Anger Harms The Liver
by Mariann Uehlinger Mondria, Switzerland
My girl friend from school recently died from cancer and cerebral tumours. We had an eventful and lovely youth together and I feel pain in me to remember the state she was in shortly before dying. When she was 11, her mother suffered from breast cancer but was lucky to overcome it. My girl friend therefore thought she had to scan her breasts meticulously, probably encouraged by her gynaecologist. Finally she discovered what she had been looking for; 13 years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although she could have been happy after the successful operation, the fear of cancer was implanted. Tests were done every couple of months until something else was found. This time, the liver was affected.
According to acupuncture theory, which originally comes from Nokodemjon, the liver and the gall bladder are related to the element "wood". Dianne M. Connelly, PH.D. writes in her book "Traditional Acupuncture: The Law of the Five Elements": “…The emotion corresponding to wood is anger. A person with an imbalance in wood will have a marked presence of anger in themselves, or a complete absence of anger. An excess of anger is injurious to the liver and gall bladder. … The sound corresponding to wood is shouting…" Thanks to chemo therapy twice a month, a capable doctor and the support of private health insurance my girl friend was able to almost live a normal life and to play tennis again, that is, until the cerebral tumours appeared. The addition of radiation therapy to her regimen put a halt to everything. Unfortunately, the communication we were having during the past years was not as easy as what we had enjoyed in our younger days, and when we saw each other, we were seldom alone. Occasionally I inconspicuously tried to probe her thinking processes; trying to find out if she was religious or "only" believed in medical science, but she was not open to discuss these matters.
What I knew was, that she was a dogged fighter and she played extremely good tennis. I also knew she was angry at her husband; he didn't help her enough in the household and garden, he ate too much meat, he pulled out the bottom shirt without holding the upper ones, he shut all drawers and doors with a bang, esteemed her, but didn’t treat her to nice things, etc. In other words, he behaved sometimes like a ‘bull in a china shop’, although to my outsider’s eyes he is, despite his body height, an intelligent, gentle, humorous and likeable man.
I encouraged her to laugh at his boorish ways and to accept him as he was, but she obviously didn't succeed – or far too late for her. In order to have this ability to accept another’s flaws there need to be other mitigating qualities to offset these perceived imbalances such as affection, attention, or even sensuality. Unconsciously, her nature became measured and restrained; she became unusually tough and judgemental towards both herself and others. Only sometimes when she and I were remembering some past "adventures" her face lit up, and for a brief moment, my old ‘comrade’ was back. It was hard to see the change my friend’s intransigence had brought upon her character.
Protecting our psyche by neither retreating into one's shell nor shouting in anger isn’t easy at all. Psychologists and psychiatrists encourage us to unleash the anger verbally and not to choke it down; perhaps it’s time to take a second look at this prescription. Could it be a self perpetuating vicious circle? Anger begetting anger? Does our psyche really remain sound and strong when we shout angrily at others? It does not. Everyone shouts from time to time, but we are all not evolved enough to shout without really being angry at the (alleged) causer of our anger. To shout in anger is one thing, but to be aware that the trigger for our anger is within ourselves, is another. In other words: getting angry at another person, or situation, is not necessarily healthy, we are not getting to the core reason for our anger. Casting blame elsewhere prolongs our true learning through truthful examination of the train of thoughts leading up to the eruption.
For the time being, only Billy has this ability. Even if Billy talks to someone in plain language vociferously and reprimands him or her, he never is angry with the person. Nothing changes in his love for him or her, it's only the action being done he objects to, not the human being as such.
We should act in the same way. The degenerated negative frequencies which we send out by our mental block, when angrily shouting, are really toxic for our cells, not to mention the contorted mask our face becomes! Looking at it in this way, it is not a surprise that our hepatocytes (liver cells) are affected in such a way that they degenerate and cancer cells are built (see also my article "How does the mental fluidal force penetrate the cells and organs? or Why is Joy and Harmony so important for us?", FIGU Sonder-Bulletin no 37).
We want to prevent anger, meaning neither swallowing it nor letting it out, but not allowing it to develop at all – as is right and proper for a real human being. But how can we manage this? What is Billy’s "secret"? Actually it is very simple but difficult to put into action: Billy is strong and indestructible, for in himself he is full of love, peace, freedom, harmony and feelings/compassion for all creatures. We are able to learn that as well, even if we will not reach relative perfection in this lifetime, by saying to ourselves over and over again:
I am strong.
I am indestructible,
for in myself I am full of
love, peace, freedom, harmony
and feelings/compassion for all creatures.
In German:
Ich bin stark.
Ich bin unzerstörbar, denn in
mir bin ich voller Liebe, Frieden, Freiheit, Harmonie und Mitfühlsamkeit.
