What Are Colour, Sound, Odour & Emotion?!

🎨 Welcome back to a brand new season of What’s The Point?! In this season, Ben & Gabriella are exploring the Five Elements in depth but first Ben asks Gabriella: What Are Colour, Sound, Odour, and Emotion?!

They engage in their signature banter as they discuss the significance of these sensory cues in understanding the body's imbalances. From the subtle hues around the eyes to the tones of one's voice, each element offers valuable insights into a person's well-being.

Through humorous anecdotes and insightful explanations, Gabriella sheds light on how these sensory cues act as signals that show imbalances within a person. The practitioner can then treat the patient correctly based on these observations.

Join them on their journey of discovery as they uncover the intricate connections between nature, health, and the human experience.

Transcript

Pt 1

Ben: Welcome back to a brand new season of What’s The Point?! I bet you’ve enjoyed some time off from my pesky questions eh Gabriella?

Gabriella: Oh god another question already, Ben?

Ben: Ha yes it is but I think I may have lost my question asking touch, as I don’t have a clue what to ask?

Gabriella: Well, at the end of our last series, we took a look at the five seasons associated with each element, and the focus of this series is going to be on enriching our knowledge of each one. We’ll start to build up a picture of how the unique qualities of each element manifest in us, and each one’s unique contribution to our health.

Before we start learning more about each element, I’m going to talk about our four main diagnostic tools, which you may remember from the episode ‘What’s in an acupuncturist’s toolkit?’

Ben: Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion.

Gabriella: A couple of minutes into season 2 and I might have to get a gold star out! You’re right Ben! Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion

Ben: Ooooo OK I’ve got it!… So, Gabriella, what are Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion?

Gabriella: That’s the one!… Can’t find my gold stars anyway…

Ben: Here they are…

Gabriella: Anyway….Colour, Sound, Odour, & Emotion our four diagnostic tools, Ben!

Ben: How so?

Gabriella: Remembering that we’re working with the laws of nature, when an organ or energetic function goes out of balance on any level within us - physically, mentally or emotionally for example, our body is sending out distress signals that something’s out of balance. These distress signals, in the form of Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion arise way before symptoms arise. They are a way of getting our attention that something is off balance. In the West however, we’re not trained to look for them, and they go unnoticed, often resulting in symptoms or labelled disease. A major part of a Five Element Acupuncturist’s training is in learning to recognise these ‘signs’, and we base our diagnosis on our findings, rather than on the presenting symptoms.

Do you know the difference between the medical terms ‘signs’ and ‘symptoms’, Ben?

Ben: I’m a musician not a physician!

Gabriella: Ok, well a symptom is an indication of disease that is only apparent to the patient him or herself. Whereas a sign is an indication of disease that the physician can also perceive. In other words, the sign is an objective indication of disease and the symptoms are subjective, or what the patient actually experiences.

Ben: Ahaaa…

Gabriella: So a rash is a sign, because it can be seen by others as well as the person experiencing it. We can hear someone coughing, or take their temperature when they have a fever, so these are signs. Whereas a symptom is something that’s only apparent to the patient. I can only understand someone’s headaches or their fatigue for example if they describe them to me. I can only imagine what they’re experiencing. I can’t see or feel their symptoms, only they can, and I wouldn’t know they had them unless they told me.

Ben: So what are the signs you’re looking for?

Gabriella: While we listen carefully to the patient describing the symptoms they experience, we observe signs, which in the case of Five Element Acupuncture, are Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion. The first three, ie Colour, Sound and Odour are signs. We can see colour, hear sounds and smell odour.

Ben: And emotion?

Gabriella: Part of our training is learning to become aware of how we are experiencing another person. We may feel an internal jar, we may feel in ourselves that something is out of balance in that person if they are exhibiting an emotion inappropriately. Because we are all Five Elements, it’s appropriate for us to feel all emotions in an appropriate situation, however those emotions should flow and come and go at the right moments. Therefore, while emotion is neither a sign nor a symptom, it is an important part of the picture.

