Key Points About the Earth Element Personality
You could very well be an Earth element personality or type if the year of your birth ends in the number 8 or 9.
Even if you don’t have an Earth element personality, you can be in or out of balance with the Earth element throughout the year.
This especially occurs when we enter any of the four 18-day transition periods between the four major seasons of TCM. We call these periods bridging the four major seasons Earth.
Earth is when the energies of yin and yang come into balance before one of them begins to dominate the other.
In TCM’s understanding of Earth:
Earth provides a home for Metal.
Earth controls Water by forming river banks.
Fire forms ground for Earth.
Wood controls Earth through its ability to mold Earth into a dam, for example.
Pay attention to the attributes of Earth and keep yourself in balance with them.
If you’re an Earth element personality and you experience imbalance with Earth, you can get back into balance relatively quickly. Do it primarily by understanding the Earth element and how it correlates to your Earth element personality. Then adapt yourself to live harmoniously with it. (This article will give you insights on how to do balance your Earth element personality.)
Earth is the element of harvest, abundance, nourishment, fertility, and the mother and child relationship. Earth balances and epitomizes the changes of seasons.
So an Earth element personality will be all about nurturing, abundance, change and helping to bridge relationships one person to another.
Physical Attributes of Earth Relating to an Earth Element Personality
Earth associates with the digestive system—the stomach (middle of the body) and the spleen. Earth also relates to the sense of taste.
If you’re an Earth element personality and type, you should avoid foods that antagonize the stomach. You may already have an intolerance to insulting foods.
The Earth element personality and type is often prone to ulcers or indigestion. Consider avoiding indulging in sweet foods and rich desserts.
The Earth element personality and type often develops stomach illness. It shows up as deep sagging facial lines from the base of the nose to the outer corners of the lip.
The energy of the Earth element supports the flow of lymph to detoxify the body.
Lymph is a colorless fluid containing white blood cells that bathe the tissues and drain toxins through the lymphatic system into the bloodstream.
For this reason, each of the four 18-day between seasons periods of Earth are the best times of year to detox skin and body. Toxicity conditions such as acne—a sign of Earth imbalance—can easily flare up during the Earth periods. Toxicity is a condition of Earth imbalance.
PHYTO5’s Earth quantum energetic line of skincare addresses toxic skin conditions of acne, blemishes, and enlarged pores.
Quantum energetic means the skincare line potently helps balance emotions as well as skin and vital energy. (All PHYTO5’s five element lines are quantum energetic.) This is particularly important for the Earth element personality (or any of the other four element personalities). Because the five element lines are quantum energetic, they balance emotion as well as skin.
This means the out of balance emotional state of the Earth element personality can be easily brought to balance using products from the Earth line.
An out of balance Earth element personality ruminates excessively. Feelings of overwhelm and stuckness, for lack of a better word, dominate. The Earth quantum energetic line of skincare work to get the Earth element personality or anyone out of balance during the Earth seasons feeling more free to self-express creatively.
Earth line skincare shifts you or the Earth element personality enough to help you move off dead center and complete unfinished projects. If you’re a nurturer and use the Earth line you get to relax more knowing you don’t have to be all things to all people.
Click here for the dates of the four 18-day periods of Earth.
Earth Element Personality and Energy
As for any element, the Earth element personality feels a whole range of emotions and behaviors: patience, reliability, logic, service and duty to others, militaristic nature, stubbornness, and high energy.
We see the balanced Earth element personality in:
home
safety
stability
grounding
support
love
nurturance
practicality
reliability
industriousness
pensiveness
seriousness
conservatism
instinctive awareness
reflection
empathy
honesty
kindness and prudence.
The home is very important to the Earth element personality who creates a cozy and comfortable home. Their homes are relaxed and put visitors at-ease so much so they don’t want to leave.
The Earth element personality loves to decorate with stuffed furniture, thick rugs and ornate elements. But out-of-balance Earth types will overdo and decorate with lots of clutter.
The maladapted (another way to describe imbalanced) Earth element personality likes to collect, even hoard, material things. It create a sense of security.
The Earth Archetype As It Relates to the Earth Element Personality
Well adapted Earth element personality types intimately connect with the Earth. They see being outdoors with nature, plants or animals as complete spiritual experiences.
The Earth element personality epitomizes balance and unconditional love, nourishment and nurturance.
Earth is the Mother Goddess, Mother–Provider, fertile, nurturing, grounding, strong and constantly transforming. An in balance Earth element personality personifies all these.
Mother Earth never stops providing and caring for us. She supports all kinds of copious plant life to grow in her rich fertile soil. She devotes herself to nurturing and sustaining all her children—sentient beings living on Earth.
This is a quality the Earth element personality in balance mirrors by taking care of family, feeding, loving, caressing and encouraging.
The Earth element personality enormously values friendship. Earth types are very kind and nurturing to their friends.
Like the matriarchal Earth archetype, an Earth element personality in balance is pillar of the family and often the community. This personality will create a safe, secure enriching environment and always with a steady hand and loving touch.
The Earth element personality must live in yin-yang energy balance to be well adapted in Earth. This means Earth types are spiritually and emotionally well grounded individuals.
The Earth element personality—when well adapted to the element—nurtures herself or himself as well as family and friends, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
The balanced Earth element personality offers many gifts to loved ones:
For all of these reasons and more, everyone wants to be balanced an Earth element personality’s friend.
