Touch For Health Makes The Psychological Health Triangle Even Clearer To Me

Tang Lan (Dalian)
July 10, 2013

When I first entered the field of psychological training, my teacher Mr. Li Zhongying introduced me to the “psychological health triangle.” This is a triangle made up of thoughts, emotions and the body. I know that by entering through any one of the angles, we can get closer to the heart and from the heart connect to the system.

NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), which I focus in, is a very theoretical (entering through thoughts) and practical (entering through emotions) study; because of Mr. Li Zhongying”s recommendation, we also learned somatic therapy (entering through the body). I have seen with my own eyes a depressed, misanthropic guy receiving treatment from an expert from New York University; simply through some physical touches and questioning, he displayed a serious trauma of the baby phase (asphyxia). Furthermore, also on the physical level, he reacted with fierce and violent actions in the facilitation process. Finally, he fell asleep quietly, like a baby…

At that time, I knew: life is an amazing system; it has many levels. The most important thing in life is to keep the balance of the inner mind, and to enter inside, we need to rely on the psychological health triangle — “thoughts, emotions, the body.”

For this scientific generation of ours, we seem to be very good at controlling “thoughts.” We rely overly on our memory of knowledge (cognition), and forgot about or even deny that life also has the capability to experience (perception). Therefore, when our group of twenty to thirty middle-aged people, who were quite successful in our lives, studied “Dao De Jing” under an old eighty-year-old scholar, it was hard to understand this line: “Truth can be known, but it may not be the well-known truth.”

At Dearfox, we have a lot of chances to get in touch with this triangle! In particular, this “body” that we cannot understand. — A lot of people think they know their own body best, but let me tell you: the body is the most honest angle, but also the hardest to understand. This is because to understand it, you must empty your brain. For the modern man, putting down logic is a great challenge.

From very early on, Dearfox offered Kundalini yoga, which is a good way to enter through the body to clear out mental garbage; afterwards, we have a series of kinesiology courses hosted by Mr. Conrad Ho and Ms. Amy Choi, including “Brain Gym,” “Touch for Health,” and “Qinesiology.” In these courses, we have the chance to get closer to the amazing signals of the body, understand the meaning of the body”s problems, and nurture our physical and mental health.

Last weekend, I completed the four levels of “Touch for Health” in eight days. I was again impressed by the miraculous human body, by the greatness of Chinese medicine, by the ancient Eastern civilization, and by the root that flowed within the veins of the Chinese people!

In “Touch for Health,” a lot of balancing methods are cleverly unfolded on the foundation of the meridians and the five elements in Chinese medicine. For example, in the fourth stage, there is a “Five-Sound Balance” (there is of course also “Five-Color Balance” and “Five-Emotion Balance”; the American Dr. John Thie who founded Touch for Health understood, respected and trusted Chinese medicine even more than us); Ms. Zhao Xiaohong from Tianjin helped me do it. The goal I set was “I enjoy life.” After the testing over- and under-energy of the meridians, it was discovered according to the Five Element Wheel that again, my kidney meridian required some balancing. In levels three and four, no matter what goal I set, I would be led miraculously to the kidney and lung meridians. It allowed me to understand the imbalance on my mental level¡Xfear and sadness.

The “Sound Balance” for the kidney meridian required one to make the sound of groaning. To the person being balanced, this was a sound that may be actively suppressed. At first, I imagined facing a worrisome event and made some imitated groans. After several groans, unexpected sadness and fear washed over me like angry waves — I truly fell into the event of my younger brother suddenly passing away two and a half years ago.

At the moment of that event, the real me was extremely calm. Since there was my old mother who had to see her son die before her, and my nephew who had not yet started his career and family, plus the determination to let my brother”s soul leave in peace, my sister and I almost completely suppressed our sadness and fear. I didn”t think that they would settle within my body. This balance allowed me to understand why my waist always hurt after my brother passed away, and why my weight increased by 7 kilograms after he left; I understood why traditions required the living to cry before the grave of the dead, and understood that entering through the angle of the body was more direct than entering through thoughts — my consciousness had always thought that I could easily let things go.

Coincidentally, recently my yoga assignment each day is directed towards the Dantian, and recently I again picked up a book called Hope in Illness. In the book, there is a sentence that I”d like to dedicate to you who are reading this: “Illness is a human condition that signifies the patient”s loss of order or harmony on the level of consciousness.” — Let us respect our body; like our emotions, it is a system of signals. Once you understand the signals, it reverts back to perfection. Actually, once you”ve entered deep inside, you”ll agree with me: thoughts are also a system of signals, and that”s why Lao Zi said, “The truth cannot be expressed.”

That is to say, what we must truly respect is our inner heart; body and heart becoming one is not just a phrase. One whose spirit is balanced will not get sick, and only those at one with nature can understand truth. Therefore, I tell you about this Psychological Health Triangle, and invite you to experience it with me.