On my Instagram feed, I regularly come across infographics showing the emotions in TCM linked to organs. What I find exasperating is that it's often approximate, even wrong in some cases. What's more, they never say what to do about it.
For example, if I tell you the liver = anger, that's okay, but why, how, and what does knowing it give me? You can feel that it's just for posting content and getting more followers. That's a shame, because understanding it can be incredibly interesting.
What prompted me to write this article is this post: it's completely false and quite alarming… for very little reason. So I'm going to allow myself to "debunk" it.
The meridians
First of all, you will often read (and I myself will write) the words "liver", "kidneys" and so on. But in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), what is implied is "energy organs", which must be distinguished from the physical organ.
The energy organ is what the Chinese medicine practitioner will work on. The physical organ is what your doctor will take care of.
TCM counts ten organs (twelve in reality, but in this context we set the other two aside, as they would needlessly complicate the explanations), all of which have energy meridians that run through our body. To simplify what a meridian is, let's just say it's a channel that crosses our body and carries the energy that runs through us. These channels are made up of points that allow this flow to be controlled.
The different "types of organ"
Chinese thought classifies these energy organs into two categories: solid organs and hollow organs. In our subject, this difference matters, because only the solid organs have an associated emotion. Hollow organs don't. The solid organs are:
- The liver
- The heart
- The spleen and pancreas
- The lung
- The kidneys
The hollow organs are all the others:
- The gallbladder
- The small intestine
- The stomach
- The large intestine
- The bladder
The infographic is necessarily wrong when it says the stomach has an emotion, since it is a hollow organ.
The 7 emotions in TCM
This is when we start pulling our hair out. There are 5 organs and 7 emotions. Associating them is therefore a difficult but important exercise.
Here are the 7 emotions:
- Anger
- Desire and excessive joy
- Anxiety and excessive thoughts
- Sadness
- Grief and anguish
- Fright
- Fear
All the other emotions or feelings we can experience are therefore not recognized emotions in traditional Chinese medicine and cannot be associated with a solid organ. For example, disappointment, stress and injustice cannot be classified. You therefore have to understand what lies behind them. For instance, if someone disappoints you, what lies behind it? Did it make you angry? Did it make you sad?
Similarly, since stress is not a real emotion, it cannot be associated with the stomach. Another mistake.
Associating the emotions in TCM
Now that I've listed the emotions and the solid organs, we need to associate them. We therefore associate:
- The liver with anger. This association is the best known, even though I don't know why. Perhaps because it speaks to people the most and is the most coherent.
- The heart with sadness and excessive joy. Even if some will disagree, I also put sadness with the heart.
- The spleen and pancreas with anxiety. One of the expressions of anxiety is excessive thoughts. But for anxious people, you know what I'm talking about.
- The lung with grief and anguish. The lung is linked to everything to do with separation. Separation then creates grief. Some will say it's more sadness. Which is what I long believed.
- The kidneys are linked to fear. This association is well known. I think it's linked to the saying "you urinate from fear". Which is therefore true.
In our account, there remains fright, which can be described as a stronger fear. It can be associated with the kidneys but also with the heart.
The chicken or the egg
The original infographic implies that emotions destroy our organs. I'll reassure you: that's false.
"Solid organs only work when they are empty, hollow organs only work when they are full."
This quote helps me get where I want to go. It's fairly easy to understand that a hollow organ only works when it is full. For example, the stomach only works if food is stored in it. Otherwise, it pauses and rests.
As for the solid organs, it's more complicated to explain. To do this, I'll cite this rule: "nature abhors a vacuum". If a vacuum occurs, something fills it. The simplest example is a bottle of water. When you pour the water out, it leaves the bottle and is instantly replaced by air.
Let's get back to our solid organs: if one is filled with energy, it won't generate an emotion. On the other hand, if it empties of energy, another energy takes its place: an emotion.
This is what explains why we don't express the 7 emotions all at once, and why some people are more in one emotion than another. It's simply an energy balance that isn't established.
Another important fact: it's normal to feel an emotion. The key is that it passes quickly. The solid organ only truly malfunctions if the emotion stays bottled up inside you. Getting angry because someone nearly ran you over is normal. On the other hand, the next day, you should no longer be angry.
An emotion is linked to an energy imbalance. In itself, it won't destroy your organ. It will do other damage, but energy damage.
Where do emotions come from in TCM
How does a solid organ come to empty itself to fill with emotion? Well it's simple: by feeling a strong emotion.
You'll tell me that's a bit contradictory. And yet, not so much. Indeed, this time I'm talking about a strong emotion linked to trauma. It can be a great fear (of dying, for example), a bereavement, or a traumatic event such as an assault, etc.
Other reasons can also lead to this, such as your way of life: for example, living at night, working in overdrive, or eating badly.
So now, what do we do with all this?
As you will have understood, associating an emotion with an organ serves no purpose if it is to remain a simplistic infographic. The whole point of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is precisely to understand these links in order to act on our emotional and energy balance.
1. Identify the emotion that persists
If an emotion overwhelms you repeatedly (chronic anger, persistent anxiety, paralyzing fear...), it may be a sign that the associated organ is in energy imbalance. TCM offers solutions to remedy it:
- Rebalancing the energy flow through the meridian points: to rebalance the flow of energy in the meridian concerned.
- Chinese herbal medicine: certain plants help to tonify or soothe an energy organ.
- Energy exercises (Qi Gong, Tai Chi): they promote the circulation of energy.
2. Don't demonize emotions
Let's remember: a passing emotion is normal. It's when it settles in that it becomes problematic. Rather than repressing it, ask yourself: why does this anger, this fear or this sadness stay stuck? TCM often sees persistent emotions as a signal to decode, not a fatality.
3. Adapt your lifestyle
As you've seen, an organ can empty itself because of a shock… but also because of an exhausting pace of life. The liver, for example, is sensitive to lack of sleep; the kidneys, to excess stress. Taking care of your physical organs (diet, rest) also influences their energetic version.
In short
The next time you see an infographic like "The liver = anger", ask yourself:
- Does this emotion inhabit me too often?
- What can I do to restore the balance?
TCM isn't a magic wand, but a precious framework for understanding how our emotions and our body dialogue. It's up to us to keep that dialogue harmonious.
Curious to go further? Discover more blog articles on traditional Chinese medicine.
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