Autumn: The Metal Element, Lungs & Nature with Tahnee & Mason (EP#156)

It's time again for us to tune into the elements, our bodies, and the soothing subtle shifts occurring around us in nature; here in the Southern Hemisphere, we have entered into Autumn. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Autumn is the season of the Metal Element. As we come down from the energised Yang energy of warmer months into the Yin, we naturally find ourselves slowing down and going within- A deep exhale of relief for the downtime our bodies are naturally craving. It is a time for nourishing our Qi, introspection, and letting go of anything that no longer serves us; mental, physical, or emotional.

The lungs and large intestine are the organs associated with the Metal Element. Our large intestines purify and release any toxins or accumulated waste that is not serving a purpose. The lungs, also known as the Seat Of Wisdom, play a vital role in the process of fortifying surface immunity (protective Wei Qi), building Qi, and strengthening our immune system. The lungs also purify; The fresh Autumn air is inhaled and processed into true human Qi, which is then carried throughout the body and distilled down to the kidneys. This beautiful flow of transformation and distillation is why taking nourishing Yin and Qi herbs for the lungs and keeping the chest protected from the cool, drying Autumn winds are timeless practices for vitality. 

In this episode, Tahnee and Mason discuss the herbs, practices, and emotions of Lung Metal season, why breathwork practices are essential in this time and the importance of mirroring mother nature's movements with early bed, early rising, and lots of rest. 

 

"And when you look at this energy of Metal and that ability to cut through ... Especially when we have this excess. Reflect. Cutaway all of the unessential. Come back to some rest and restoration. Spend some time introverted and internal. Let everything regather and regroup like roots underneath a tree in wintertime. Bring everything back in. And that's that energy of contraction".

 

- Tahnee Taylor

  

 

Tahnee and Mason discuss: 

• Qi and lung herbs.
• Lung and spleen foods.
• Surface immunity and Wei Qi.
• Convalescing foods for Autumn.
• The energy of Lung Metal season.
• The emotions of Lung Metal season.
• Exercises for Autumn and lung energy.
• Contraction and introspection in Autumn.
• The relationship between the lungs and skin.
• The lungs and large Intestine relationship.
• How to strengthen Qi and build immunity.
• Breathing practices for Lung Metal season.
• Connecting with the seasons through nature.
• Honouring the transition of seasons for good immunity.

 

 

 

Tahnee and Mason Taylor

Tahnee and Mason Taylor are the CEO and founder of SuperFeast. Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home.

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST 

 

Resources:

Shiitake

Qi Blend

Cordyceps

Schisandra

Astragalus

Turkey Tail

 

 

Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?

 

Mason: (00:00)

Everybody. Welcome to our Friday Fireside.

 

Tahnee: (00:03)

Hi, everybody.

 

Mason: (00:05)

So Tahns and I tackling this one together today. We're just kind of going off the top of our dome, talking about the season that we're entering into here in the Southern hemisphere, autumn, being the season of the lung Metal. I mean, every season's so important, but I feel for me, it's really stood out for the last three years, especially when autumn's come around as a real special one. I think it's because it's in such contrast to our culture. It's not a period in the theory and the realness of what's occurring energetically when you enter into autumn. It's something that kind of goes against the grain of western ...

 

Mason: (00:45)

I think you saw me when I first moved from the city to kind of like off grid, a permaculture farm. It took my nervous system a lot to wind down. And this season's a real pivotal one in allowing that skill to be redeveloped. And it's a skill, but it's like ... Don't call it a skill, but it's the reality of what our energetic body does when we just kind of synthetically layer upon that and stop it from starting to come down from the yang and start moving towards the yin, which is what's going on.

 

Tahnee: (01:13)

Yeah, totally. I think that's a real ... like, an energy as a culture that we've tried to avoid the contraction and the sort of entry respect that comes after a period of exertion and output. And when I think about the elements and the cycles and where they're so useful in helping us understand the rhythms of nature and the rhythms of our lives, it's like, yeah, we've had the harvest time of the earth and the bounty of summer, and it's time now for things to start to shift.

 

Tahnee: (01:41)

And it's been interesting, I think, being here and going into isolation in this time, because I can feel how it's actually been sort of held by the change of season. Like, it's just started to get cooler and the days are getting shorter and we're about to move into daylight savings here. And I can really feel how I'm naturally more introspective and more internal and more devoted to my inner practise anyway, because that's what's happening energetically in the season as well as, obviously, globally.

