Spirituality is wholeness, IT IS NOT AN ESCAPE into the head at the expense of the body or our connection to earth. 

Everything we are, is fed and fuelled by universal energy...

The biggest transformer of that energy, which is literally the conduit through which everything flows in our lives, is Mother Earth. She transforms universal energy and provides many forms of nourishment. We receive earth energy directly into our bodies via the Stomach and Spleen organs and Meridians, which further process and transform earth energy into many human capabilities and traits. 

In the same way that Mother Earth “grounds” universal energy and makes it safer for us to consume, we as humans have the ability to ground the many levels of universal consciousness and make it accessible to be interpreted by humanity. If we manage to maintain our connection with Earth and our earth element. 

As you would imagine, the gift of Mother earth is Grounding, which confers a practicality to our nature, so we can ground into reality, ideas and concepts that are formulated during transitions through different levels of awareness. If this mechanism is disturbed, we get stuck in the head, start to day dream and our ability to ground ourselves in ordinary reality, or journey to non ordinary reality is disturbed. 

If you want to ground a new insight, learning, discovery, or idea into your body,  and thus, into this reality, then go for a walk to get into your body.

When we are grounded, we are practical, in touch with our feelings and emotions, and know who we are as an individual, plus we know what we want. There is a strong sense of individuality and sense of purpose. We radiate vitality and sensuality and don't get our energies bound and depleted in mental gymnastics, constantly trying to understand and figure things out. A well grounded individual both lives life and loves life, and doesn’t just talk and analyse it. 

Analysing and intellectualising and talking about feeling, IS NOT FEELING, and is often an escape from having true heart felt experiences. However, feeling makes us vulnerable, and may bring to the surface issues of past rejections and abandonment. So as a defence mechanism, to stop ourselves feeling the pain of these issues, we suppress our breathing, tighten our diaphragm, tense our abdomen and solar plexus, indulge ourselves in our thoughts, and get stuck in our head, trying to escape and live out our lives through dreams and fantasies, projecting our view of reality onto the world, and not seeing or feeling what is really happening. 

The Stomach and Spleen (and solar plexus) are in the centre of our body and function as the conduit that connects the energies of our Mind to the Energies of our body. This is where universal consciousness meets earth energy. The stomach extracts and processes subtle energy from the universe from foods and fluids, and coordinates with the spleen to transport that energy to the lungs. There it combines with Qi from the air we breathe. Therefore, any dysfunction of the stomach creates immediate imbalance in the other organs.

Analysing and intellectualising and talking about feeling, IS NOT FEELING ...

The stomach is a receiving organ of universal information into our bodies. This energy is then passed on to the small intestine meridian where it is carefully sorted to determine whether we keep it or let it go.

The stomach meridian fuels our ability to assimilate new ideas, absorb information, as well as honouring and nurturing ourselves. It helps us digest food, life, and people. It gives us an ability to receive and assimilate. It’s responsible for intolerance and criticism; worry, thinking, confusion, our conscious mind; nurturing, feeding, physiological and psychological nourishment, strength, grounding, stability, mania, and open mindedness.

Signs of Stomach Meridian Imbalance

If the stomach is out, our body and mind suffer from malnourishment and this produces a state of low energy. In this state the world seems too complicated and in extreme cases one could experience eating disorders, body dysmorphia, hyper-sensitivity, restlessness, and noise sensitivity. Imbalances can make one antisocial and withdrawn or reclusive. Many of our societal problems may well be directly related to the lack of nourishment in our foods and a disconnection from Earth.

Imbalance can cause anxiety, confusion, hyperactivity, depression, instability, doubt, suspicions, mania, suicidal tendencies, slowness at assimilating ideas, and some types of ADD. Also: withholding nourishment, inability to digest ideas, dread, fear of the new, Inability to assimilate the new, over-sympathetic nervous system, excessive self importance, egotism, despair, feeling stifled; and may cause us to have death wishes, instability, suicidal tendencies, become mentally overwrought, doubting, suspicious; and become slow at assimilating ideas.

The Stomach Meridian also passes through many erogenous zones which could positively and negatively impact our sex drive or primal urges. It affects our ability to stand our ground, makes us constantly seek approval or look for support from the outside when we are unable to nourish ourselves from within. We become needy seeking sympathy or emotional nourishment which leads some of us into dependent relationships where the other takes on the burden and responsibility for keeping the relationship grounded. When we feel we want someone to care for us, we are often just needing to get grounded and centred and balanced.

