When the Body Speaks – Decoding Mental Health with the Five Elements
- Brainz Magazine
- Jun 26
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 27
What if your chronic skin issues, gut imbalances, or respiratory symptoms weren’t just physical problems, but emotional messages your body has been trying to communicate? In this powerful article, Connie Ng shares her unexpected journey from salt therapy clinic owner to holistic mental health practitioner, revealing how Traditional Chinese Medicine’s Five Elements can decode the emotional roots of illness and guide deep, lasting healing.
How I discovered holistic mental health (without meaning to)
Becoming a Holistic Counsellor wasn’t part of the original plan, nor was spending my life decoding the emotional root causes of illness. In fact, I stumbled into it, somewhat unknowingly, when I opened a Salt Therapy Clinic. But that’s exactly where the path led when I began listening to the body.
At the time, I thought I was simply helping people breathe better, heal their skin, and maybe relax a little. After all, halotherapy, or salt therapy, had helped me personally. Years prior, it had given me incredible relief from my own chronic eczema and relentless sinusitis. Sitting in that salt room, with its walls crusted in pure mineral salt and the air rich in negative ions from pharmaceutical-grade salt spitting into space from the halo-generator, I had felt something shift. Not just in my body, but in my nervous system. I could breathe. I could rest. I could feel myself coming back online.
When I opened my own salt therapy space, I thought I was creating a physical healing sanctuary. But the more I listened to my clients’ stories, the more I started to hear something deeper – a pattern.
It wasn’t just itchy skin, or tight lungs, or digestive issues. There was always something underneath.
Grief that hadn’t been spoken.
Stress that had calcified into muscle pain.
Unresolved trauma that seemed to live in the breath, in the gut, in the skin.
As an intuitive, I began to feel it in the room – what wasn’t being said. And as I reflected on my journey, decades of eczema flare-ups, years of struggling to breathe through blocked sinuses, anxious nights, sleepless childhood summers, I realized something profound:
My physical symptoms weren’t the beginning of the story. They were the body’s response to everything I hadn’t emotionally processed.
And that’s when things began to shift. I had started out addressing the body, but the root cause, often, was in the mind, and in the emotions that were trapped there.
So I trained in holistic counselling. I studied the mind-body connection. And eventually, I returned to one of the most powerful systems I had personally healed through – ancient wisdom embedded in my Chinese roots: Traditional Chinese Medicine, and specifically, the Five Elements framework.
The five elements framework: Your emotions have organ systems
The Five Elements, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire – map the interconnected relationships between our organs, emotions, and energetic states. When one element is out of balance, it affects the whole system – physically, emotionally, and energetically.
Each element governs specific organs and is associated with key emotional themes:
Earth (Spleen & stomach): Worry, overthinking, anxiety, self-doubt, boundaries, nourishment
Metal (Lungs & large intestine): Grief, perfectionism, letting go, unresolved sadness
Water (Kidneys & bladder): Fear, depletion, ancestral trauma, survival mode
Wood (Liver & gallbladder): Anger, frustration, stagnation, ambition
Fire (Heart & small intestine): Joy, impatience, insomnia, emotional overflow
What I love about this system is that it gives language to the invisible connections so many people feel but don’t know how to explain. It bridges the emotional with the physical. And when we look through this lens, symptoms are no longer “random,” they are precise signals of what needs attention.
The Five Elements also follow two energetic cycles: the generative (creation) cycle and the control (regulation) cycle, which explain how emotions and organ systems influence one another. For instance, fear from the Water element can suppress joy from the Fire element, which may explain how trepidation can dull a person’s capacity for lightness and connection. Just like how an excess of water can put out a fire, fear can extinguish joy. Meanwhile, frustration and anger from the Wood element can over-fuel the Fire element, leading to heightened impatience, emotional volatility, or burnout, just as adding more wood makes the fire burn brighter and fiercer. When you understand these emotional dynamics as energetic patterns, not personal flaws, you begin to see how rebalancing one element can positively affect another.