 

Mason: (02:06)

So a couple of things we can start sharing what we do at this time of year, things that come up for each of us, what in classical Chinese medicine, the lung Season really means and what each of us do. Just remembering that it is the lung season, and so that's why every year at this point personally, I like as much as I can, depending on what's going on in my life, I really like moving towards focusing on that breath practice. There's a bunch of things.

 

Mason: (02:31)

We won't go too much into the herbs today, but you'll notice every single year, since tonic herbs have been at SuperFeast and I think since Tahns has been at SuperFeast, every time we get to autumn, we've been telling people, "Now it's time to do Qi herbs, your lung herbs, your astragalus. Now we've got the Qi blend. Schisandra kind of falls into that as well as the lung kind of ... Cordyceps is a big one at this time of year. So that's kind of where we're sitting in terms of herbal recommendations in lung tonics.

 

Mason: (02:58)

But remember the lungs are known as the seat of wisdom, I guess you'd call them. So if you look at the lungs being the seat of wisdom and then the kidneys being like the sage. So the kidney season comes in winter. And so right now I always like thinking about the work doing internally with that sharp lung energy, that seat of wisdom is I'm consolidating all my experiences from the last year and I'm observing them, and with that out breath, letting go of that which is no longer useful, which takes a lot of real focus. It came up real big for me in the last couple of sessions I've been doing with my movement mentor, Benny, and just in my own back and forth internally with myself, a lot's been coming up.

 

Mason: (03:46)

I've noticed I've spent the whole year trying to notice something about myself and not noticing something about myself that, no, I wish I could do things a little bit differently. And this is the season where I feel like I'm starting to get really rewarded and I do have that capacity internally and I'm supported by the system as the energy descends down me and descends, like ... Even little ways that I maybe react to Aya, our little three-year-old, for those of you new to the party. Or within our workflow definitely with us as well. I'm like, ah, those little things that just irked me that little bit, I can really go, "Now I'm going to change that trajectory just that little bit. I'm going to let go."

 

Mason: (04:20)

And in that letting go, remembering the seat of wisdom and the lungs and the breath. They're all about that initial stage of developing Shen, where you take your observations of all your experiences, do you letting go practice as best you can, and then you learn from your experiences. And then in that learning, that starts to almost distill that wisdom so that when you're getting into the winter months, you accumulate your Shen in that season and along with your Jing.

 

Tahnee: (04:49)

Yeah. Well, that's exactly where metal comes from. So the Taoist monks had copper pots that they would have water in and they would notice that the condensation would be captured on the bottom of the copper pots. Like you're saying, it would sort of come together and it would all sort of coalesce and then it would release. And that wisdom is the water element. So the lung attracts that, that metal element attracts the water, and then it releases the water into that seat of wisdom or insight, which is what you're discussing there. And that's exactly the metaphor or the image they use to describe how that transformation goes from the metal element of autumn into winter time, into the kind of wisdom of the kidneys.

 

Tahnee: (05:29)

And I think when we look at the actions of the lung too, which is to descend and disperse, it's to kind of take that kind of heat of summer, and even the passion and the kind of intellectual stimulation, all the things you're talking about when we're going through process, and then it's that ability to kind of disseminate that and disperse it and spread it around. And when you look at what the lungs do in Chinese medicine, they're responsible for the skin and for that energy pushing out from the skin. So we talk about Wei Chi, and this is that protective force.

 

Tahnee: (05:59)

And so when we look at a lot of the Chi herbs that you've talked about, they're protective herbs. And it's protective on a physical level, but also energetically because Chinese medicine, doesn't just say we catch a virus or we catch a bacteria or whatever. It says that the elements and the energies of everything we encounter answer affects us. And if we're not strong, if we don't have that strong action of pushing out and creating that field around ourselves, then we become susceptible to invasion. And that can be invasion of ideas. It can be invasion of a physical pathogen. It can be an element like cold or wind.

 

Tahnee: (06:31)

Like I know for me, if I'm run down and I go in the wind or the cold, I can feel it enters me in a different way than if I'm out when I really strong. And so that's when we're looking at the lung, is anytime we're in a seasonal transition. So we're in a transition right now, so it's a really important time, because if we don't honour the transitions and the seasons as they come around, we can end up really weakening the systems. So if you kind of keep pushing through and acting as though it's still summertime all through autumn, then it can actually weaken the lung system over time.

