The spleen tucks under our rib cage just forward of our left elbow as it hangs down. As blood passes through the spleen and liver, they effectively cleanse it of bacteria and foreign bodies and mobilize white blood cells to resolve infection.
Blood cells live about 120 days. As they get old and brittle, they tend to rupture and are recycled as they pass through the spleen with its enormous maze of blood vessels.
The paired spleen meridians go from the outside lower rib cage up to the armpit, then down to the great toes, and run their energy most powerfully from 9 AM to 11 AM. The way we think about our life at this time greatly influences the health of our spleen system.
The muscles that make electrical energy for the spleen are the latissimus dorsi (lats), triceps, mid-trapezius and the opponen muscles that make the thumb oppose our little finger.
The spleen and pancreas are the two organs of the spleen system. This paradise world provides us with all we need. In life, the sweetness is always there for us but we have to make the effort to get it.
The Spleen is our Distributor
The spleen system is the part of our consciousness that maintains clear boundaries in our life and handles all distribution issues in our bodymind. It can be likened to the head of a trucking company that transports and distributes all food, energy, and commodities into and waste products out of every cell and organ in our entire bodymind.
If anything flows within our bodymind, the spleen flows it. It faithfully distributes all our bodymind’s needs twenty-four hours a day getting all nutrients into and waste products out of every cell and organ. Our spleen’s contribution to our overall health and well-being is huge and vitally-important.
I cannot overstate the importance of movement. When you were a child, you naturally had lots of activity in your life. As you get older, it takes planning and commitment to get enough movement into your life. You have to make movement and exercise a priority and commit to it. In societies where people are long lived, having good relationships and working up a sweat every day is the norm.
How the Brain’s Way of Thinking Causes Disease
Our brain, when not directed by our heart, looks at our life in terms of scarcity, being a victim of circumstances or comparing our lot in life to others more or less fortunate. Based on this linear way of thinking, our brain decides that we don’t have enough time or resources to do what we want to do.
There is a huge problem with this way of thinking. Every part of our being—spirit, soul and bodymind—function as creators. We manifest everything we think about, and it doesn’t matter whether we love what we are thinking about or hate it. All of our organ systems assume responsibility for what we are thinking.
Thinking that we don’t have the time or resources we need to do what we want, our ever faithful spleen assumes that it has failed us. It goes into serious distress, taking other culpable organ systems into distress with it.
The spleen organ overheats and swells up. The entire spleen meridian pathway inflames on both sides of the body. All the muscles that make energy for the spleen and pancreas inflame and weaken. Often the liver and kidneys assume culpability and all aspects of those systems also go into serious distress.
This represents a vast portion of our bodymind going into distress. Because most people still live in their brain and think scarcity thoughts, this is a principle cause of a lot of our pain and dysfunction.
As the spleen inflames, it starts having trouble getting nutrients into all our cells and waste products removed. It is not difficult to imagine the resulting health problems if your brain creates a steady diet of thinking about all the ways you don’t have the time or resources to do what you want to do.
Autopsies reveal that most people developed about five to seven cancerous growths during their lifetime, usually at times when they thought their life was at a dead-end. Then when they figured out how to get back into the game of life, their body shrink-wrapped those cancers, and they never knew that they started developing cancer.
Imagine how you would feel if you always gave 100% excellent performance and efficiency at your job, then overheard your boss talking about how you were a failure, not doing him or her any good. How you would feel is exactly how your spleen and associated organ systems feel when you allow your spiritually unconscious brain to keep thinking and talking about how you don’t have the time or resources to do what you want to do.
Bringing Your Spleen Back into Healthy function
If you believe you don’t have the time or resources you need, lift your awareness up spiritually to where you can see your whole lifetime relative to all your friends and the people around you. When you view your lifetime from this larger more accurate viewpoint of being a creator, you see that you are creating your life and you have many years of time and all resources you need to manifest all that you need to do in this lifetime.
But more importantly, from this viewpoint, you realize that you really need to give yourself some pats on the back—to praise what you have accomplished and the goodness your life is contributing. Just like you, your spleen needs to be appreciated. Otherwise, just like you, it goes into distress.
At one time or another, most patients come in to my office with a hot spleen. Invariably they have been thinking that they do not have enough time or resources. The instant they “get” the above concept and appreciate themselves, the spleen meridians and the meridians of other involved organs return to normal.
