Énergétique des plantes : tendances constitutionnelles

Hello, we are going to talk about the second part of the discussion on the energy of plants and conditions In the first episode, I explained in detail the context, which is a particular energy developed by the Americans Why am I telling you about it? Because I lived there for a long time, I did my studies there, that's why I know the model We are not in Chinese or Ayurvedic energy, we are in a model that at first seems simplified But then, when we really dive into the details, we start to see all the sophistication of the model This vision of things takes root in the American medicine currents of the 1800s, early 1900s Knowing that it is based on foundational concepts that we will find in all the traditional medicine currents if we go back quite a long way in history So what is it exactly that we are talking about? Well, it is a way of explaining the living and the actions of plants through natural elements And to anchor it in something familiar that will absolutely not oppose the physiological laws Since American herbology often makes the link between the two In my practice, it is a model that comes in complementarity with a slightly more classical Western knowledge I know that some use this model as a main tool, for me it is rather an extra wealth And as always, there are different models of practice Another important point that I did not mention last time, is the fact that as far as I am concerned, I have had the chance to be exposed to this kind of discussion since the 2000s So it's been a long time that it infuses in my mind, and I mention this because for us Westerners, we are not necessarily used to using this kind of model So here today, and in the previous episode, I am starting to plant small seeds, I do not expect you to grasp everything from the beginning, it is not the goal, it is not the objective The goal is just to start to familiarize yourself with these notions So beyond all this, I am going to impose my own interpretation, my own understanding of things, so in the end it makes a slightly particular cuisine Those who speak of energy will all have their own way of bringing the subject, of explaining certain concepts, well here I am going to deliver my views in all simplicity and without any pretensions Before starting, as always, I remind you that I am not a doctor, I am not a pharmacist, I am here to share information that exists in our tradition, that has been documented, that has been taught well before me I am not a health professional, and therefore my speech does not replace a medical advice or a visit to your doctor Last time, the previous episode, if you remember, I used energy terms to describe the character of medicinal plants We talked about hot, cold, dry, wet characteristics and actions that go with it, i.e. warming or cooling, drying or moisturizing And I refer you to the previous episode if you have not watched it yet What I am going to do today is to use similar terms but to describe the constitutions of people That is to say that we are going to look at things at the macro level, at the individual level, and we are going to try to find these characteristics, hot, cold, dry, wet, at the level of the person as a whole Basically, we all have tendencies, we are born like that, we have always worked like that Sometimes in certain periods of life, it can change, it must be noted, because we will have some imbalances that will take us away from our nature But we often come back to these tendencies, we oscillate around these tendencies for a lifetime So let's say the descriptions we are going to make are caricatures, knowing that in reality we rarely find ourselves in these caricatures, in these extremes Although sometimes we are not far from the caricature at all, it can happen And then in the next episode, we will talk about what Americans call the state of tissues and organs And then we will be a little more in the micro, so we will talk about local imbalances in certain parts of the body, and this time we will stay at the individual level You will notice that I am not talking about constitutions but about constitutional tendencies, because I want to stay at a fairly simple level at this stage I don't want to go into very detailed descriptions of constitutions as we see in some currents For example, in Ayurvedic medicine, you have what are called the Doshas, Vata, Pitta, Kapha These Doshas are combinations of energy elements, for example Kapha represents cold and humidity We are not going to go into these details, we are going to separate these tendencies, we are going to stay on something very elementary For the moment, I would like us to understand the tendencies at the level of these two scales, hot-cold and then dry-humid Knowing that we can then combine them to make constitutions, but we are not going to go that far Of course, this means that you will find similarities with the Ayurvedic Doshas, with the Hippocratic temperaments, bilious, sanguine, lymphatic, etc. But we are not going to go that far either, rather than going into the very precise constitutions, we are going to stay on these very simple axes Basically, we are going to expose the elementary pieces of the puzzle, knowing that we will be able to combine them So the first axis is that of temperature, we come back to it, hot or cold To speak a little more physiologically, as far as I am concerned, I will think temperature, metabolism, vitality, circulation, movement So let's describe a person who has a rather hot tendency First, she gets hot quickly, when you have a jacket, she is in a t-shirt In a concert hall, you are fine, but she suffocates She is a person who always goes as far as possible from the radiator or chimney during family holidays I don't know if you know about it And so she will prefer