 

Tahnee: (06:59)

And a lot of people will find that doesn't really play out until they get a bit older when their yang starts to be depleted. If you look at kids, they can run around naked winter time and not feel it. But as you get older, typically that ability doesn't remain. Different constitutions obviously have different relationships with that particular experience, but in general, most people find as they get older, they get more sensitive to those shifts. So this is why part of the Taoist immortality in inverted commas practice is around strengthening our Qi and creating that capacity to generate heat inside so we become less susceptible to changes, so we become stronger.

 

Tahnee: (07:36)

And that's where ... You look at the seat of wisdom. The lungs are the start of that process. They take Qi from the spleen. So the spleen, when we digest, releases Qi and then the lungs capture Qi from the air. So the air itself isn't Qi but the Qi comes through the air because the air is conductive to Qi. And then that is merged together by the lungs into something called True Human Qi, which is distributed through the body and also used by the kidneys. So the TCM of it is really interesting and complex. It's kind of simple and complex, I think. But the way they paint pictures with the elements and the analogies, I think, is really powerful and helps you to understand what's required.

 

Tahnee: (08:13)

And the energy of the lung is it's this poignancy and it's also kind of courage. So it's like what Mace was talking about then, the ability to face what you need to face and to transform what could be something that you are grieving or that you have kind of guilt of, even the beginnings of fear around, and transform it into insight and transform it into something useful. And it's that ability to look at the world as like bittersweet and beautiful. Like, that's what poignancy means. It's one of my favourite kinds of lessons that I've taken away from studying this stuff is to be able to lean into sadness as a beautiful thing sometimes.

 

Tahnee: (08:49)

And I've been having that conversation a lot lately with what's going on with the virus all around the world. And it's like, this is a really tough time, but there's so much beautiful stuff coming out of it too. And if we can kind of hold ourselves in that discord, that these things don't make sense necessarily. Like, yes, it's horrible. Yes, it's beautiful. But that's really the energy of the lungs, is to unite those and to be able to sit in that. So they're the kind of main things that I think about.

 

Mason: (09:14)

It's a beautiful, never-ending journey that gets reflected in the breath, in the lungs. And that's why you talking about how you can take something which is inherently kind of sad or something that would inherently bog you down and get you stuck down, if you've got mastery of the lungs ... or mastery I use loosely, but if you've got the connection with your lungs in a relationship, you can really start ... because you're so connected to the energy of your body very quickly, you can help emotions from getting unstuck in the body. So as you were saying, you can flip something that's inherently going to bog you down, say, and turn it into something, which is beneficial for you. It's very ninja. I kind like, that's what I was thinking. I kind of paraphrase you there, but it's a very ninja element, an organ system.

 

Mason: (09:59)

And it is a never ending process to be taken through the lungs. But this is the time to really focus on it in your meditations, to be going, what's coming in? How am I learning from this? How am I developing wisdom from this? And then, how am I going to let go? Because letting go is a very complex world to enter. And your relationship, that I'm sure many of you and I've had with developing an understanding of what letting go looks like and feels like for me and that it changes every couple of years, and I look back on what I thought letting go was 10 years ago versus now, and you realise it's this big inner realm for us to explore and discover and learn how to do that in more ninja-like ways. And so it's a beautiful season to be inviting that inquiry and that element into the dojo of your inquiry.

 

Tahnee: (10:43)

Well, the other thing, metal is the ultimate in discernment because it's sharp like a knife. It's that ability to cut through and just pare back what is unessential. And again, we're experiencing that right now on a global level. Like all of these things that we do to really truly survive, what do we need? And all the things that we take and all the things that we thrive on. And I mean, it's an interesting time. And I'm not trying to say I have any answers to that stuff, but that's stuff I think about.

 

Tahnee: (11:10)

And when you look at this energy of metal and that ability to cut through ... Especially when we have this excess. Like, summer and the fire element, this is all about full outward yang expression. It's just like, go for it. But then take some time. Reflect. Cut away all of the unessential. Come back to some rest and restoration. Spend some time introverted and internal. Let everything kind of regather and regroup like roots underneath a tree in wintertime. Bring everything back in. And that's that energy of contraction.