Spending too much time away from the body weakens the body. So if we are stuck in our minds, this energises the head but leaves the body depleted physically and emotionally. The body is our grounding for the mind and when we are away from the body we may feel that we do not accept people as they are, and feel we need to change them to meet our own standards. 

Spleen Meridian

The Spleen harmonises our upper and lower body parts and is thrown out of balance with worry and over-thinking which are the greatest causes of Spleen depletion.

The Spleen has a wide range of functions, from digestion to muscle tone to sensuality. The Spleen manufactures Qi from our food. The Spleen’s role is to transform and move foods, liquids, and thoughts in the body (this is called digestion). 

The Spleen turns earth energy, that we receive in food, into postnatal energy (called acquired Qi). It also keeps our tissues, muscles, and thoughts moist, supple, adaptable. The Spleen governs taste and true nourishment. It regulates our bio-rhythms and in women, regulates menstruation. It helps us focus the mind sharply and keenly.

The prolonged mental journeys of living in the past or the future weakens the body-mind contact with our present reality, and the energy of Earth with all its practical, down to earth feelings and emotions. If the spleen meridian is hypoactive we may not be able to concentrate, and we can become forgetful, absent minded, indifferent, feel alienated, and may have difficulty giving and receiving sympathy. Imbalance may correlate with physical and mental fatigue, muscular weakness, lack of tone, poor appetite, and bad digestion and a lack of abdominal tautness. You may also feel tired all of the time. Constantly feeling tired, can feel like emotional numbness and we might come across as unsympathetic, indifferent and uncaring about others and unconcerned about their well being. This may also be a defence against expressing our true feelings, holding back, possibly due to fear of revealing our wilder side.

Low energy states tend to kill motivation, and we coast into routines and end up doing the bidding of others rather than expressing our individuality and power. An example of this, is the suppression of anger. Suppressed anger, actually depletes our energy. As energy, anger is a force that can be transmuted. You can get a lot done with this energy. If we accept we are angry and face this energy, instead of suppressing it, we can use the ‘force’ of this energy as assertive power. This may allow part of our personality to assertively express itself in creative outlets. So rather than thinking of the situation that got you angry, move out of the head and into the body and FEEL the anger and connect this to the element of earth in the body. If we move out of our head and connect to the earth element in our bodies we can start to recognise and use our own power to think and make decisions for ourselves. 

Balancing the Spleen meridian helps us become more assertive to fulfil our own personal goals and ambitions. Being in your power, grounded and down to earth, affords you clarity and focus, unlike the archetypical absent minded professor who is so involved in the affairs of his head, not being present and aware of the people and the environment around him. 

Being ungrounded disconnects the mind from the body and we get stuck in our head and start projecting our false impressions, or our fantasies over what is really happening and this causes us a degree of separation from others and our humanity. This is compounded by the sensitivity we feel which makes us try to suppress our emotions. We block our body centres, short circuit our breathing, and disconnect the flow of earth and our whole system begins to feel undernourished, which makes us crave sweets - causing weight problems. Inhibiting ourselves, pushing down our own anger and repressing frustration, we may try to compensate for emotional outlets through the oral gratification of eating food. Weight problems can also be a denial of sexuality and expressions of natural feelings or emotions. 

Balancing the Earth element with the spleen/pancreas can move us back into the body and emotions, making us more aware of our fears and give us the strength to overcome them and re-energise our lives with a new sense of purpose. 

Hyperactivity of the spleen meridian may cause, overthinking, brooding, worry, anxiety, obsessions, obsessiveness. If you are constantly studying and researching and pursuing intellectual activities, it is possible to exacerbate over-thinking leaving you unable to switch off your analytical processes. Carrying these qualities into social life, we may become over- critical and too judgemental and lack spontaneity within our relationships. 

Balancing the earth element, allows us to be totally present and connected, while not losing our own individuality and merging or fusing our minds with someone else’s fears and anxieties; neglecting our own wishes and desires; and trying to live them out through the lives of our children or loved ones; which affects our own growth and evolution. Grounding helps dissolve fears of inadequacy so we can take back control of the direction of our lives.

If this article resonates, we comment on all the major meridians in Meridian Awakening 6 Week Series in Shamanic Energy Training