cool seasons and cool climates In summer, in hot regions, she will have a little trouble She is often thirsty, she drinks a lot And she is a person that you will notice in a room, she has a voice that carries, she is not afraid to express herself She can be passionate, she is also very active, she does not hold back It can be a person who is a little hyperactive, who burns the wick by standing up And suddenly a tendency to overwork, to burn out She has a good appetite, because yes, all this metabolism movement, she burns a lot of calories So she is hungry, she eats well She can quickly rise in temperature when she has a fever She also gets inflamed quickly So it can be figuratively, that is to say a little bit of anger, a little bit explosive Or it can be in her body, that is to say that she will quickly develop joint inflammation, for example Or acute, piercing pain Cardiovascular side, well, it goes fast There is no problem with hands or cold feet, it circulates really well to the extremities Her face can quickly turn red She can have a tendency to hypertension So we imagine a little bit of the minute cuckoo Digestive side, in general, she digests well But she can quickly have digestive inflammations In particular at the level of the stomach when there is stress So in fact it is this image of fire It's hot, it's strong, it moves, it circulates, it burns on all sides And in the exaggerated tendency, we will find a sur-function The cold constitution is a little bit the opposite In the exaggerated tendency, we will be more in the sub-function It is a person who is quickly cold, who needs to cover herself all the time Hands and feet are often cold And this cold sensitivity becomes a little bit disabling Especially in winter, especially in cold regions Especially at night when we fight with cold feet And so these people prefer hot seasons, hot climates It is the person who will tend to get close to the radiator Or very close to the fireplace when there are family parties It can be a discreet person with a small voice On the side of general activity, she does a little less than the others She will do things in a way maybe a little slower than the others She sometimes has trouble generating enough energy To do well everything she has to do A little slow digestion too, which tends to stagnate Sometimes with swallowing, with a desire to get hot Or to apply heat during digestion It can also be during periods, if the woman needs heat Since it circulates less well, there may be a tendency to congestion Which brings us to the humid aspect, congestion of the circulation of fluids We will talk about humidity in a few moments Cardiovascular side, we often have a little tension We can have a pale shade, we are the opposite of reddish We are rather pale, sometimes a little bluish So all these aspects that I mentioned to you for the hot person Temperature, metabolism, vitality, circulation, movement We will place the cursor to the opposite point, rather on the subfunctional side The second axis is humidity Dry or wet And here we have to think about the availability and movement of fluids throughout the body We are talking about blood, lymph, perspiration, mucosity These fluids are of course extremely important For the state, for the integrity of all our tissues For the functioning of all our organs It is what allows to nourish, to lubricate, to transport To transform, for digestive fluids To clean, to expel, to expectorate, so it is absolutely crucial And as always, there is a state of fluids that is balanced And a state that is going to be exaggerated on one side as on the other So either too much or not enough The dry constitution is the person who tends not to have enough fluids to lead his functions well And so she will have a dry skin, dry hair, curly hair Dry mucous, it can be the mucous of the eyes, vaginal mucous in women Mucous of the digestive system So it's going to be the tendency, the dryness Inside, for some organs, like digestion Well, it hurts because you can't digest well if there is not enough enzymatic secretion There will sometimes be a tendency to constipation, a little too dry cells And I had also learned that if it is dry on the outside, what we can see, skin and mucous It is also dry inside, in the digestive tube, these two energies go together She does not sweat easily The respiratory side is often dry too If there is an infection, there may be difficulty in making a well-abundant, well-fluid mucous To well expectorate, to well eliminate waste We can find a little tension there too In the sense that there is not enough tension to send the fluids to different parts of the body Conversely, the humid constitution It is the person who will sweat more easily than the others The skin and hair are very soft, sometimes greasy, oily Everything is very well irrigated, sometimes a little too much It is a person who, in these states of imbalance, will tend to retain water Especially in the lower part of the body Tendency to have a little too greasy skin Because too much secretion that will end up creating problems with acne or others Tendency to secrete a lot of mucous from a respiratory point of view Sinuses, lungs Of course, an allergy can come in handy But overall, we will say that as soon as there is a small respiratory irritant, there is abundant mucous production Sometimes we see this in the morning, even in the person who does not smoke With a slightly congested respiratory system, a little bit every morning There may be a tendency to congestion In the woman, it can be at certain times of the cycle, in the pelvic area And this person will prefer, as you can imagine, dry climates And will poorly tolerate the humidity of climates And suddenly, from a constitutional point of view, we could combine these two axes Temperature and humidity So we could