So, to summarise: we all have a predominant colour, we all have a predominant sound to our voice, we all have a predominant odour; these are all uniquely ours. And we should be able to experience emotions as they come and go, however we can get stuck and express one emotion predominantly. That’s what we’re looking for with all of these, what is inappropriate, what’s jarring, or sticking out. Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion point to the particular imbalance in our patient that we’re going to address and rebalance. If we started trying to add up or calculate a formula to treat all the symptoms our patients tells us they’re experiencing, our brains would just get in a big muddle and not know where to begin - wait until I talk about the Law of Mother/Child - you’ll understand then why it would be such a muddle. Signs, in our case Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion, or CSOE as we often refer to them, are direct messages to our senses giving information about the cause of imbalance and so leading us to our diagnosis and following treatment plan!

Ben: Are there other ways you can diagnose?

Gabriella: In the coming episodes, as I talk more about the elements, you will hear me describe correspondences associated with each element. Only Colour, Sound, Odour and Emotion are used diagnostically while the other correspondences are qualities that can contribute to us understanding the overall balance of nature in each person, however they are not diagnostic. CSOE are where it’s at! So basically, no, I can only make a diagnosis from my observations of CSOE.

Ben: Ok, so can you tell me some more about CSOE?

Gabriella: Let’s start with colour. Colour has always been something I’ve loved, I could never be a minimalist Ben, I love colour too much! I blame my Hungarian heritage - but who needs excuses?

Ben: Well I’m a minimalist and I love colour!

Gabriella: What? I thought minimalists only liked Black and White.

Ben: But Black & White are colours Gabriella! Anyway, what DOES colour mean in Five Element Acupuncture?

Gabriella: Well, firstly, it’s not the colour of the skin, or the complexion.

Ben: Right. So is it the patient’s favourite colour then?

Gabriella: No, that’s just personal taste (or lack of taste in the case of beige)

Ben: Hey, I thought you said you didn’t judge, Gabriella!

Gabriella: Oopsie. Beige… wonderful colour… great word too… beige… umm anyway, Colour to us isn’t about what the patient likes or dislikes, although it is an interesting observation to note any particular likes or dislikes. Interesting, but not diagnostic. What is diagnostic, is this colour that appears on us, to a greater or lesser degree, that gives the practitioner one sign that leads to diagnosis of where the imbalance is. Ben: And where does it appear? Gabriella: The only reliable place to see it is by the temples, just lateral to our eyes. It’s like a sheen, or a hue, that sits above the skin. It seems to come and go as the patient moves. Have you ever looked at a fish or a snake as they move? There’s a kind of iridescence that comes and goes with the movement. That’s like the way we can see colour on someone. It’s there, we must ‘see’ it all the time but it’s generally not until we retrain our senses that we become aware of it.

Ben: Do you see it all the time?

Gabriella: No, but I’m aware of it as opposed to not being aware of it before I trained. So I see it some of the time. The best time to see it, is when we’re not ‘looking’ for it. It’s best to observe in natural light, and much more difficult to pick up in artificial light. In some people it’s really clear and obvious, in others it’s much more subtle.

Ben: Does it mean the person is more sick if it’s strong?

Gabriella: Not necessarily, in some people the colour is the predominant distress signal, in others some of the other diagnostic tools such as the odour, the sound of the voice or the emotion are stronger. It just shows us what the imbalance is, not the degree of imbalance, or illness.

Ben: What are the colours then?

Gabriella: The colour of Wood is green - the main colour of most plants. Fire, probably not surprisingly, is Red.

Ben: Some flames are blue.

Gabriella: No need to put a spanner in the works Ben! Yes, some flames ARE blue but mostly the colour that comes to mind when we think of Fire is red, or reddy/orange. Earth is yellow, Metal is white and Water is blue. I’ll go more into why each colour is the colour of its element as I talk about each element in the following episodes.

Ben: So, what do you mean by Sound?

Gabriella: Well, we all know that each person’s voice sounds different. Some people sound upbeat, almost like they’re laughing or excited all the time, while others sound like life is about the most boring thing that ever happened to them, with no animation or colour in their voice at all.

