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Face Reading with Before & After Photos
Five Elements Made Easy
Face Reading Foundation
The Five Elements map the interrelatedness of our internal organs with facial indicators such as wrinkles and discoloration. This paradigm helps us see, for example, how lines between the eyebrows relate to the liver and impatience. Five Elements underpin Asian philosophy and traditional Chinese Face Reading.
As the Five Elements are based on direct observation, you can easily grasp this paradigm and put it to good use. The Elements are Earth, Metal, Water, Wood and Fire and each is associated with specific emotions, internal organs, seasons, flavors and more. Specific activities and foods either support or challenge a given element.
Five Element Overviews
For a description of each Element, follow the links below. To appreciate how they are interrelated, see Hall of Mirrors. Here you’ll find additional information on Separating the Pure from the Impure.
Earth Element
Metal Element
Water Element
Wood Element
Fire Element
Earth Element – Nurture
For blogs with Earth Element symptoms and solutions, click here.
The Earth Element is about nurture on all levels and this includes the ability to foster yourself as well as others. When Earth is in balance, you transform your food into energy, immunity, warmth and creativity. You take what life gives to you, are nurtured by it and you nurture others in return.
A healthy Earth Element enables you to be sympathetic, strong, hard working, helpful, diplomatic, tolerant, practical, responsible and creative. Kind-hearted Earth types have family and friends as their focus. Their muscles are strong and toned.
Key — Nurture
Organs – Stomach, Spleen, Pancreas
Color – Yellow
Season – Harvest
Flavor – Sweet
Separating the Pure from the Impure
The Earth Element organs, stomach, spleen and pancreas, extract the pure essence from the food and water we ingest to form our bodily fluids. This means that quality, easily digested foods support your Earth Element, whereas eating less well stresses your digestive system by making it overwork to distill the pure. Eating poorly is costly to your overall wellbeing.
Signs of Earth Element Imbalance
- Color: Yellow, gold, orange discoloration or a dark color in an “Earth” location.
- Facial irregularities around the mouth or eye lids
- Physical: fatigue, weight and digestive problems.
- Mental: compulsion, worry, obsessiveness
Support Digestion (Earth Element)
To support the Earth Element engage in activities that are nurturing to you like, perhaps singing, dancing or gardening. Create a harmonious and relaxing home environment. Aim for three satisfying meals per day of whole, freshly prepared foods. Exclude hard-to-digest, processed, stale and/or allergenic foods. Reduce stress.
Diet Guidelines
1. Eat whole, not packaged, foods; as possible, favor organic. Prefer easy to digest simple soups, stews, braised, steamed and sautéed dishes over harder to digest foods like baked goods and fried or stale foods.
2. Favor predominantly cooked foods. See my blogs: Warming Properties of Food and Vegetables—Best Raw or Cooked?
3. For maximum energy, prepare foods fresh each day. If you have leftovers, reheat them ideally within 24 hours, while they still have some oomph. For the same reason, if you freeze leftovers, try to use them within a week. While refrigeration and freezing successfully retard spoilage, they reduce the energy of cooked foods.
4. A balanced meal includes; a protein portion about the size of your palm; one to two tablespoons of fat (the size of your thumb); a complex carbohydrate; and enough vegetables to finish filling your plate. Fruit is optional, enjoy up to two servings per day. For enhanced nutrition, enjoy seaweed and a fermented condiment like sauerkraut.
5. Allow a minimum of two hours between dinner and bedtime.
Metal Element – Consolidate
For blogs with Metal Element symptoms and solutions, click here.
With a harmonious Metal Element you consolidate and organize your activities, environment and thoughts. As you value your own worth, you can hold to your principles.
Lustrous skin and hair reflect that your Metal Element organs, your lungs and large intestine, are functioning well. This Element also governs the skin and the mucous membranes throughout your body both of which help shield you from viruses, bacteria and other pathogens.