 

Tahnee: (11:41)

As you move from the inward to the outward, how do you really truly kind of create space for that? And that requires a little bit of cutting a little bit of letting go. So to sort of speak to what Mace was talking about, everyone has to find their own processes. But the kind of lessons and teachings of this energy in this time, and you can feel it. If you go spend some time outside, you can feel how the earth is starting to change. Especially Byron, we don't get really defined seasons, but it gets cold here, and things shift, and plants stop growing as quickly, and things sort of start to coalesce and take their time and slow down. And then, bang, the rains are here and everything's growing again and it's green and abundant and it's just like, okay. So you can feel that those energies are very different.

 

Tahnee: (12:21)

And depending on where you are in the world, you'll have really obvious changes of season, or it might be more like what we experience. But there's always that transition. And I think even just, if you don't take it literally as like spring, summer, autumn, winter, you can start to tune into when things shift in your area and spend time outdoors. It's really powerful practice, I think, to connect to the land that you live on.

 

Mason: (12:44)

Yeah. It's been nice tuning in a little bit more to the specifics of our area through Currie country, especially. They're on Instagram. It's like, all right. Pippies are coming and wind in this direction. We're entering into this season. So on and so forth. So whatever's in your area, it comes down to even watching where the sun's coming up and going down. That will signal a huge change in season just there. I wanted to just reiterate the importance around lungs and the Wei Chi energy that Tahns mentioned before. The lungs are directly responsible for that protective Chi. So it's not surface immunity, but it's associated with surface immunity. Anything in the West would be a bit of a reductionist on what Wei Chi is, but it is that real, that force field energy and that sort of psychic force field, and it is, in the Western sense, immunological in that we're attempting to keep out invaders. Invaders of cold, pathogenic forces.

 

Tahnee: (13:36)

Well, If you look at the thymus, which is located near the heart and the lungs, that's one of the main places we produce T-cells and that's one of the correlated glands with the lung organ. It's the same with the spleen. In Chinese medicine, the spleen is an immune kind of organ. And that was not proven until fairly recently, like a couple of decades ago, that the spleen actually did something instead of just being like a random organ. Like, I remember when I was 16, the spleen was considered pointless. And by the time I was at uni, people were starting to get a grasp on it being useful. But the other thing when you think of the lungs is it's this inhale and this exhale, and these are the energies that we're talking about of like, the expansion and contraction. I remember Paul talked quite a bit about, you know-

 

Mason: (14:19)

Paul [Grille 00:14:19].

 

Tahnee: (14:19)

Paul Grille. Yeah. We did a podcast with him a couple of weeks back, or a week back. And if you think about the breath in being that kind of generous offering to yourself and that expansive kind of invigorating quality, and then the breath out, which is really what this season is all about, the exhale, like that's that letting go, that Mace is talking about. And so many of us in the West don't pay attention to our breath. And every inspiration, it's about breathing, right? Like, all the religious traditions point to breath practises, especially when you start to go right back to the roots of most of these traditions, which are coming out of the Indus Valley. All the shaman traditions use breath.

 

Tahnee: (14:58)

Anyone who's done any breath work, Wim Hof to like the breathwork workshops you can go and do, to Pranayama from yoga, you'll realise what a powerful tool the breath is, and it's used in different ways in different times. And similarly, the energy of the lungs has different implications and applications at different times. As you develop your relationship with it, you'll find that you start to have a deeper relationship and understanding with the energies and the essences of this time. But it's a lot to do with your upper body. You see your lungs, large intestine, those of you who can see. If you make an L with your left hand, it doesn't matter, left or right, and then you kind of draw up and along the top of the arm there, you've got the lung and large intestine meridians. And so you can do a lot of yoga practices where you work through those meridians. Even just like tapping or hitting them and tapping the thymus can be really powerful.

 

Tahnee: (15:48)

And we shared a lung Qigong ... My brain just stopped there. A lung Qigong practiced a couple of weeks back in the newsletter, which is now on the blog. Anything like that. Pushups and stuff can be really helpful just to stimulate the energy in the chest. You just want to keep that area strong and the circulation moving. Because if things get blocked up through the lymph and stuff around here, then that's another way we can stop the Chi from flowing in the body.

 

Mason: (16:11)

Yeah, it's a really good way, and just to prepare for the practicality of when we get to autumn and winter is when people are getting lots of colds and flus. There's obviously other respiratory infections in the air at the moment. So every single year at this point, it's the time to prepare for winter and immunologically prepare yourself. Astragalus, Chi tonics, herbs like the turkey tail and the white atractylodes that are in the Chi formula, as well as mullein and thyme and these other herbs that you can-

 

Tahnee: (16:38)

[inaudible 00:16:38]. There's a whole bunch of really good long tonics. Obviously what we sell and work with is from the Taoist tradition. But you can look through all the herbal traditions and see that they were working with lung tonics through these times.