But the Earth element personality can also be out-of-balance.
selfish; self-absorbed
overly pensive; gripped by paralyzing mind chatter
needy; uncooperative with others, and/or
judgmental and rigid (including physical inflexibility)
Nevertheless, the out-of-balance Earth element personality or type truly can transform:
self-absorption>>>to empathy and selfless caring for others
the prison of an overactive ruminating worrisome mind>>> to the freedom and the comfortable ability to take action
neediness>>> to dependability so others will know they can be counted on and are loyal.
The Spirit of the Earth Element and How it Supports the Earth Element Personality
TCM calls the intellect Yi. It’s the spirit of the Earth element and also our center. It balances the transformation processes of all the other elements.
Yi gives us the capacity to make scholarly achievements, to set intentions and digest thoughts and information all while keeping us centered in our core. But when an Earth element personality, or anyone for that matter, overthinks and worries, it damages Yi.
On the other hand, when your Yi is healthy, you can remain present and attuned to the gut-brain axis(1) and your solar plexus chakra. The Yi seems somewhat esoteric, but a balanced Yi supports healthy physical digestion which is a very grounded concept.
Especially if you’re an Earth element personality, get really attuned to the element of Earth. It’s very therapeutic. It will bring you into harmony with nature and support the Yi spirit. Then Yi is able to sustain a calm clear mind as it listens to the gut-brain for intuitive information.
Balancing the Maladapted Earth Element Personality
An undernourished childhood—both literally, through lack of nutrition, physical touch and nurturance, and figuratively, through lack of unconditional love and emotional support—often negatively affects the Earth element personality and for life.
The Earth element personality may be unable to resiliently respond to stress because of an inner empty feeling created by an inappropriate maternal experience.
All children need to be held in their mother’s arms, most especially. They need to be told everything is alright. They need to feel a deep connection with Mother. Children require mother’s unconditional love, affection, attention and care.
But a lack of motherly nurturance often affects the Earth element personality’s ability to genuinely and empathetically care for others.
Finding contentment and satisfaction in family, work and relationships can become difficult, out of balance with the Earth element.
The Earth element personality needs to know she’ll be heard, understood and supported. But lacking this she becomes needy. Out of neediness, the Earth types will often turn to whoever will listen to them as they seek attention through complaining.
They’ll also be constantly striving to fulfill their need to be listened to and understood. The maladapted Earth element personality wants to have her plights recognized. they feel the sympathy and empathy they elicit from others proves their friends and loved ones understand them.
The maladapted Earth element personality can also become overly self-sacrificing. This behavior can often be inappropriate boundaries are crossed in the spirit of helping someone else.
Earth types feel very challenged to simply be empathetic and allow others to work through their problems themselves. The maladapted Earth type wants to solve others’ problems for them.
The Earth element personality out of balance may find self-care challenging. This personality’s driving force and reason for living is all about taking care of others and not himself or herself.
The Earth element personality out-of-balance can also often feel anxious and insecure when his stable predictable lifestyle has been threatened. He may worry about this or other issues excessively and obsessively. And it’s this worry that prevents him from making decisions and completing projects. His mind gets chaotic and feels stuck and paralyzed.
The maladapted Earth element personality can find a pathway back into balance through service, gratitude, self-care, and mindfulness practices.
Utilizing the Energies of Earth for a Balanced Personality in Any Element
The Earth element is substantive.
Earth can conjure fierce images in your mind like erupting volcanos and intensely vibrating earthquakes.
But Earth also and mostly calls to mind nurturing soil, the bounty, healing crystals and stones buried beneath, and all the plants and animals it sustains.
You might like to visualize Earth itself from space as gentle reminder we live on a magnificent celestial island.
You can call upon Earth’s energies to facilitate your manifestation efforts. She’ll help you put down strong roots so your dreams can grow into reality.
The Earth element can provide you with a sense of reality and productivity. It gives you the capacity to turn nearly everything you touch into something tangible.
Earth can be not only a great ally but wise guide.
Whether you’re an Earth element personality or a personality of any of the other four elements of TCM, call on Earth’s energies for assistance. Call on Earth for help with grounding, growth, protection, your work with the Law of Attraction, and the inner workings of your soul, life cycle and abundance.
Earth holds a gateway enabling you to communicate with animal and plant spirits. She offers you the necessary grounding to keep one foot firmly planted on terra firma. Especially if you’re a gardener, crystal worker or herbalist, Earth will support you in your service.
The energies of the Earth element will help keep you aware of your valuable and enlightening ancestral roots. They’ll also encourage you to keep the garden of your life free of weeds in the here and now.
Whether you’re in or out of balance as an Earth element personality, feel gratified by your Earth Mother archetype. Reach for her wondrous qualities of composure and serenity whenever you feel unsure.
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Endnotes:
Gut-Brain Axis (GBA): Researchers now call the gut the second brain having discovered there is an enormous number of neurologic connections and neuro-regulatory bodies in the gut microbiome. From the nasal sinuses to the rectum, the GBA comprises the largest macro-membrane in the body with a surface area of two tennis courts.
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Sources:
Levitt, Susan. Taoist Feng Shui: The Ancient Roots of the Chinese Art of Placement. United States, Inner Traditions/Bear, 1999.
Moss, Charles A. Power of the Five Elements: The Chinese Medicine Path to Healthy Aging and Stress Resistance. United States, North Atlantic Books, 2010.
