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A lot of people today’s world are becoming aware of how much violence, anger, and sorrow there is in this world. As we watch and react to the news on television or our newspapers, we get caught up in these emotions, feeling sometimes as if this world of sorrow is altogether too much. Too many people fall beside the wayside in mental illness or psychotic episodes. Huge numbers languish in depression. And these feelings of despair emerge in a shocking number of domestic episodes of child or spousal abuse, suicide, murder, robbery and theft, and other crimes against people or property.

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There are ancient teachings that can help us with these negative emotions and their societal expressions. We can, by ourselves in our daily choices, utilize these teachings to bring some measure of sanity back into our own lives. This brief article endeavors to describe these techniques so that our readers might do so if they wish.

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These teachings come out of native American experience and are given here so that all may find a better way to live on the planet. These teachings are about staying in elemental balance. The elements are water, earth, wind, fire and the void; and each element is linked inextricably to our aspects of being human. Water is linked with our emotional states. Earth provides our physical body and bones. Wind is linked with our mental states. Fire is associated with our spirits. And the Void is associated with our sexuality.

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These teachings are about the ways in which we choreograph our energy in each of these aspects, or the way in which we use our minds, bodies, emotions, spirits and sexuality to stay healthy and growing. There are specific ways in which the proper use of our energy in each of these aspects lead to good health and happiness.

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The teachings are as follows: we use our energy most efficiently when we...

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• Give with the emotions with tenderness
• Hold and transform with the body through intimacy
• Receive with the mind with caring
• Determine with the Spirit with passion and lust
• Catalyze with sexuality through open heart-to-heart communications

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The person who can live by these simple rules can restore himself or herself to wellness in short order, unless they have stayed in an imbalance so long that they have called in an incurable illness. Not living in balance leads to stress and addiction to food, sex, alcohol or drugs. So when we witness unbalanced use of such substances in people’s lives, we are witnessing the effects of elemental imbalance. But it requires understanding of these rules and the self-disciplined use of the Will to live in balance. So lets examine each rule and clarify its meaning.

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Giving with the emotions

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The emotions are a powerful aspect of our lives. When our emotions are calm and positive, we can be happy or contented. We are meant to live in a state of Joy and community, but when we become lost in other negative emotional states, we become separated out, isolated, and are out of balance. And when our emotions are out of balance and in turmoil, we are miserable and we lose energy.

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Most of the time when this happens, our emotional state is subject to experiences in our past that "trigger" us into emotional turmoil. For example, our experiences as children with our parents may have been unhappy, and anytime those experiences are recalled by some present event, we are thrown into those past emotional patterns set up long ago. Those past experiences have taught us a particular view of other’s intentions and worldview which encourage the "projection" of our own interpretations out onto other people. We interpret their comments and actions based upon our past unfortunate experiences, and we react to those interpretations instead of what is actually happening in front of us. So some event in the present causes a painful memory from our past to be recalled. And then we are back reacting emotionally based upon our inner interpretations of what is happening. We are, in effect, caught in past patterns of perceiving life, relationships, and selves. We are caught in pain and a repeating cycle of negative emotional wounding. When this happens, we are said to be "holding" with the emotions. Passive aggressives "hold" with their emotions. Usually, such people cannot expressive their emotions or feelings. They "hold them in." When we "hold with our emotions", we will suffer from repeating cycles of pain from the past and deal with life passively.

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Some people live in a state in which they "receive with their emotions". There are those persons who, for a variety of reasons, want us to take care of them or take responsibility for their problems. They constantly ask for help or favors, and when we see them coming, we want to go the other way. These persons are "energy vampires", and they are constantly pulling on your energy and seeking for you to take care of their needs. These persons need to learn self-reliance and to respect boundaries. In dealing with such persons, it is important to maintain one’s boundaries and not accept responsibility for their needs fulfillment, or else we are encouraging such behavior.

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Still other people, "determine with the emotions". These are kinds of people who react emotionally to everything they experience. They are at the effect of everything and everyone around them, often living in a state of anger and suspicion, paranoid about the world and the intentions of others. They are constantly going on emotional binges. These people are "determining or making choices from their emotions." This too is a painful state to be living from.