 

Mason: (16:48)

So Shiitake is another respiratory medicinal mushroom. Cordyceps is what I've been hitting a lot of at the moment. So it's a really good time to prepare. That breath practice is very important at the moment. The other kind of time of day to focus on literally ties into what Tahnee was just saying is we've got 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM being the lung time at the moment. So even just having a little thought of that period when you're going to sleep is really nice to ensure that you're really ... It's a bit of a lighter sleep, but you're getting some really good work done during that period.

 

Tahnee: (17:16)

Well, it's also important not to have draughts on you in that time, because that's one of the ways people get sick, is that this cool air starts to blow. So if you have windows near your bed, unfortunately, ideally they're closed, but you should still have some fresh air coming into your room somehow. It does depend on the configuration of your bedroom, obviously. But best case scenario, especially those last few hours of sleep, you're really warm and you're not exposed to air. Because it's a really important time. Because your Wei Chi is actually submerged back into the body at that time and your body's in a state of healing and rebuilding. And it's not a time to be exposed.

 

Mason: (17:51)

Exposed to the pathogens.

 

Tahnee: (17:52)

Yeah.

 

Mason: (17:53)

And then straight after that three to five period is that five to seven period, which is the large intestine. So obviously we're talking about lungs being about letting go, what's no longer needed. It's associated with the large intestine. It is highly ... Obviously, it's literal. We are literally, every day, letting go. Ideally ... For me, it's an ideally during that time, but your body might be in a different place at the moment. So I think just watch your poos. At the moment ... I have a poo whisper on the podcast soon. I don't know if I told you about that. So we'll go into the conversation.

 

Mason: (18:25)

But ideally, we're up. We are drinking. Not a cold water. A nice warm water would be ideal at this time as it's starting to cool down a little bit. And then maybe you can have a little bit of a shake and a move and then ideally doing some poos. But then during that period, that five to seven is a great time for practice, getting your body moving, whether it's your yogic practices, Tai Chi, that stretching and that moving or that strength work of that upper body, as Tahns was saying, it's a very important ... You get very activated. It's very honouring of that large intestine to really get a little bit of a sweat going during that time.

 

Tahnee: (18:58)

Walking as well. Like, it's in every tradition as well and it's the best exercise. It's the most obvious exercise. You do not need anything. And by moving your ... So as when you actually walk, you're moving through the pelvis and that actually massages the colon. And so that's one thing that if you do have issues getting your bowels to move, usually a lot of water and then a big walk and-

 

Mason: (19:20)

Vigorous walk, if possible.

 

Tahnee: (19:22)

Well you want to walk ... There's this really funny ... Can't remember it right now, but there's a description in, I think, one of the ... maybe the Neijing that talks about how you should walk. But you don't want to walk like you're rushing, and it's kind of this very Taoist way of going with the flow and-

 

Mason: (19:37)

Not quite like Kel from Kath and Kim.

 

Tahnee: (19:40)

The guy that-

 

Mason: (19:40)

Yeah, the backwards thumbs-up.

 

Tahnee: (19:42)

Yeah. No, it's not power walking. Definitely. But yeah, in my ideal life before toddler-hood, I to go on the beach. These days I don't really walk in the morning. I do yoga. It's easier for me to get my mat than it is to get outside with a toddler.

 

Mason: (19:54)

So I hope this has been useful for you. A really beautiful time to ease in-

 

Tahnee: (19:59)

Hang on. Lung foods. I just want to quickly talk about that. I did mention this somewhere. Blog post or somewhere that we wrote recently. White is the colour of the lung. And this something that I think people in the west struggle with because we're so ingrained to eat the colours. And especially if you've studied any kind of health or nutrition, it's that whole conditioning that white is bad, and-

 

Mason: (20:19)

When you've got outlying kinds of people like Dr. Sebi, these kinds of health guru guys, a bit extreme, but they're saying white foods are just absolutely void of anything useful. And it gets into you.

 

Tahnee: (20:30)

Well, yeah. And there's the four white in Chinese medicine that are kind of evil, in inverted commas. So your processed white sugars, processed white flours, white salt, processed white salt, like iodized salt and stuff, and number four, dairy. They don't love dairy. Especially homogenised, dairy and that kind of stuff.

