Feelings don’t have solutions: on 容平
According to the Yellow Emperor’s physician Qí Bó, the three months of autumn are known as 容平 róng píng. 容 róng originally meant “to hold in a container 容器 róngqìr” but it can also mean tolerance 容忍 róngrěn or appearance 容貌 róngmào. I find this appropriate since autumn belongs to Lung and Large Intestine, the metal organs responsible for excretion, for letting go of what our bodies don’t need. Lung especially excretes via the pores, and healthy skin depends a lot on whether your pores open and close as needed, and also whether your bowel movements are effective at removing waste. 平 píng means “flat as in level 平坦 píngtǎn” and also peaceful 平安 píngān, calm 平靜 píngjìng, balance 平衡 pínghéng, and fair 公平 gōngpíng. Of the five elements (water, wood, fire, earth and metal), metal is the element associated with justice and control. So I find it interesting that the metal season is calm and contained. It goes with the blankness of its associated color, white.
I let my kiddo stay up too late last night, for one last experience (making glitter slime) in the children’s section of the Eslite (pronounced ee-LEET) bookstore where we were staying in Taipei. I knew when we decided to book the class that it would run past her bedtime and possibly disrupt our original plans to take a bath together and wind down for bed with a 10 minute episode of “Bluey: Sleepytime.” She had a meltdown on the elevator ride back to the hotel room about cleaning her teeth and body before watching the promised TV, and I ended up holding her until she cried herself down to sleep. Luckily for me, I have a child who falls asleep within minutes of the biggest outbursts. We didn’t even finish the video. But it took me hours to get myself to sleep after holding myself as a safe container for her to regulate her feelings.
I think I am much better at helping my child find emotional balance that I am at helping myself. I put on “KPop Demon Hunters” and packed everything except her toys and our outfits for tomorrow, and gave myself permission not to sleep very much even though autumn is the season for going to bed as early as your chickens. I know that permissiveness is more aligned with the season of spring, but it takes a lot of effort for me to stay with big, loud, messy emotional outbursts because I was raised to be more concerned for the opinions of the people who might be impacted by the noise level than the life skill of emotional self regulation, the ability to fully feel and express a feeling, let it run through us, and let it go.
Autumn is the season known as 容平. If big feelings arise, hold them gently until they subside. Resist the temptation to search for a way to make it stop. Feelings don’t have solutions. Stop making suggestions and just breathe. Waves of emotion will flatten out on their own if you accept them as they are happening.
No wonder this is the season for sadness, for grief.
