, to the bladder. The bladder stores the urine and then releases it through the urethra. The functions of these organs are absolutely crucial to life.
In chi kung and TCM, the kidneys are called the Root of Life, because they store the body’s Essence. Essence is the source of reproduction, development, and maturation. It is also the underlying material of all the organs of the body. The kidneys are yin and the bladder is yang. Spiritually, the kidneys house the Willpower Spirit, or Zhi in Chinese.
Water is the Element associated with the kidneys and bladder. The energetic nature of water is energy gathering and sinking. Chronic fear stresses our kidneys and bladder. This makes our water energy sluggish and stagnant. Our kidneys become impaired, less able to gather waste material from the blood, convert it to urine, and sink the urine down to the bladder to be released.
In TCM, the kidneys are seen as controlling our sex drive, hearing, bones, teeth, head hair, lower back, knees, ankles, and feet. Their associated glands are the sexual glands and the adrenal glands. So, living in fear may result in one or more of these problems: weak sexual energy, infertility, urinary problems, bladder infections, adrenal exhaustion, teeth and bone deterioration, hair loss, and knee, ankle, or foot problems. The picture is even worse when we consider the Taoist view that all the organs and systems depend on the kidneys for Essence, for vitality. Excessive fear eventually weakens all our internal organs and shortens our lives.
American society has an anxious, schizophrenic relationship to sex. Most popular songs are about seeking, finding, or losing a lover. Most films, plays, and TV shows routinely include sexual relationships in their plots. Many people long for healthy sexual relationships, and yet they also fear them. We are still influenced by the puritanical bias of the early European settlers, who saw sex as something shameful, something to feel guilty about. The sexual freedom of the 1960s has been restrained by fear of AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. The pornography industry earns billions by portraying sex as something forbidden and exploitative — a power to hold over others. Advertising uses attractive men and women in seductive poses to sell everything from cars to carpets.
Chi kung celebrates sex as a natural part of a loving, equal relationship. Both partners seek to please and pleasure each other as an expression of unconditional love. Clearing and transforming our painful emotions with the Healing Sounds and Inner Smile enhances both lovemaking and health by energizing the kidneys, bladder, and sexual organs, as well as all the other internal organs. Chi kung also has specific methods to enhance lovemaking and increase longevity. Sex becomes a form of rejuvenation and a spiritual catalyst. These methods are covered in Mantak Chia’s books on Taoist sexual practices, listed under “Taoist Sexology” in the Selected References section near the end of the book.
Fear can be our worst enemy and our greatest friend. If ignored and denied, it robs us of the richness of life. If acknowledged and transformed, it leads us into balance and inner peace. The Six Healing Sounds and Inner Smile are potent energetic medicine for our poor depleted kidneys and bladder.
Most important, we can’t allow fear to rule our lives. Regardless of the chaos and suffering we see around us, we must generate a positive nature every day. We can help others in need as we cultivate gentleness, willpower, and wisdom within ourselves. We can be a beacon of inner peace shining out to all we meet.
As we noted before, it’s important to eat fresh, locally grown, organic food as much as possible. Avoid canned, packaged, irradiated, or genetically modified food. Avoid cane sugar; substitute a small amount of organic raw honey or 100 percent pure maple syrup. Eat all five tastes every day. Eat a variety of food colors every day, especially raw or lightly cooked greens. Include one or more raw, fermented foods daily; these are covered in the next chapter.
Winter is the season when our kidneys and bladder work the hardest. Support them in winter, and all seasons, by eating blue and black foods. These contain anthocyanins, which support the hormone system, which is part of the kidney and bladder system.1 So include black beans, blueberries, blackberries, black olives, and dried seaweeds such as nori, kombu, kelp, and dulse. Seaweeds are an excellent source of minerals. Instead of eating potato chips, try snacking on dried dulse or nori; they’re deliciously salty. Add them to your salads as well. Seaweeds are especially welcome in winter, since they are both black and salty. Salty is the taste that supports kidneys and bladder. Eat very small amounts of sea salt, preferably Celtic, which may require a salt grinder, or other quality organic sea salt. They’re not only healthier but also their taste is outstanding. Use very small amounts of organic miso or tamari sauce (a higher grade of soy sauce). Other salty foods to include are organic free-range eggs; raw, aged goat cheese, especially salted feta; raw butter; and high-quality saltwater fish.