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A fifth group of persons do what is called "catalyzing with the emotions." Catalyzing is purging one’s emotions through an explosive release of energy in the body. A husband who periodically falls into the pattern of explosive bouts of anger at his wife may be catalyzing with his emotions. Religioius fanatics tend to catalyze with their emotions, ridding themselves of their surpluses of negativism through violence and rage. We all experience frustrations and stress through our work days, and as those stresses build up, we find ourselves sometimes boiling over and feeling frenetic and overwhelmed. When a person allows this kind of stress and pressure to build up, he may discover himself periodically exploding in anger and frustration as his wife or children. Afterward, he feels more level headed and stress free. Such a person is "catalyzing with his emotions." Fanatics "catalyze" with their emotions. But the consequences of such behavior will come home to haunt him in isolation, psychotic episodes, relationship problems, divorce, and traumatized children.

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Finally, there are those persons who learn to "give with their emotions with tenderness." Giving with the emotions means that we each endeavor to give love, encouragement, nurturing when needed to others, and that we avoid holding, receiving, determining or catalyzing with our emotions. This means that we must learn to live in the present, stop our selves from spinning into either the emotional cycles of negativism from our past experiences, maintain our boundaries from others experiencing emotional turmoil, avoiding making choices from our emotions, and avoiding behaviors in which we are catalyzing with our emotions. Giving with the emotions with tenderness is a form of selfless behavior in which we support others and avoid falling into the negative patterns of emotionalism based upon self-pity in our own lives.

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Holding with the Body in Intimacy

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When we "hold with the body with intimacy", we endeavor to make ourselves physically strong and vigorous through better health and habits of exercise and eating. We each require good health to be able to hold ourselves well in this life. We require the energy and capability to work, play, and do. We want to feel good and maintain wellness in our bodies. Therefore, we treat our bodies with respect and give them what they need to be and feel well. We "hold our bodies in intimacy and respect" and treat it with affection.

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When we do this, we are "holding with the body with intimacy." When we don’t, we are practicing one of the more negative patterns of using energy in the body. Those other negative patterns result in the loss of energy from the body and ill health, and include "giving with the body," "receiving with the body," " determining with the body", and "catalyzing with the body."

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"Giving with the body" is a pattern of dealing with the world through giving away one‘s energy unnecessarily. Many in our society live by a law of "hard work". Workaholics live this way…giving and giving and giving their energy in their stress filled lives, believing this is the way they must survive. They delete and exhaust their bodies, lost in their own worldview of hard work and survival. This behavior system weakens their bodily immune systems and opens them to disease. They do not understand that they must always retain enough energy to meet their own needs first.

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"Receiving with the body" is a pattern of dealing with the world through accepting physical abuse. A wife who keeps peace in her marriage through repeatedly accepting a beating from her husband is receiving with the body.

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"Determining with the body" is the pattern of being a bully, wife-beaters, and obsessive compulsive persons. Such a person uses the strength of their bodies to control their lives.

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"Catalyzing with the body" is a pattern of seeking illness to exit life. Those who catalyze with their bodies attract disease to distract themselves from the painful character of life. Such people are ‘accident prone.‘ This behavior is a cry for attention and help.

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Receiving with the Mind with Caring

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When we "receive with the mind with caring", we open our minds to the world like an empty cup. We keep our minds quiet and receptive, not constantly thinking or planning or worrying about the future or filling our minds with memories of the past. We "receive" whatever is going on right now; simply take it in. In choosing what to take in, we use the criterion of caring for ourselves by deciding what we will take in and what we will not take in. We learn through this process. What do we want to learn? That is the question.

Receiving with the mind with caring is the efficient way to use the human mind; it uses energy efficiently and preserves our balance among the elements.

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One of the more inefficient ways of using our mind is to "hold with the mind", which means that we come to the world of experience with our cup full. We already know what we believe and know and are not open to learning or relearning from present experience. Learning is a process of constantly re-evaluating what is true and what is not. As we age, we realize that we never hold the full truth of any situation, so we are constantly discarding what we learned earlier and replacing it with a whole new set of understandings. When we hold with the mind, we are refusing to grow and move to higher levels of understandings of life and wellness.

