by Donna Eden
The Wood’s self-confidence, however, carries the risk of becoming arrogance while the assertiveness can become an inflexible, self-indulgent force. Woods may come into a narrow and rigid vision that causes them to harshly judge those who do not subscribe to their truth or follow their direction. They may righteously hold to this position and become easily and vocally frustrated about the beliefs and actions of others. Or they may lose their vision and be left disorganized, hopeless, and despairing.
The talk of a Wood is choppy and syncopated, almost a shout. The walk is also choppy, hitting the ground decisively, with clear, concise movements, like percussion. The characteristic mental state is assertiveness. The stress emotion is anger. In nature, the energy that has been accumulating beneath the ground in winter explodes forth above the earth in spring. Ideas or opinions that took root in winter now grow and are expressed with potent force. During the “terrible twos,” your first cycle of the rhythm of spring, you were exploring, expanding, moving outward, and whoever or whatever blocked this energy knew your fury. If you are a Wood, your disposition is to push forth. Your roots are firm, your territory well marked, your purpose strong. You meet obstacles decisively. If they do not give way, your anger is quick and forceful. With maturity, however, Wood’s anger becomes a wise and healthy determination.
If You Have a Wood Partner
Emotions build swiftly and intensely, pushing for determined action. If these emotions are pent-up, the pressure can become unbearable. If there is no release, this pressure cooker can lead to physical symptoms (headaches are common) or illness—or a measured explosion (often, against you). Understanding this helps you create space for the valve to release without taking it personally. It encourages you to set aside time to talk about whatever is building up and to have compassion for your partner’s struggles with these forces. Wood partners also tend to polarize and lack sensitivity when handling differences. They can be too direct, too blunt, so you may feel that your alliance has dissolved. If this occurs, shift the focus to reaffirm your alliance so it becomes clear that you are both on the same team and need to find a solution that doesn’t make either of you wrong. Woods also tend to push onward, even after they have run out of gas. Once they pass a certain point, they become less flexible or effective. Ask yourself what would help your partner to step out of this obsessive determination to race to get closure. Related to this is the urgency, almost a physical necessity, to deal with issues as they arise. This may not be convenient or practical, but knowing its pull on your partner makes it more palatable, plus it should be comforting to know that rather than sweeping things under the rug, your Wood partner will insist that they be handled. Your partner is also independent and will want to be in control of the relationship. Understanding this does not mean you should cave in and put your own authority in the backseat. However, it helps you negotiate more effectively when you recognize that the tendency is in your partner’s natural rhythm and includes gifts—benevolence, kindness, truthfulness, protection—that can serve the relationship.
FIRE ELEMENT: FULFILLMENT
Fire Element carries the rhythm of summer. Summer embodies fruition. The earth becomes warm and the days long. New light bursts forth in the early morning. The fruit on the tree has matured, ripe and luscious. Summer holds the radiance and joy of youth in all its glory. It gives delight in the richness of the moment. The energy of a Fire blazes up and out, creating the impression that the person is everywhere at once. Like wildfire, which jumps ravines and spreads in every direction, its rhythm is rapid, random, and rising.
Fires move from their heart, open and vulnerable. Their strengths are in their warmth, empathy, joy, and exuberance. With passion and radiance, they are able to draw out the positive and the hopeful in others, communicate with them in their uniqueness, and elicit cooperation. With charisma and a grasp of the whole picture, they ignite the actions of others with insight, compassion, and clarity. In recognizing what is possible, they are the magicians and catalysts who help others believe in themselves, free themselves of self-imposed limitations, and move with confidence to a better future.
Fires may go into a panic of frenzied activity, trying to make everyone happy. They often have difficulty with discernment and setting priorities. They may become junkies for love, for the “high”—whether through parties, drugs, sex, or spirituality. They may give from their hearts until they have no more to give. Fires often burn themselves out, overcommitted and exhausted. They are so drawn to the bright side of life that they may not register the dark, the negative, or the dangerous and become innocently embroiled in another’s dark side. To those who look to them for leadership, their optimism and enthusiasm may set up expectations that were never meant and are rarely met.
You can hear laughter in the talk of a Fire. The walk is like a skip, with an up-and-down movement, arms rising and falling like flames. The characteristic mental state is fused with joy and passion, which under stress can escalate into panic or hysteria. In summer, the light is dazzling, the fruit is abundant, and the fish are hopping. Excess is all around. During adolescence, your first cycle of summer’s rhythm, you lived for thrill and exhilaration. Joys and sorrows were laced with passion and taken to excess. If you are a Fire, you want to enjoy, not strive. The present is all that matters, and as you bask in its warmth, you radiate your excitement. Others may find your Pollyanna optimism contagious, exhausting, or irritating. With maturity, a Fire’s wild enthusiasm, passion, or infatuation becomes discerning love and discriminating involvement.