Note that many people who are lactose intolerant can digest and thrive on organic raw milk products. It’s the pasteurization (heating) and homogenization (crushing) of most dairy products that probably cause the intolerance. If you can get raw organic butter, it’s very beneficial; it’s an excellent source of vitamins A, D, K, and E.2 If you’re a vegetarian, raw butter and egg yolks are your only source of animal fat. If raw organic butter is not available in your health food store, you may be able to get it and other raw dairy products from a local farmer. Ask the vendors at your local farmers’ market for a contact, or go online. Margarine and other butter substitutes are loaded with toxic chemicals.
However, if your kidneys or bladder are very weak, it’s best to minimize salty foods and to emphasize spicy and sour foods instead.
Wearing blue or black clothes enhances our kidneys and bladder and, as a result, helps to reduce fear. Black also balances our mental activities with its grounding effect. Ignore black’s negative reputation; black clothes are elegant, authoritative, attractive…and slimming!
Water is the element associated with the kidneys and bladder. Our body is about 70 percent water, and we must continually replenish it with clean, filtered water. High-quality home water filters are superior to bottled water, which varies in its purity. Some brands are no better than tap water. Wash your fruits and vegetables with filtered water, and cook with it.
How much water should we drink each day? Many modern health professionals advise us to drink at least eight cups of plain water a day, in addition to any other fluids. TCM advises us to daily consume no more than six cups of all fluids combined, including those in fruits and vegetables, because it says this is how much the kidneys can comfortably filter in one day. Any more than six cups leads to water retention.
Naturopathic medicine, however, advises us to drink filtered water, half the amount in ounces of our body weight. Thus, if one weighs 140 pounds, he or she should drink seventy ounces, or about eight and a half cups. Acupuncturist Mikio Sankey agrees with this, because he believes that our modern society stresses our bodies with so many toxins in our food, our water, and our air, and with electromagnetic radiation from cell phones, microwaves, computers, and so on, that we need to drink more pure water to flush out these toxins. Freshly pressed organic vegetable juices also count as beneficial fluids, if drunk within fifteen minutes of making them. Soft drinks and bottled juices are not beneficial, because they are loaded with sugar and preservatives.3
Mantak Chia suggests these guidelines. If your urine is light yellow, this indicates you are consuming enough liquids. If your urine is dark yellow, you need more liquids in order for your liver to detoxify waste substances. Emptying the bladder five or six times a day is another indication that you are consuming the right amount of fluids.
Many health experts say it’s best not to drink liquids with your meals, because water dilutes the hydrochloric acid and enzymes in the digestive system. However, Dena suggests that drinking a half cup of lukewarm filtered water with a few squeezes of fresh lemon about twenty minutes before a meal can improve your digestion.
So consider these differing recommendations, try the ones that call to you, and then let your own body wisdom be the final expert.
Be grateful for the gift of water to sustain life. Appreciate our oceans, lakes, and rivers; whenever possible, gaze at them and give thanks for their beauty, the food they supply to us, their transportation functions, and their recreational delights.
In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu frequently equates Tao with water. Water flows from above and sinks into the earth. It is soft and yielding, but it can overcome fire, wood, earth, and stone. Sankey calls the kidneys “the sparkplugs that ignite the other systems.”4 Strengthening our sparkplugs by releasing fear will ignite our willpower and our wisdom, our gentleness and calmness.
1. Sally Fallon, with Mary G. Enig, Nourishing Traditions, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: New Trends Publishing, 2001), p. 15.
2. Maoshing Ni, Secrets of Self-Healing (New York: Avery, 2008), p. 77.
3. Mikio Sankey, Support the Mountain: Nutrition for Expanded Consciousness (Inglewood, CA: Mountain Castle Publishing, 2008), pp. 140–141.
4. Mikio Sankey, Discern the Whisper: Esoteric Acupuncture, vol. 2 (Inglewood, CA: Mountain Castle Publishing, 2002), p. 53.