Say qi-eese

Qi (pronounced like the 'chee' in cheese) is found everywhere in Chinese medicine. Tai Qi, Qi Gong, Da Qi, Zhen Qi, Bin Qi, Wei Qi. Spend 5 minutes with an acupuncturist and you'll hear more qis than you would in school on photo day. But what is it?  Well, as with most topics in Chinese medicine there are a few answers. My favourite? Qi is… everything! 
The Tao Te Ching, a seminal Taoist texts explains that "from one came two, from two came three and from three came the ten thousand things [which means everything else]". The 'two' in this sentence is Yin Qi and Yang Qi, dark and light, female and male. In nature these two polar opposites can be seen to give rise to creation (thanks Mum and Dad!).
The more yin a thing is the darker, denser or colder it is; the more yang, the brighter, sparser or warmer it is.
Yin qi and yang qi govern everything and are relative to one another. Things are really only more yin or more yang. You can't ever get to the end of one or the other. When you do they transform into their opposite. That's why there's a black dot in the white half and a white dot in the black half.  
With all this qi about it becomes necessary to rename some of it for the sake of clarity. The differentiation of Qi is similar to  Water. Ice, water and steam  is all H2O but if we just called it water we'd struggle to get our Baileys at the right temperature. Qi in the body can also be understood as a trinity called the 'three treasures': Jing, Qi, Shen:

• Jing is the densest qi in the body and is what makes up the oiliest, muckiest, darkest bits of us - body fluids, semen, eggs, etc. The real building blocks.  
• Qi is the motive force that moves blood and lymph fluid around our body, it is nerve conductivity, digestion, respiration - all those things that, if they stopped moving, would cause discomfort, disease and decay.  
• Shen is spirit. It is the parts of us essential to our identity and relationships that will never appear on the dissection tray. Our emotions and the spiritual aspects of us are all summed up by shen. However, as there are different forms of qi, likewise there are different forms of spirit, or shen.

Also from Yin and Yang come the qi of the wu xing or five phases. These are the five phases of nature and of the body.
In the body, the wu xing govern the organs of the body. Each organ has its own form of qi. These qis govern certain movements and functions of the body e.g. Liver qi is upwards and expansive, it governs the free flow of emotions, when blocked it leads to anger; Kidney qi descends and grasps, it governs Will, when blocked it leads to fear. Now here's the kicker: the definition of health is the movement between the phases. 

From the  diagram above we can see that the movement runs around the outside: 'the generating cycle' and as a 5 pointed star on the inside: 'the limiting cycle'. These indicate the two primal forms of change of growth and destruction. Where the body is allowed to grow without limits pathologies such as cancer develop. Where the body is limited without the ability to grow or expand constrictive disorders like stroke or COPD develop. 
Change therefore is not just beneficial, it is essential to human health. 
However, when most of us are confronted by change we feel anything but healthy! Instead our feelings may range to fear, lack of control and grief. This resistance to change, in some thinkers opinions, is the root cause of all dis-ease. 
So, next time you feel fretful, anxious, scared, angry, resentful or generally insecure about change simply repeat to yourself: 

"All change is good"

The more this plays on your inner iPod the smoother and healthier the transition will become.