 

Mason: (20:48)

Especially if it's been processed, and it's consumed cold a lot of the time. And-

 

Tahnee: (20:51)

Yeah, so basically those are to be avoided, especially for healthy lungs. So there is a bit of an implication that if you do have a tendency toward a damp spleen and mucus and lung conditions, that dairy probably isn't a great food for you, unfortunately, because it does really damage the spleen. That's why a lot of people with asthma and those kinds of conditions do better when they take out ... Well, from a Chinese perspective anyway, that's why they do better when they take out dairy. So those four white foods, obviously aren't super supportive.

 

Tahnee: (21:19)

But things like rice, fish, potatoes, those lighter-coloured foods. And if you're looking at supporting the spleen as well, pumpkins, your sweet potatoes, that kind of stuff. A lot of the radishes and things are considered supportive of the lungs, like your dicon and that kind of stuff. Chicken. So that's where a lot of these broths and noodles and kind of these really simple, easy to digest meals that, again, culturally, we kind of think of as kind of almost unhealthy, or certainly I was conditioned to think of those things as quite unhealthy, but they're actually very easy to digest and they used as convalescing foods in China and a lot of places. I mean, they are a staple diet.

 

Mason: (21:56)

Can you explain convalescing?

 

Tahnee: (21:57)

Convalescing is like recovery. So when you look at the healing process ... So, say you get a cold. And let's say it's a bad enough cold that you have to take a couple of days off work and you're pretty run down and don't feel great. You'll typically turn a corner and you'll start to feel a bit better. And that's when most people resume their normal duties. They just go straight back to it. But if you ever read old books from ... like, I remember when I was a kid reading Little Women and all of those kind of books from, I guess, I don't even know what era. The forties, maybe? But when people got sick, they would go to the seaside and spend six weeks convalescing. If they got polio, they would go to the seaside.

 

Tahnee: (22:30)

And it was this idea that you would have a long period of rest after your illness to recover. And again, in a lot of the older medical systems, this is a really common practice. And it sort of lost favour, I think, in our culture, again, because we're all so busy and there's lots of stimulants available now. You can go grab a coffee and just push through. And times are different. Obviously, six weeks at the seaside, most of us couldn't afford. So there's lots of cultural reasons these things don't happen anymore.

 

Tahnee: (22:55)

But this idea that we take time to recuperate, it's similar to the kind of convalescing phase after you have a child. You spend four weeks inside with your baby just to rest and recover. It's just because your body is still weak and the chance of catching of the pathogen or getting sick again when your lungs are weak and your body isn't as strong and the Wei Chai isn't strong are much, much higher. So this is why people at the moment who have weak lungs are being told not to go out and catch coronavirus, because there's a good chance that they won't survive because their bodies aren't strong enough to fight it off.

 

Tahnee: (23:26)

And again, this is one of those things that over time, if we don't convalesce enough, we weaken our system enough that we start to catch everything that's going around. And I learned all about convalescing the hard way. But yeah, I think it's a really important ... It's something I think about now with Aya. I mean, she hasn't had anything in a really long time, but if she got a cold or something, I would keep her home an extra day or two instead of sending her back as soon as she's sort of better.

 

Mason: (23:50)

We've learned that really quickly. I mean, because ... Well, you are a livery kind of person and I, as you've said, and it's like, give you an inch, take a mile. Like, that's been a big lesson for you. Right? And in terms of like, we're a little bit tired, right? We get a little bit of space from that tiredness. Or if we had a cold, we're back at it like 110%. I'm definitely like that as well. And-

 

Tahnee: (24:08)

And what Mase means by livery, because I've had people ask this. And so when I started seeing acupuncturists ... I've been seeing them for a really long time. I don't even actually know. Maybe a decade-ish. But I've been through a few different ones and they often will be able to over time, or sometimes immediately, diagnose your primary constitution, so the type of energy, I suppose, that drives your organism or where you might have a constitutional weakness or something like that. So I have a tendency to live through kind of the liver energy, which is very outward and expressive. It's not the full ... Like, Mace to me is more of a fire person. Like, he's that really outgoing type, but liver people are kind of just ... can be quite tenacious and driven and just in one direction and really hard to pull them off course. And they're also prone to not resting. Like Mace said, if he-

 

Mason: (24:55)

Just a work horse.