Ben: Okayyyy…

Gabriella: Well there is a sound associated with each element. The energy of that element influences the, let’s say ‘music’ of a person’s voice. You can hear it perhaps more easily at times when a person is experiencing stress, or when they are relating something that conveys an experience that was difficult or painful, but remember it’s not the words, it’s the sound that gives us the information

Ben: So you’re not listening to the words then?

Gabriella: Of course I’m listening to them, but think of it as the music in the voice and not the meaning of the words that is the diagnostic information.

Ben: Right. Can you give an example?

Gabriella: Sure. Let’s think about Wood, which as we said is the element associated with spring.

Ben: Is the sound boiinnnggg?

Gabriella: Good guess, Ben, and even better sound effect! But no. That’s just the action that nature is doing, it’s kind of boinging upwards! Spring is associated with new life and birth - of all types of animal, or seeds as they push out of the ground. Push is a good word. The time comes during labour when the woman giving birth is asked to push. So you have this energetic movement, pushing. Remember we also talked about the exuberance of spring - it’s loud, it’s proud, it bursts out with a bang. So we call the sound associated with spring ‘shouting’

Ben: Oh! So it’s a loud voice?

Gabriella: Actually, not necessarily! It’s the quality, so it could be quiet, but still has a pushing, coming forth feeling, like it’s coming at you, hitting you in the face, talking at you. The excitement and exuberance of youth!

Ben: Ok, I kind of get that. What are the other sounds then?

Gabriella: So, Fire is ‘laughing’, Earth is ‘singing’ Metal is ‘weeping’ and Water is ‘groaning’. Each one will make more sense when we talk about the element, so I’ll explain more in each episode.

Ben: You do like to keep us in suspense, don’t you Gabriella?

Gabriella: Oh yes! Why do television series always end with a cliffhanger? Personally, I hate spoilers, so I prefer to give you each thing at the right time, so you understand in the right context - in this case, in the context of the whole element. But we can think of it in terms of appropriate versus inappropriate sound, so for example, you’d expect to perceive some level of joy in a person’s voice when they tell you about something that made them happy, but if you ignore the meaning of the words being spoken, and listen as you might to a piece of music, you may notice in that particular voice that the pattern of it is evoking sadness in you, rather than joy.

Ben: Oh joy, it’s time for a break!

Gabriella: Oh joy, two minutes without questions

Ben: You’re such a bundle of joy Gabriella (last 3 lines fading as music comes in)

Pt 2

Ben: So tell me about odour Gabriella

Gabriella: Well, we say that our sense of smell is the most important sense

Ben: Why’s that?

Gabriella: The part of the brain responsible for our sense of smell is the olfactory cortex. This is essential for our processing and perception of odour, and is part of the limbic system.

Now, the limbic system, as well as processing emotions, survival instincts and memory formation, also links senses, such as smells, to memories and emotions. So it activates my senses which are so important for me as a diagnostician.

Ben: Do you have a really strong sense of smell then?

Gabriella: Well, it’s much better than it was. I’ve worked on ‘retraining’ it over the years. I used to be so embarrassed sometimes at playgroup with my kids when they were babies. The other mothers would occasionally wrinkle up their noses and pick up their babies and sniff their bum, checking their child wasn’t the culprit of the noxious smell that had just filled the room. Oblivious to the stink, I only did the same when I noticed everyone else engaging in this frantic motion. I couldn’t smell a thing, but when I got my nose really close, it turned out my baby was the one who needed changing! Embarrassing! All those eyes, judging me! So, when I started training in acupuncture, I thought I’d be rubbish at the smelling part of our diagnosis. However it’s possible to reactivate our sense of smell, or train it. So I’d just smell everything! Not just food and drink, but everyday things like spoons, paper, clothes, my jewellery, bedclothes, my chair or sofa. Outdoors I’d deliberately take in things we normally avoid, like rubbish bins on the street-

Ben: Dog poo?