When symptoms speak: What your body is trying to say (through your skin and beyond)
Most people understand that physical illness can impact mental health. But few consider the inverse, that our emotional and psychological states, especially what remains unspoken or unresolved, can shape, fuel, and even manifest as chronic physical symptoms.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the body is seen as a dynamic ecosystem, and the skin, in particular, as a diagnostic surface. When an imbalance exists within the organs or emotional field, it eventually rises to the surface. The skin doesn’t just react, it communicates.
In my clinical experience, chronic skin conditions often reflect deep-seated emotional patterns –unprocessed grief, buried shame, self-worth wounds, and energetic stagnation. But the messages behind these symptoms aren’t one-size-fits-all. Each condition reveals a unique energetic and emotional signature – one that, when decoded, can lead to profound healing.
The Chinese word for illness reveals a deeper truth
Interestingly, even the Chinese language hints at this body–mind connection. The word for illness, “病” (bìng), combines the radical 疒, meaning “sickness,” with the character 丙. Beyond being a phonetic marker, 丙 is cosmologically linked to the Fire element and, by extension, the Heart (心) in the Five Elements system.
This points to something subtle yet powerful: embedded within the word for illness is the heart, the seat of emotion, spirit, and consciousness.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has long recognized that emotional disturbance lies at the root of many physical ailments. One of its most revered texts, the Huangdi Neijing (also known as The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic), is considered the foundational scripture of Chinese medicine. Dating back over 2,000 years, this ancient medical classic outlines a holistic understanding of the body as an integrated network of energy, emotion, and organ function.
In the Huangdi Neijing, the Heart is described as the sovereign ruler of the body:
“The Heart is the sovereign; from it the spirit emerges. If the sovereign is disturbed, the whole system falls into disharmony.”
In Chinese thought, the Heart (心) is not just a physical organ but the home of the mind, emotions, and memory. When emotional pain is unprocessed, it doesn't disappear – it lodges in the body. This is often seen as “heart-fire,” a condition that, if left unresolved, can contribute to physical disease.
The Huangdi Neijing emphasizes the cultivation of “恬淡虚无” – a calm and undisturbed heart-mind – as essential for health. Conversely, a heart burdened by fear, grief, or lingering sorrow becomes fertile ground for dysfunction and disease.
The ancient phrase “病由心生” (“disease arises from the heart-mind”) encapsulates this wisdom, one now echoed by modern neuroscience and trauma research. Our bodies remember what our minds try to suppress. Emotional wounds, unmetabolized grief, and identity-level pain often express themselves somatically.
When the skin speaks: Clinical insights into eczema and psoriasis
Having explored the deeper meaning of illness from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, let’s now bring theory into practice. The skin, as an external expression of internal disharmony, often reveals powerful messages – if we know how to interpret them. What follows are some of my most striking clinical observations working with clients suffering from eczema and psoriasis – conditions that frequently reflect the energetic interplay between the Five Elements, unresolved emotional patterns, and the body’s attempt to restore internal balance.
Eczema & asthma: the metal-wood interplay
Eczema is often associated with itching, restlessness, and inflammatory flare-ups, especially in children. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this commonly reflects an imbalance in the Wood element, which governs the liver and expresses emotions like anger and frustration. The liver is also responsible for keeping qi flowing smoothly – when stagnation occurs, heat builds, which may emerge through itchy, reactive skin.
Yet many eczema sufferers also present with asthma, and almost always describe it as genetic. Upon deeper exploration, I’ve often uncovered a pattern of grief or depression running through the family line, sometimes tracing back to wartime survival, poverty, or other ancestral hardship. This ties directly into the Metal element, which governs the lungs and large intestine and is emotionally associated with grief, sorrow, self-judgment, and rigidity.
From this lens, asthma may very well be “genetic”, but not merely biologically. In the words of Dr. Gabor Maté, “Trauma is multigenerational. We pass on to our offspring what we haven't resolved in ourselves.”