Within approximately forty seconds, all the inflammatory pressure in the spleen and the other affected organs dissipates completely and is gone—like releasing the pressure valve on a hydraulic jack and watching it come all the way down. Observing this phenomenon so often in my practice confirms that we are mostly consciousness. And yet, it never ceases to amaze me.
Boundaries
Boundaries, also a spleen issue, are all the ways we respect our own principles and values without allowing others to override or negate them—or us overriding theirs. It is how we stand up for and say yes to what we want and a firm no to what we do not want.
Boundaries represents how we guard our precious time and energy by knowing what does and does not work for us. The more decisive we are with our yes and no, the clearer and stronger our boundaries become. And our life becomes our own.
In the Jungian archetypes of “warrior-lover,” our heart is the lover. Spleen is the warrior. The true warrior does not yell at or berate others. That’s the false warrior. Our spleen’s job is maintaining clear boundaries. It says “That is your responsibility or belief. This is mine.” When the spleen system is healthy, we are just as impeccable about not trampling over other’s sacred gardens, sacred beliefs, as not letting them trample over ours.
With healthy boundaries, there is a line that we will not go beyond in compromising our values, principles and beliefs. We can never be whole until we develop firm boundaries.
People crash through our boundaries through manipulating our feelings. Or they may create a perceived threat that makes us voluntarily give up our boundaries. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up their freedom for security deserve neither,” definitely a spleen issue.
What psychologist call socialization is the build-up of emotional pain and self-destructive thought forms from manipulation in families and later society with guilt trips concerning lifestyle choices, controlling shared space and controlling each other’s time and energy.
We collapse our own boundaries by needing to fit in, giving up our choice, not wanting to seem pushy or selfish, believing our choices are not valid, feeling like we are not good enough or that our needs don’t matter. What others think of us is of little consequence compared to our developing a strong spiritual warrior archetype and having firm boundaries.
A larger truth is: We have the right—and sacred duty—to create the world we want to live in. By developing firm boundaries, we can manifest the world we want to live in, consciously. Our yes can be “yes,” and our no can be “no.” Again, this is the way of a healthy spleen, the peaceful warrior.
When is Enough?
Enough—a definite spleen issue—is not something most of us consider. We don’t notice when we have eaten enough, when we have shopped enough, when we have played enough, or worked enough. When it comes to the topic of enough, most people fall into extremes between wanting more and feeling like they don’t have enough.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Comparing ourselves to others often leaves us feeling deprived. We can polarize our thinking into a lifetime of wanting more: more money, more food, more clothes, more cars, more of whatever. We can be insatiable. There’s always the sense that we need more "just to get by,” even though we may have way more than enough on every level. Many of us never experience the satisfaction of having enough.
We let our brain tell ourselves stories about how we don’t have enough time, money, resources, education or opportunity to have or do that. There is never enough, no matter how much we have. Although this happens subconsciously, this scarcity-based thinking keeps us deprived. We can’t do any of the things that bring us joy or afford to do any of the fun things because "there isn’t enough!”
There is a moment while eating, playing, or working when we experience the exquisite quality of “enough”—but only if we are looking for it. If we are not paying attention, we go past all these exquisite moments in a blur without recognizing them.
We become aware later, after we have eaten too much and wished we had stopped earlier. Many of us don’t notice that we have worked enough until we have used up all our stamina and are totally exhausted.
In your own life, there is a delicious moment in dining when you have eaten just enough. When you observe this phenomenon, the enchantment of the dining experience takes you to whole new levels of experience and appreciation. Similarly, there is a moment when you are working, a moment when you know you have done enough for today.
When you become aware that you have done enough, you can look for the cutting off place where you can put everything away and bring the job to completion. By not working yourself to exhaustion, you leave room in your consciousness for inspiration from your own spirit.
When you pay attention to that moment of enough, you also notice when you have not done enough. You might need to do just a few more things to bring the project to a truly satisfying conclusion. When you pay attention to when is enough, life becomes enchanting.
We each create our own reality. As we make it a habit of focusing on all the ways we have enough, our life begins to naturally unfold in ways that let us experience the great fullness of life.
Everything has a gestation period. When we see ourselves having it, instead of wanting it, getting it becomes a foregone conclusion. Own it now. Let it manifest in God’s time. We just make our life up. Why not make it up where we have enough?