Gabriella: Ummm… no I can’t confess to stooping quite that low, Ben. Rubbish trucks are good though. Gosh, they’re ripe! I still wouldn’t say I have the strongest sense of smell, but a few years back I noticed one morning how much it had improved. I was walking to my clinic and I smelled a faint odour of frankincense in the air a few houses before I reached the church where my clinic was. It was a Wednesday morning, and they had a service on Wednesdays when the vicar would use frankincense! I’d never have picked up such a subtle nuance in the air twenty years ago.

As children our sense of smell is really acute - in fact all of our senses are acute - but we lose it because we don’t use it. In refocussing our attention on a particular sense, that helps us to reactivate it.

Kids have a good sixth sense, good intuition, good feelings but it’s not encouraged in the Western world. We encourage our kids to learn using the academic part of our brain but do we train our kids to use their senses? A huge part of our brains is taken up with receiving sensory information, but we prioritise other information and ignore most of the sensory messages.

Ben: So what do your patients smell like?

Gabriella: The odour we’re picking up is normally quite subtle though sometimes it can be strong. It is, just like Colour, Sound and Emotion, a sign that an element is out of balance.

Ben: Where’s it coming from?

Gabriella: Well, let’s take the odour of the Fire element as an example. Fire is responsible for the warmth we need in our bodies, and we all know the smell of something burning. So when Fire goes out of balance in our bodies, a scorched burning smell can be what we smell because the whole system is starting to overheat. Sometimes it smells like when you iron your clothes on the hottest setting, or burnt toast, hot blood, or burnt flesh, like when your dad’s overdone the sausages on the barbie!

Ben: Hmmm… not sure I like the sound of that. Isn’t there a better odour?

Gabriella: Well, firstly, you don’t have a choice! It’s the imbalance of nature that causes the odours. Secondly, I’m not sure you’ll like the others any better. The other odours are rotten, putrid, rancid and fragrant.

Ben: Ooh, fragrant sounds alright

Gabriella: Well, fragrant is the odour of the Earth element out of balance. You’ll learn later down the line that one of the functions Earth is responsible for is the processing of food, so the odour that comes from imbalance in Earth can be like unprocessed food, a bit sicky or vomity.

Ben: Right, not very fragrant then. Well perhaps I’ll just… douse myself in perfume as none of these odours sound particularly savoury. (SFX of spraying perfume!)

Gabriella: (coughs!) You could, but I ask people not to wear heavy scents when they come for treatment!

Ben: Doh! Can’t win here! Shall we move on to Emotion now?

Gabriella: Ok, how you feeling Ben?

Ben: I’m sad

Gabriella: Well I’m angry!

Ben: Oh that makes me happy now.

Gabriella: I feel quite emotional about that, Ben

Ben: Pull yourself together, Gabriella! We’ve got a podcast to deliver…

Gabriella: True. And deliver it we shall! Okay, Emotion. We’ll talk about our fourth diagnostic tool, emotion, shortly, but let’s think back to the sense of smell again. If engaging my sense of smell is activating the limbic system, which in turn activates my emotions and memory, think about how important it is in my practice. Not only will the odour of a patient help me tune in to their emotions, by activating my memory it also helps me to recall the salient information about this patient. Not just their presenting symptom, but secondary complaints and even seemingly small details like what they do in their spare time, or where they’re going on holiday, or the names of their children or their cat or dog. There’s a reassurance about coming to someone who does take care to know you and a bit about your life.

Anyway, importantly, Emotion is our last - but not least - diagnostic tool. We should all be able to feel all of the emotions, at the appropriate time. And…

Ben: Don’t tell me, when nature goes out of balance… one of the emotions will show up

Gabriella: That’s right Ben! It’s like we get stuck in one particular emotion. It’s another distress signal from the body saying ‘Help! Something is off’. We can kind of fall into this stuck emotion, and use it like a protective mask, or shield. Although it’s not really serving us, it’s kind of a default that flavours our interaction with the world around us.

Ben: How do you recognise this emotion that’s stuck?

Gabriella: Well, emotions aren’t things we can ‘think.’ We feel them. It’s way beyond a brain activity, we feel emotion through our bodies. So we learn to recognise how we feel in the presence of a person.

