I’ve been sitting with the pain of the world lately. I know a lot of you are too.
Especially for us who feel deeply, who care deeply about people and the world, the news can be a lot to bear especially if you are already dealing with things in your own life that are hard.
It’s heavy. It’s hard to hold. We are feeling it deep in our bodies.
This is not just a socio-political crisis—it’s a somatic and spiritual one. And our health, individually and collectively, is deeply entangled with it.
The World Is in a Fire Phase. So Are Many of Our Bodies.
In Traditional East Asian Medicine, the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) describe natural cycles of energy that exist within our bodies, in nature, and within the collective world. Fire corresponds with the Heart and the Shen—the spirit.
When Fire is balanced, it brings joy, clear insight, and harmonious relationships.
But when Fire is excessive or chaotic—in times of personal as well as social upheaval and crisis—it can cause agitation, restlessness, and spiritual disturbance.
The collective Shen is unsettled, scattering in response to visible and invisible suffering. The Heart struggles to hold steady.
We are moving through the energetic qualities associated with the Snake year in the Chinese zodiac, traditionally linked with the Fire element but with a Yin quality. Yin Fire is subtler, quieter, more contained than the loud, expansive Yang Fire of summer—it’s the flame that smolders underground, the slow burn rather than the wildfire.
Paired with Yin Wood—which represents growth, flexibility, and the gentle yet persistent force of nature pushing upward—this year asks us to cultivate disciplined transformation rather than reactive flare-ups.
If what you’re going through feels like a raging fire, compounded by what’s happening in the world including conflict, displacement, systemic violence—the internal Fire can either flare out of control or smolder dangerously low, leading to spiritual exhaustion and emotional dysregulation.
If your Heart Fire is out of balance, you might experience:
- Heart palpitations or anxiety
- Trouble sleeping
- Feeling emotionally raw or overstimulated
- Difficulty concentrating
- A sense of spiritual disconnection
When the world burns, the Shen tries to flee the body. That’s why so many people feel overwhelmed, helpless, or numb right now. This is what happens when the external Fire becomes too much for the Heart to hold.
Why Do We Feel This So Deeply?
Many people are feeling this moment deeply. The grief, the helplessness—it cuts through the noise for so many.
Especially if you are a woman of color, a daughter of the diaspora, or someone whose ancestors endured colonization, war, or displacement—this pain may register even more intensely.
It’s not just empathy. It’s memory.
Traditional East Asian Medicine teaches that Jing—our inherited essence—carries the imprint of our lineage. If your ancestors experienced violence, rupture, or erasure, you may carry echoes of in your constitution. The past doesn’t disappear. It lives in the body. In modern terms, this overlaps with epigenetics and intergenerational trauma.
So when you witness others being dehumanized or displaced, your body may respond as if it’s happening to you—because, on some level, it remembers when it did.
Wellness in This Context Is Not Self-Indulgent—It’s Necessary
There’s a deep discomfort many of us feel when tending to ourselves while others are suffering.
But from a Traditional East Asian Medicine perspective, you cannot help regulate others—or respond as effectively or optimally in the world—if your own Qi is depleted and scattered.
Burnout, shutdown, hypervigilance—these are signs your internal systems are overwhelmed. To heal is not to turn away. It is to become a rooted vessel. One that can feel, witness, and respond without collapsing.
The Liver and the Grief of Injustice
Let’s talk about the Liver for a moment—because this organ system is deeply impacted right now.
The Liver is responsible for the smooth flow of Qi and emotion, and it governs our sense of direction, agency, and vision for the future.
But what happens when the world feels unjust? When you witness suffering and feel powerless to change it?
You may feel:
- Frustration, irritability, or even rage
- Headaches or menstrual irregularities
- Digestive issues
- A feeling of being stuck or frozen
In Traditional East Asian Medicine, we call this Liver Qi constraint. When righteous anger or sorrow has nowhere to go, it gets stuck in the body.
Again, this isn’t just emotional—it’s physiological. Your body is trying to metabolize something much bigger than itself.
Healing and Action Are Not Opposites
When the world feels chaotic and out of control, one of the only things we can influence is how we respond—physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
From a Traditional East Asian Medicine perspective, this means tending to your internal climate so that your actions arise from clarity, not reactivity.
When the Heart is steady, the Shen (spirit) can reside peacefully. When the Liver Qi flows freely, frustration can transform into purposeful movement. When the Spleen is supported, overthinking gives way to grounded thought and discernment.
In other words: your body is the vessel through which right action becomes possible.
This doesn’t mean withdrawing or staying silent.
Taking action may look different for each of us: protesting, donating, organizing, speaking truth in your community—or choosing to care for your nervous system so you don’t perpetuate harm from a dysregulated place.
It might be as subtle as pausing before reacting. Or as bold as using your voice when others cannot. What matters is that your actions flow from a place of rootedness—not collapse, not avoidance, not burnout.
Healing doesn’t mean you stop responding to the world.
It means your response is more resonant—in alignment with your values, your body, and your lineage.