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Another inefficient use of our mental gifts is "giving with the mind." Here, people constantly talk without listening or checking what they are saying against reality. When we give with the mind, we are asleep to reality and at the effect of everything. We are in delusion.

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Those who "determine with their minds" are ruled by logic and reason and are blind to the limitations of the assumptions upon which they base their thinking. They relate to the world rigidly. They can’t make intuitive leaps in understanding nor see the values nor frames of reference underlying others’ points of view. They cannot empathize or move into other frames of relating to others than logic.

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Those who "catalyze with their minds" are tyrants, are regimented and rigid in the ways they treat their bodies, and are often dangerous to be around. Bosses who catalyze with their minds are tyranting their employees to be the sources of change in their worlds.

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Determining with Spirit with Passion and Lust

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Spirituality is a factor in all human life, whether we accept it or not. We are in fact Spirits being here as choosing beings. But we can make mistakes in how we steer our lives in this area just as in the other elemental areas of our lives.

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When we "determine with Spirit with lust and passion", we are guiding our lives through wisdom, through caring choices, and by asking Spirit for guidance in living our lives. It is the answers we receive here that we use to decide what to "take in" through our minds. We feel ourselves in Spirit by pursuing Beauty in our lives, by living our lives pursuing our passions and our dreams. Living in such a way "feeds our souls" and energizes our living.

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When we "give with the Spirit", we are giving our dreams away and living our lives meeting others needs. We are going to sleep and living our lives unconsciously, unfulfilled and disappointed.

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When we "hold with the Spirit", we become disillusioned and can’t see the bigger picture. We are stuck in some view of Reality and unable to catalyze our will to move along further.

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When we "receive with the Spirit", we are receiving a vision for life but can’t finish the project. We just keep receiving and receiving and can’t quite catch the picture or the image that is yet unfinished.

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When we "catalyze with the Spirit," we burn ourselves out early because we can’t process or integrate what we’ve experienced. So we go back to sleep.

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Some few live their lives in a state of "controlled folly", living their lives in a way that their personal growth and development is in everything they do or say. We feel that everything that is not the Great Work doesn’t matter. Determining with Spirit with passion and lust guides everything for us few.

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Catalyzing with Sexuality through open heart-to-heart communication

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Sexuality is a very important factor in the efficient use of energy in the human energy body, beyond even the use of life energy for procreation. When we catalyze with our sexual soul force energies, we leap into creative and loving states beyond normal consciousness. We can achieve states of creativity that surpass us and exceed our abilities. We can reach states of loving, selflessness and bliss that catalyze our lives. We reach these states of consciousness and creativity only through loving states of mind, states in which we feel a state of love and intimacy with the Beloved.

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When we do not use our sexual soul force energy in this way, we lose energy and go asleep. When we "give with sexual soul force energy" for example, we use sex to manipulate others and to get what we want from others.

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When we "determine with our sexual soul force energy", we are acting out the role of rapist or child abuser. We are allowing our anger or rage to control us.

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When we "hold with sexual soul force energy", we are punishing ourselves by not being sexual, not having sex. This results in illness and our bodies are not being cleared of excess energies and emotional discord.

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When we "receive with our sexuality", we are usually alone and are living in a fantasy world. We hold out for someone meeting our ideals or fantasies and never find anyone enough for our love or commitment.

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When we feel out of balance sexually, we can make ourselves feel well by having sexual relations with another, giving ourselves in intimacy, and having heart to heart communications.

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When You are Out-of-Balance and Need to Work towards Wellness Again

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When you are out of elemental balance, there are things you can do to move yourself back into balance. Here are several suggestions that were made to me…

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• Having sexual relations and having an orgasm will rebalance our energies
• Get out in nature to align with the elements
• Go where Beauty is
• Make something beautiful by gardening, painting, sculpting, writing or creating

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If you find yourself holding with your emotions, take a bath or go swimming.

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If you are determining with your mind, go stand in the wind.

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If you can’t find your way to determine with Spirit, sit beside a fire or light a candle.

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I acknowledge my debt to the Elders and teachers of the Deer Tribe of Phoenix, Arizona for these wisdom teachings.