Ben: Can we have one of your famous examples to illustrate that, Gabriella?

Gabriella: Sure! I love painting pictures with words to illustrate what I’m trying to convey. So, I’ve asked my mum’s consent to describe the emotion of fear through her. Fear is the emotion of the Water element - we’ll dive ‘deeper’ in to this next time when we talk about Water. But just for a moment, imagine you’re ‘stuck’ in the emotion fear, and everyday things or happenings become fearful to you. Understanding imbalance in nature definitely let’s say ‘eased’ my relationship with my mum. Instead of being irritated at little things, (like the way she’d always dramatically gasp and clasp onto the car door handle when I made a left turn, which in turn put me on edge as I was driving), I was able to engage my compassion, and imagine what it must be like to live in fear all the time. Every moment an underlying current of fear or panic over every day, small things that to most of us seem trivial. Throughout my life, I’ve had a phone call from Mum every now and then saying “I can’t find my pearl necklace” or “I’ve lost those gold and garnet earrings I bought when I visited you in Kathmandu”.

She was genuinely in a panic. I would constantly reassure her. “Don’t worry mum, you’ll have put them in a good hiding place. They’ll turn up.”

“Are you sure?” she’d ask. “Positive” would be my reply. She’d repeatedly remind me she still hadn’t found them when I saw her and was sure they must be lost. She’d say she needed me to tell her she’d find them. “You’ll find them” was my mantra.

And sure enough, sometimes months later, she’d call me to say she’d found the lost item. I think that damned pearl necklace was even a year or two in hiding. But she was so scared of losing things that she’d hide them so well that she couldn’t find them!

And if we’d had one of those little arguments that mother and daughter have every now and then, she’d always be frightened we’d fallen out forever. After we’d both cooled down, she would always need me to reassure her that we were still friends.

She’s taken to new technology pretty well, and has a smart phone and a laptop, but every now and then I get a call asking for the ‘help desk.’ It’s invariably something like she’s got so far with a purchase, but is frightened of clicking the final button in case she does something wrong. It’s like she’s going to press the button for the bomb! Like her entire life is going to change dramatically and irreversibly, instead of simply going ahead and buying that book!

Ben: That does sound exhausting

Gabriella: You’re telling me! Each little thing may seem petty, but if you add it all up and your whole life is flavoured with that level of fear and panic, it must be pretty hard work.

Ben: What are the other emotions Gabriella?

Gabriella: The emotion of Wood is Anger, Fire is Joy, Earth is Sympathy and Metal is Grief. I can’t wait to go further into these over the coming weeks as we explore each element in depth.

Conclusion

Ben: So, what’s the point? What do Colour, Sound, Odour & Emotion have to do with Five Element Acupuncture?

Gabriella: Well, tell me what you’ve learned from this episode, Ben

Ben: So nature sends out warning signs when its natural flow is going out of balance - a colour, a sound, an odour and an emotion.

Gabriella: That’s right. And what role do they play in diagnosis?

Ben: In the same way a bruise will show bleeding underneath the skin, the body also sends out signals that display imbalances which can manifest in these four ways. Each one provides valuable insights into the state of our health and well-being, so practitioners can then tailor treatments to address the root causes of imbalance.

Gabriella: Great work Ben. And don’t forget it’s the inappropriate or jarring expression of colour, sound, odour or emotion that gives us the clues we need to diagnose our patients.

Ben: And that’s a wrap for now! Join us next time as I ask Gabriella, What Is Water?!

Gabriella: It’s that clear liquid that you drink, bathe in, you know the one that’s the very foundation of all life on Earth?

Ben: Ahh, question answered then! No need for the next episode in that case!

Gabriella: Yay! I’m off the hook! No more infuriating questions!

Ben: I think you’ll find I’ll come up with something by next week, especially if it means infuriating you Gabriella!

Gabriella: Great… Well until then, stay curious and keep asking questions…but don’t ask me…leave me alone! I’m on strike! Goodbye for now!

Ben: Don’t worry, she’ll come around folks…bye for now!