 

Tahnee: (24:56)

Well, yeah, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. So they might feel sick, then they start to feel 5% better and they're back at it because they're just not the kind of person that would rest, whereas other types of energy would of be more inclined to rest. So not everyone will resonate with this, obviously, but some people will. And a lot of people that are driven and that are in the personal development space or that are in the kind of spiritual space or in, I think, a lot of the awareness kind of consciousness movements are kind of typically quite motivated, and you look at their past and they do tend to have like kind of corporate backgrounds and they've moved across.

 

Tahnee: (25:26)

And there's a lot of deconditioning there with those folks to really get them to be able to accept the teachings of the more kind of steady spiritual path, which is, "Hey, like there has to be slow periods. It's just absolutely essential." So for me, that's why yin yoga is something I'm so passionate about, because it brought me back to understanding that and gave me something to kind of contextualise it as a practice for a period, whereas I feel like more and more I'm embodying it. Before, it was more of something I had to practice. And that was one way I did it. So anyway, that was just some context.

 

Mason: (25:58)

Thank you.

 

Tahnee: (25:59)

No worries.

 

Mason: (26:00)

Any final thoughts?

 

Tahnee: (26:01)

Yeah. Just with kids, quickly, kids do typically tend to be weak in the lung and the spleen, which means that's why they are susceptible kind of ... not just respiratory stuff, but runny noses and-

 

Mason: (26:12)

Skin stuff, because-

 

Tahnee: (26:12)

Skin stuff, and like-

 

Mason: (26:14)

Remember, skin stuff is regulated by the lungs. The opening and closing of the pores is lung regulation.

 

Tahnee: (26:19)

Yeah. And like all the kind of asthma ... I'm trying to think what other things kids get these days, but all that sort of kiddy stuff. If you look at that from a TCM perspective, it's basically week spleen and lung kind of energy. But they're also very young, so they heal very fast. So if you get their diet dialed in, usually kids will heal fast. They don't really need as many herbs and stuff. All the Chi herbs we've talked about are safe for kids. Yes. Everything we've talked about, including our Chi blend. And I find with kids, you don't need a lot to kind of tip them in the right direction, so just a teeny tiny amount.

 

Mason: (26:48)

Reishi's in there as well. The mushrooms.

 

Tahnee: (26:49)

Yeah. We give Aya probably ... I'm trying to think. Like a pinch or like an eighth of a teaspoon or something. I mean, I'm not particularly-

 

Mason: (26:56)

We're not regimented with it either. It's just-

 

Tahnee: (26:57)

Yeah. Just give some.

 

Mason: (26:58)

... in her diet. Yeah. But she's been having them for a while. You don't have to go crazy.

 

Tahnee: (27:03)

No, but that white food thing, so things like porridge, congee, mushy kind of veggies, not trying to give kids acai bowls and green smoothies. And they don't need that, really. This again is a TCM thing. So if you are into that stuff, I'm not trying to say it's wrong. It's just, if you have those issues and your kids eat what you would think is a healthy diet, it might be just something to think about because often the simpler and plainer the food for children, the better, while they're developing. And then as they get older, you can obviously diversify and vary their diet. But that's just something that from TCM is taught and might be of interest to people out there.

 

Mason: (27:36)

So good.

 

Tahnee: (27:36)

Nothing more to say.

 

Mason: (27:38)

I've been reminded a lot from this conversation. This has definitely reminded me to prioritise my breath practise. My breath practise is something that at this time of the year comes into some very intensely ... I become very intensely and acutely aware of the importance and the impact, the consistency of my breath practice. And that can be as little as just sitting on the beach as long, as there's no midgies, and just starting with like a four second in, four second, hold four second out.

 

Tahnee: (28:05)

[inaudible 00:28:05].

 

Mason: (28:05)

Yeah, very simple. And then I can increase that if I wish. Something similar to like a Wim Hof style of breath is something that I've been practicing for a while. It's a Taoist and yogic style of breath. And so we'll weave that in there here and there, but it's a real good time to tune into your breath and really discover what you need, what type of breath practice you need, and what you need to be letting go of.

 

Mason: (28:27)

Thanks, guys. Big love to you.

 

Tahnee: (28:28)

Thank you so much.

 

Mason: (28:29)

Enjoy your autumn. Those of you in the Northern hemisphere, you guys spring into it.