have a hot and dry tendency, for example We could have a cold and humid tendency The two often go together because of the slow functioning In particular, of all that is circulation, causing stagnation of fluids And an important point when you make these reflections Do not focus too much on one detail or another You really have to look at the sky and look at a constellation of signs It's not just one particular sign that will determine the constitution of the person It's a whole cloud of signs And it can even happen that some points contradict each other It does not matter Look at the sky and let yourself be guided by a tendency Even if sometimes there are small points of contradiction And over time, you will see, there are often tendencies that will appear You just have to know the person Sometimes we can see this quite quickly, but sometimes it takes a little time too And so the question that comes to this stage is What do we do with all this? What is it for? Knowing the constitutional tendencies brings us important information When we accompany a person in the long term Because we see that some plants will do a better job than others Even with the same properties And conversely, we sometimes see undesirable reactions With some plants that are less well tolerated than others For the same properties In fact, it helps us make better choices when working on a specific condition In fact, it is the macro, it is the knowledge of the individual Which will help us make a better choice at the micro level when there are imbalances somewhere Some examples to illustrate all this Imagine a person who has a hot constitution She tends to have migraines with a rapid rise of the problem She also has eczema plates that are really red and inflamed, hyperactive And there you say to yourself, I have an excellent idea I will advise a very anti-inflammatory plant for these two conditions Like ginger So yes, ginger is very anti-inflammatory, it's true But well dosed, it will create a peripheral vasodilation Which will send the blood to these places, these extremities already well reactive and inflamed And I can tell you that the result can be a clear aggravation of these things If I take my example as a migraine and rather hot character I can tell you that I have lived my most beautiful migraines by wanting to take well-dosed ginger I have already seen flaming eczema of the most beautiful And so it will be necessary to rather go pick in the plants of a refreshing nature I will quote you the last time, the previous episode, bitterness for example Let's take a rather cold constitution person You want to advise him a small purifying cure And you go on bitter plants, artichoke leaves, earth fumes, very bitter plants And it does not pass at all And I will tell you, I have even had people who told me With these plants, I have the impression that it freezes my blood These pure bitters are too cold and draining for these people So there for a purifying cure, we would rather go on rosemary which has a warming character And there we will be able to put a little bit of ginger, orange peels So we will stay warm and it will go a lot better Now a person who has a rather dry constitution She seems to be demineralized, maybe she has suffered a lot of stress You would like to advise lortie for example Which is very mineralizing but which is also very drying Lortie is an excellent drying And which ends up aggravating the situation The person smells, his skin is mucous, drier than usual So of course it will depend on the quantities, the duration of the cures, etc. But I have personally seen this in practice Sometimes it is the mouth that becomes very dry And so these very drying plants, very duretic We will avoid as much as possible in these people Except in particular cases, and you can imagine in practice Everything is often a story of particular cases We will not go into these particular cases here But to return to this example Maybe we would like to keep lortie But rebalance the mixture and counterbalance with moisturizer Maybe rhizomes of reglis, maybe flowers of mauve for example And suddenly it will go a lot better Now a person who has a rather humid constitution And maybe currently she has the bronchi taken And you think of the guimauve to calm this inflammation of the lungs a bit And there you have aggravations in the production of mucus at the respiratory level And then glares at the throat At a level where it is really unpleasant The person stops, it does not suit him And there it would be necessary to dry, to circulate this accumulation of liquid Bring warming and drying It could be earthworm, thyme, ginger, fennel seeds Warm up, circulate and dissipate this humidity So this is how we can integrate these constitutional trends into the accompaniment At the beginning we may not have all the information Often it is the case, but it will appear over the weeks, over the months So of course I did not mention it But there is also a way to adapt the hygiene of life according to these trends Food too But we will not go there because otherwise we will go in all directions We will stop there In the next episode we will go down to a floor below And we will use these energy terms at the local level A specific imbalance in a certain part of the body Which I find even more interesting I hope you find these interesting discussions useful And if you have a lot of questions and some misunderstandings As I told you, it's normal The goal is not to transfer knowledge to you by snapping your fingers I would like to, but in practice it is not possible You have to live it, you have to practice it The goal is to plant the seeds so that in the future From time to time, we can come back to these concepts And then gradually push the discussion a little further Thank you for listening to me, see you next time