Key – Consolidate
Organs – Lungs, colon and skin
Color – White
Season – Fall
Flavor – Pungent or sharp
Separating the Pure from the Impure
Our lungs consolidates oxygen from air and discards the dregs (CO2). Likewise the colon and the skin assimilate nutrients and pass the waste. You inhale the fragrance of a posy and then release with your exhale. Trying to hold the inhale is, in the least, non-productive. You chuck wilted flowers. When your Metal Element is balanced then you wisely discern your options and you let go of the extraneous, including old story lines. What a relief! Both you and your immune system, have healthy boundaries.
Signs of Metal Element Imbalance
If you find yourself stretched for time, overburdened with responsibilities or living amidst clutter, this suggests a Metal Element imbalance as do the following:
- Color: White, pale (or sometimes dark); dissimilar neck and face colors
- Facial irregularities below the mouth or on cheek bones
- Physical: lung, colon and skin issues
- Mental: overwhelm, stress, unrelenting sadness, grief, victim mentality
Metal Element Support
Over scheduling, over working and over consuming are the contemporary norm and a set up for poor health. When well organized but relaxed and focused we are more productive than when overwhelmed with choices or awash in complexity.
Take a moment to recall the last time you felt fully relaxed and focused. Watching TV, browsing the internet or playing with an electronic device doesn’t count as they’re not restful to the brain and body. Be proactive and shed the extraneous from your daily life. Notice how this supports your Metal Element functions.
Water Element – Restore
For blogs with Water Element symptoms and solutions, click here.
Consider your Water Element as your foundation. It’s analogous to the roots of a massive tree or the infrastructure of a skyscraper. It energetically stores your vitality that governs your life from birth to death and underlies your vitality, warmth and bravery. Stress is especially challenging to the Water Element.
The Water Element organs are the kidneys, bladder and adrenals which underlay our vitality and reproductive functions. A strong Water Element person is gifted with will power and creativity, but is also gentle, calm and handles stress well. In Asia, the kidney system is valued for its ability to provide heat for the spleen to transform body fluids and to assist the small intestine in its function to separate pure and impure body fluids.
Key – Restore, Regenerate
Organs – Kidney, bladder, adrenal glands
Color – Blue, dark blue, black, purple
Season – Winter
Flavor – Salty
Separating the Pure from the Impure
To “purely” care for your kidney system get adequate rest and exercise and avoid overstimulation, drugs, chemicals, alcohol and stimulants. On the level of the organs, the “pure” kidney functions include: producing hormones and regulating extracellular fluids. In keeping with the analogy, their “impure function” is to shunt urine to the bladder.
Signs of Water Element Imbalance
– Color: dark blue, purple, gray or black
– Facial irregularities: immediately under the eyes, chin area
– Physical: fatigue, reproductive issues; hearing, teeth, bone or hair problems
– Mental: fear, paranoia, insecurity or timidity
Water Element Support
Adequate sleep and relaxation replenish the Water Element. Relax, rest and slow down; or break down. Schedule in time to quietly be in nature. Meditation and martial arts are like medicine for this foundational element. Dietary support includes: flesh foods, bone stock, root vegetables, seaweed, adequate salt and (if tolerated) seeds and legumes.
Wood Element – Flow
For blogs with Wood Element symptoms and solutions, click here.
The Wood Element expresses the power of growth and it enables us to move forward with clear vision and determination. A person with good Wood energy is a natural leader with calm, excellent judgment and flexible energy. She enjoys adventure.
The Wood Element helps regulate overall body flow and movement as well as digestion and both blood formation and cleansing. But if it’s energy is jammed, then body movements tend to be stiff, painful or awkward; or there can be tics, spasms, or cramps. The corresponding emotions include: anger, frustration, irritability, impatience and arrogance.
Key – Flow, growth, movement
Organs – Liver, gall bladder
Color – Green
Season – Spring
Flavor – Sour
Separating the Pure from the Impure
To support your liver, favor a clean diet and environment. Then it will be less busy separating out and removing added toxins (impurities) and can better focus on creating strong blood and supporting your growth and movement.
