Two figures parade in a Chinese dragon train. Painting by a Chinese artist, ca. 1850.

Happy Chinese New Year!

According to the Chinese Zodiac, those born in Year of the Wood Dragon (1904, 1964, 2024) are highly creative and inquisitive beings. In celebration of the Year of the Wood Dragon, I explore intellectual wellbeing, the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the five Pillars of Resilience.

Intellectual Wellbeing

The Year of the Wood Dragon invites us to understand how intellectual wellbeing, e.g., creativity and curiosity, can improve our quality of life. Harvard’s Center for Wellness and Health Promotion defines intellectual wellbeing as “critical thinking, stimulating curiosity, problem solving, and creativity.”

Creativity and inquisitiveness are vital to one's intellectual wellbeing—the active engagement with the world through curiosity, creativity, and learning. The neuroplasticity of the brain demands ongoing “exercise.” Such exercise invigorates the mind, enhances memory, improves concentration, and contributes to greater ability to face challenges.

The Five Elements

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), wood is one of the five elements (including fire, metal, earth, and water) that plays an important role in how we engage and interact with our inner and outer worlds -- in nature and with other beings -- and represents the ever-present movement of energy life force (qi). Each of us holds all five elements within our personality -- some more metal than water, others more wood than fire, etc -- in an alchemy unique to one's own. In TCM, wood element personality traits include creativity and resilience.

The wood element is connected to Spring -- a time to witness the resilience of nature as life returns after months of rest and dormancy.

As yoga and qigong teacher Mimi Kuo-Deemer notes, it is important to pay attention to one’s mood shifts as they related to spring, the phase of the wood element:

Start implementing plans and visions for your year [creativity]. This is a time of year for rising energy. Sow the seeds of new ideas that you wish to undertake, or begin to consider how different dreams you have can be realized … watch out for signs of irritation or anger, as the emotion of wood is anger … if you sense wood’s anger, call on the resourcefulness of trees, which often see objects in the path of their growth and simply grow around them. Remember to stay flexible and adaptable [resilience]. [1]

The Five Pillars of Resilience

Resilience is one’s ability to rebound from life challenges through flexibility and adaptability.

One’s resilience is supported by five pillars: self-awareness, engagement in self-care/self-cultivation, the practice of mindfulness, supportive relationships, and living life with purpose and meaning. During stressful times, any or all of these pillars may weaken, become unstable, or crumble. As one sustains the impacts of adversity, each can help buoy through the storm.

Self-Awareness

Recognize your emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, relations to others, connection to your environment, and strengths and weaknesses.

Self-Care / Self-Cultivation

Engaging in activities that enhance your well-being in connection to self, world, body, and mind, heart in eight interdependent areas of life: Emotional, Physical, Spiritual, Social, Environmental, Intellectual, Financial, and Vocational.

Mindfulness

Focusing on the here and now, purposefully and with intention—leaving all judgment aside in the spirit of greater self-knowledge and understanding.

Supportive Relationships

Seeking out and maintaining healthy and supportive relationships that give as much as take, take as much as they give, and accept you for who you are now, who you were in the past, and what you will become in the future.

Meaning & Purpose

Living life reflective of your values and beliefs while connecting with the universe and humanity in ways far greater than your own presence.

Cultivation in Practice

Here is Mimi Kuo-Deemer’s offering of a 17-minute-qigong practice designed around the Wood element, focusing on forms that create stability and root to support upward growth and rise. Incorporating mind-body-spirit practices into your day helps reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, while opening channels to greater understanding of Self.