If you will it

Sharon Darwish in her blog, Brain Freeze asks the question "If willpower can be depleted like a muscle, what is being depleted?" Admittedly, people who've just spent their willpower reading her enlightening post will almost certainly now be staring vacantly out of the window, dreamily investigating the contents of their nose. Nevertheless if you want to know a possible answer suggested by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) then read on.

In Chinese Medicine organ theory each organ 'houses a 'spirit'. Will, or willpower, is considered one of these 'spirits', and it is 'housed' in the Kidneys. The Kidneys are responsible for the creation and containment of jing, the body's most essential 'battery'. When jing qi expires so do we. (See here for more about the functions of the Kidney).

In TCM the body's energy or qi is carried from the inside to the outside and around the body through channels, or meridians. There are 12 channels (excluding the 'extraordinary meridians') which can be seen as 6 sets of partnered channels called the '6 Divisions'. The 6 Divisions connect one arm channel and one leg channel and divide the bodies yang (posterior) and yin (anterior) surface into three channels each. You can envisage it as an onion with three 'outer' layers and three 'inner' layers moving from primarily protective to primarily nutritive functions. One of the innermost layers, Shao Yin, is a division that connects the Kidney channel to the Heart channel. Energetically this is a connection between Fire and Water, the original creative axis.

Metaphysically, the journey along the Kidney channel is a "journey from jing into ling" or, drive into destiny (Lonny Jarrett, 2003).  The Kidney channel rises from its beginnings on the feet to its terminus on the Chest where the Heart channel begins. The function of the points move from the physicality of development and child-bearing , to points that our fundamental fire, the drive to get something, anything, to our passionate fire of desire, lust and excitement. These latter points are often used in aging clients who are 'running out of steam' and finding fewer and fewer things to be excited about.

Modern media is based on riling the Heart and Kidneys by over-stimulating them with images and sounds designed to ignite desire and fear. When Sharon asks "what is being depleted" I would suggest that it is our Heart and in turn our Kidney fires. Adrenal fatigue (Kidney deficiency) is a common modern complaint. London especially contains many environments that make our hearts race and fire up adrenaline (and not always for good reasons). Long hours combined with regular intake of stimulants means that our bodies are always running to keep up with our minds. As mentioned the Heart and Kidney are in a Fire and Water axis. The correct (healthy) relationship when considering Fire is described in TCM texts as when the "Dragon lives under the Water". This is understood to mean that the fire of our drive should be rooted in manifesting the destiny of our original nature and not in an over-excited or an insatiable greedy place.

In Sharon's post she compares willpower to a muscle. In TCM our true nature fulfils its destiny, erm, naturally... Perhaps, when we need to force Will as though it were an atrophied muscle it is because it has been compromised by "the accretion of negativity dysfunctionally assimilated during life" (Lonny Jarrett, 2003).  As a tangent, I love that Jarrett implies that negativity is a dysfunctional way to experience the world. As Jess Gold recently pointed out, watching news items that focus only on the fearful and negative is a skewed way of perceiving the world around us.

The Tao Te Ching says that the Tao (the natural harmonious Way to live forever!) is "empty yet inexhaustible". That emptiness or stillness at our core enables everything to come to fruition without effort. Both Judaism and Taoism embrace the concept of an essential nature that is pure. Perhaps when we are tired, lacklustre and lacking in willpower it is because we have spent too long chasing the 'desires of our eyes'. Turning inwards and taking time out from other peoples fears and desires for us can help us tune back into what our hearts genuinely seek and in turn can reconnect us with the will power.

May we follow our fascinations and be full of abundant energy and diamond hard will.