Balancing the Liver Chi

As I mentioned in last month's post, Spring is associated with the liver and gallbladder in Traditional Chinese Medicine with the liver being the yin organ and the gallbladder being the yang organ.  Sarah Power's explains in her book, "Insight Yoga," that when our liver chi is out of balance, we can experience a wide range of unbalanced emotions such as chronic anger, strong resistance, and defensiveness or timidity and hesitation when liver chi is depleted.

We can affect the health of these organs and balance the liver chi by targeting the associated meridian with long-held yin poses.  The liver meridian runs up the inside of the legs so poses such as butterfly, dragonfly, and wide-knee child's pose are great for stimulating chi flow there.  Both butterfly and dragonfly can be done seated or against a wall.  Butterfly can also be done while lying down.  While in the poses, focus on offering yourself compassion to help counterbalance any emotional disturbances caused by a liver chi imbalance.