Emerging research supports the idea of intergenerational trauma, where unprocessed emotional experiences lead to epigenetic changes, altering how certain genes are expressed in future generations. So if a grandmother survived trauma in silence, the granddaughter may inherit not just her eye colour, but also her lung vulnerability, her un-cried tears.
In this way, eczema may not just be a “skin condition.” It may be the body’s cry for emotional release, first through constriction of the lungs (asthma), and later through inflammation of the skin.
Psoriasis: A sacred shield of protection
Psoriasis reveals a different terrain. It is often linked to digestive dysfunction in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and naturopathic frameworks. The Earth element, which governs the spleen and stomach, holds emotions like worry, anxiety, and self-doubt. When Earth is weakened through poor diet, overthinking, or emotional depletion, dampness and heat accumulate, disrupting the skin’s natural balance.
But in more complex cases of chronic psoriasis, I often explore the energetic patterns associated with the liver (Wood) and kidneys (Water). The liver stores anger, and the kidneys house fear – both of which are commonly repressed in those with unresolved trauma.
Many of my psoriasis clients have lived through severe emotional trauma, including domestic violence, mental or physical assault, or childhood or sexual abuse. And time and again, I’ve seen the same pattern: “Unsightly,” scaly plaques that seem to repel contact. Skin that looks angry… but also armoured.
What if the body is not betraying us, but protecting us? What if psoriasis is a primitive biological shield, forged by the subconscious to say: “Stay back. Don’t touch me. I am not safe.”
The Five Elements allow us to map the emotional signatures behind these organ imbalances. But layered with the lens of trauma-informed care, we begin to see that the skin may be saying what the psyche cannot yet voice.
If you’d like to explore how the emotions associated with your skin, gut, or lungs might be contributing to chronic symptoms, I encourage you to read my previous articles in Brainz:
What Do Your Skin, Gut, and Lungs Have in Common? More Than You Think
Can Your Emotions Be Causing Your Skin, Gut And Respiratory Issues?
Tried Everything? What If Your Skin Isn’t the Problem—But the Messenger?
Ready to go deeper?
If this article stirred something in you – if your symptoms have been whispering messages that you’re ready to understand, I invite you to join me for my upcoming RELEASE Program, starting late August 2025.
This 4-week transformational journey is designed specifically for women with chronic skin, gut, or respiratory conditions who are ready to:
Decode the deeper emotional roots behind their symptoms
Rebalance their body using the Five Elements framework
Learn practical vibrational healing tools for long-term relief
Learn more and join the waitlist here or connect with me on Instagram at @connieng.coach.
The body remembers what the mind tries to forget
Holistic mental health isn’t just about mindset. It’s about embodiment. It’s about energy. It’s about learning to listen to the body as a wise, encoded map of everything we’ve experienced – emotionally, energetically, ancestrally.
The body doesn’t lie. It whispers, it tightens, it flares, it freezes. And when we finally start to listen, it begins to heal.
True mental wellness doesn’t come from fixing thoughts. It comes from honouring the emotional truth embedded in our symptoms.
Because the body speaks.
And it’s been trying to tell us everything.
Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and visit my website for more info!
Read more from Connie Ng
Connie Ng is a Multi-Disciplined Holistic Practitioner, Five Elements Coach, and founder of The Salt Therapy Clinic & Sanctuary in Canberra, Australia. After overcoming 35 years of chronic eczema, she now empowers others to decode the emotional and energetic root causes of persistent health issues—particularly skin, gut, and respiratory conditions.
Drawing from Traditional Chinese Medicine, vibrational medicine, and modern trauma-informed coaching, Connie’s work bridges ancient healing systems with cutting-edge insights into the mind-body connection. She is the creator of The RELEASE Method™, a transformative 4-week healing program that helps women calm inflammation, restore emotional balance, and reconnect with their body’s innate wisdom.
Connie is a published contributor to Brainz Magazine and a speaker at international holistic wellness events, where she shares her pioneering approach to holistic skin and respiratory health, Five Elements diagnostics, and energetic alignment.
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Maté, G. (2022). The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. Avery.
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