Healing the “Mind/Spirit”:
The Mind/Spirit consists of inter-related “organs” of cognition, emotion, thought life, and experience in much the same way as the Body consists of inter-related organs of digestion, blood flow, breathing, and sexual function.
A healthy Mind comes from proper functioning of the 3 primary “organs” of the Mind which allows a smooth flow of mental/emotional energy into and out of the system.
Just like we need to know how the digestive system works by itself and in relationship to blood flow, breathing, etc. to effectively heal issues of constipation or heartburn; we also need to know how the “organs” of cognition, emotion, etc. work individually as well as in relationship with each other to effectively heal issues of grief, fear, anxiety, or depression.
Here we can run into some terminology challenges. The organs of the Body in Traditional Chinese Medicine are translated to the same names as they are in Western Medicine (Kidneys, Liver, Stomach, etc.) so they are familiar to most readers.
The “organs” of the Mind however are translated to names such as “Ethereal Soul” or “Corporeal Soul” which are foreign to almost everyone. Luckily the “organs” of the Mind do mostly correspond to areas of the brain (and in-fact were listed as brain functions by many of the ancient practitioners of Chinese Medicine.)
On the following post (3 “organs” of the Mind) I introduce the “organs”, their jobs, and introduce names that we use everywhere else in the blog to describe them to solve this terminology problem going forward.