by Mantak Chia

We live in an emotional world. Negative emotions are here to stay, and trying to deny them simply causes more problems, because they grow faster than we can eliminate them. The solution is not to eradicate them but to balance them, cultivating and nourishing positive emotions to keep our negative emotions under control.

One way to do that is through the Taoist technique called Inner Smile. It connects us to the earth force, which in turn draws the heavenly force down, so that we “download” unconditional love from the universe with a simple smile. In doing so, we nourish the positive emotions that reside in the five major organs: love in the heart, trust in the spleen, courage in the lungs, gentleness in the kidneys and kindness in the liver.

As simple or silly as it may seem, this technique—a process of putting our bodies and minds in a state of constant, selfcreated mini-bliss—is extremely powerful for healing not just a weakened emotional state but also serious physical illness.

Another Taoist technique, Six Healing Sounds, can help us transform negative emotions into positive ones. Negative emotions are just like garbage, and so we need to understand our emotions and sort them out. (Are we feeling anger, or is it actually fear?) Toxic emotions must be released, while other emotions can be recycled using the same principle of connecting to our five major organs. We can transform hate into love, anxiety into trust, sadness into courage, fear into gentleness and anger into kindness. In the process, we not only balance our emotions, but also help those organs regain their strength and vitality.

Mantak Chia will be a featured teacher at the 2016 Eastover Medical Qi Gong & Eastern Medicine Symposium June 10 through 17, and at Eastover’s Universal Healing Tao Training June 14 through 27. Eastover Estate and Retreat is located in Lenox, MA. Find out more at Eastover.com.