The Wood Element is about movement and so to support it, sit less and enjoy daily, moderate rhythmic exercise. When this element is harmonious, then we bend as needed, move gracefully and with ease. Likewise our interrelationships are smooth and elegant. We have the ability to make and realize our goals.
Signs of Wood Element Imbalance
- Color: green, yellow-green, blue-green or brown
- Facial irregularities: brow region, temples, above the mouth
- Physical: movement issues, allergies, lumps, headaches
- Mental: anger, impatience, rudeness, arrogance, frustration, wanderlust
Wood Element Support
Even if you exercise regularly, sitting more than six hours a day is not healthful and it’s especially hard on the Wood Element organs, the liver and gall bladder. A few ways to reduce sitting time include: Get a standing desk, take standing breaks or get up from your chair and stretch every 45 minutes. As possible, stand up during long meetings.
To support your Wood Element favor easy-to-digest foods and avoid: fried foods and all refined vegetable oils; overeating or eating after 6 PM; allergens, chemicals, and food additives; environmental toxins and molds; caffeine, alcohol, drugs, marijuana, and stimulants.
Fire Element – Enjoy
For blogs with Fire Element symptoms and solutions, click here.
The Fire Element regulates blood circulation, consciousness, sleep, memory and a healthy libido; its organs are the heart and small intestine.
The Fire Element represents our relationship to ourselves and to others. Like the warmth of the summer sun, it enables us to share love, warmth, intimacy and a feeling of oneness with the entire human race. It is laughter, enjoyment, inspiration and our spark of creativity. When challenged, expect anxiety, confusion, dullness, loneliness, a sense of dread and memory issues.
Key — Joy
Organs – Heart, small intestines, circulation
Color – Red
Season – Summer
Flavor – Bitter
The heart not only regulates blood circulation but is inextricably associated with the mind, and so it controls consciousness, sleep, and memory. Someone with good Fire Element energy is genuinely friendly and open-hearted; their heart and mind are in harmony and they see effortlessly through problems to arrive at simple but elegant solutions.
Separating the Pure from the Impure
A good heart helps us know when and with whom we can be warm and open. In a similar way, the small intestine’s villi extracts the essence of what you’ve eaten. Then it pushes the “impure” residue on to the colon. Thus your heart’s essence, your blood, depends upon the ability of your small intestine to extract and transform nutrients and to pass on that which is impure.
Signs of Fire Element Imbalance
- Color: red, purple-red, or pale
- Facial irregularities: nose bulb, inner part of bottom lip
- Physical: excessive laughter or lack of laughter,
- Mental: mania, rapid speech, anxiety, stuttering, nightmares, mental illness
Fire Element Support
In Chinese medicine, the heart is the ruler. When the rest of the kingdom (kidneys, stomach, etc.) thrives, the heart is happy. Thus, by adjusting your diet and lifestyle, your whole system mends and then your heart can relax. Instead of a feeling of foreboding, you experience more joy and ease.
By regaining digestive balance and tone, you build strong blood that circulates well and supports mending of the whole gastrointestinal tract.
The Hall of Mirrors
Despite our fervent wishes, there’s no super food, magic pill or adjustment to one element that will resolve health concerns. Another way of saying this is that health requires harmony between all Five Elements. So even though nurture is central to the Earth Element, each of the other four elements provide specific digestive-related functions.
Think in terms of a hologram. Or perhaps imagine looking into a hall of mirrors, and seeing endless layers of connectedness and nesting. Just as your stomach doesn’t work independently of your mouth and intestines, neither does any one element exist in a vacuum; each is in relationship with the others. As an example, an acupuncturist might needle a kidney or liver point to treat a stomach ache! The ancients illustrated this interconnectedness by attributing a color to each element and by showing seeds of the other four elements within each.
What’s the takeaway of this interconnectedness for you? Whatever your complaint, be it complexion or depression, to resolve it requires working with all of you and that’s where the Five Elements is a trustworthy guide. Read your face, discern which elements most need support and apply targeted solutions. This do it yourself approach is both effective and measurable!