If You Have a Fire Partner
Know that your partner’s panic and hysteria do not mean what it would mean if you were experiencing it. Lightning fills the summer sky but quickly passes. It is part of a Fire’s rhythm. Contagious though the panic may be, remain calm instead and, most important, don’t try to “fix” it. Allow it to pass. Another point to remember is that your partner’s first instinctive response to an opportunity or invitation is a big “yes.” The excitement about the probable joys overwhelms consideration of the costs. If your Fire partner has enthusiastically agreed with you about a plan or new venture, ask again a few hours or a few days later to be sure yesterday’s truth is still true today. And if your partner has said yes too many times to too many people, have compassion as the costs of these misjudgments come due. Fires burn out. They need to come back to themselves to restore, even though they are magnetically drawn to be involved with others. So encourage them to take time alone. Forcefully confronting them is usually not the best approach for helping them see the errors of their ways. When cornered, they cannot think. Your judgments can weaken the Fire’s glow more effectively than almost anything else you could do. People who were drawn to the carefree joy of a Fire are often left wondering what happened to that joy and spontaneity, having no idea of their role in extinguishing it. Lead with understanding, compassion, and appreciation of the sparkle your partner is capable of bringing into your life.
EARTH ELEMENT: TRANSITION
Earth Element carries the rhythm of the solstices and equinoxes, the times of transition. As the midpoint between two seasons, the time of transition is governed by a balance between opposing forces, holding both the past and the future in the present moment. Most familiar as Indian summer, its colors are bright and glorious, a last burst of the waning summer. This rhythm creates stability amid transition, assimilates change, and coordinates between the season that is ending and the season that is arriving. The energy of an Earth can harmonize potential conflicts when other elements meet. The rhythm sways with a side-to-side roll, as if the person is moving to the rhythm of the earth itself.
Earth people know about holding steady. Like the balance scales that are the symbol for justice, they embody fairness. At the center of the cyclone, their strength is to stay stable while nurturing the changes happening around them. Like a midwife, they bring support, compassion, and confidence to times of transition. They hold the center, staying in th
e present moment as they add their tranquil touch to life’s changes. Keeping a fresh perspective as the old order passes, they pave the way for stable change, rarely seeming rushed or stressed. Because they exude compassion, people feel safe with them. They bring equilibrium to chaos, peace to the threatened, and shelter to the displaced.
With a compulsion to help others stay in a comfort zone, Earths may hinder others’ transitions. This aversion to rocking the boat, combined with their characteristic desire to support the other, may also lead to obsessive worry. Or they may involve themselves in a manner that stunts the other’s growth, babying and overprotecting. “The helping hand strikes again” describes the behavior of an Earth whose life has lost its balance. In their joy at helping others flourish, they may neglect to give enough attention to their own growth. Skilled at helping others integrate lessons and experiences, they may have a harder time integrating their own. Knowing bone-deep that loss is an inevitable part of transition, they may anticipate it and try to prevent it, staying with a bad marriage or an unfulfilling job. So they may turn their strongest suit into a losing hand by interfering with the cycle of necessary change, leading to a life full of regrets. Also, because they do not have a designated season of their own, people living in the rhythm of the solstice and equinox may live with heartrending questions always in the background, such as: “Where is time for me? When will my season come?”
The talk of an Earth has a singsong quality, like a mom making baby talk to her infant. The walk has a relaxed, lyrical manner—a slow, rhythmic side-to-side sway, light-footed as a deer. The characteristic mental state is compassion. The stress emotion is worry. In moving from one season to the next, the two seasons come into a resonance as one transforms into the other. In your own transitions, regardless of your Element, you can activate the Earth Mother archetype within yourself, to support you through endings and new beginnings. The harvest of the season that is passing must be incorporated into the season that is coming. Earths instinctually help others in transition to transform past mistakes into lessons for the future. An Earth’s generosity may be martyrish; with maturity, however, exaggerated sympathy ripens into a wise and balanced compassion. Earths can love many, deeply and personally. And theirs is a more intimate love of many than a Fire’s passionate, generic love for all.
If You Have an Earth Partner
When your partner is pulled by many people, overly responsive to their needs, hurting for everyone, or immersed in the middle of a conflict (and championing both sides), rather than throwing up your hands in frustration, ask about the quandary inside. As too much compassion for others is a core problem, showering your partner with your own compassion will reach in deeply. Be alert also to when your partner is suffering for you, trying to anticipate needs you are not feeling, or putting you first in ways that throw the relationship out of balance. Reflect this back with the intention of reestablishing balances between you. Draw out what your partner is not saying because of not wanting to hurt you or disappoint you. It is important feedback for your own evolution that you might otherwise miss. Because your partner tends to cater to the real or imagined needs of all who are close, assume extra responsibility for working through your own problems and encourage your partner to have self-compassion. Know, also, that your partner needs ample time to process information and make a decision.
METAL ELEMENT: ENDING
Metal Element carries the rhythm of autumn, the season of completion. Each day turns to night earlier than the last. The warmth fades. Yet autumn embodies the peace of a concluding chapter, the meaning found in attainment, and faith that dying to the old makes way for the new. The leaves fall to earth, fertilizing the next cycle. This rhythm garners the meaning of the cycle that is coming to an end, evaluates what has been useful and what has not, and eliminates all that is not valuable so as to bring about a worthy completion. The energy of a Metal seems to be stretched between the heavens and the earth. Like a tall tree that has lost its leaves, the energies seem restrained yet serene, barren yet dignified. The rhythm glides like a ballet dancer—elongated, still, and graceful.
Metals have the ability to mine truths out of their experiences and apply those truths. Living in the final cycle, there is an urge toward perfection, high achievements, and model results. Metals can see what needs to happen and are highly motivated to bring it into being. Out of this vision of perfection grows a standard of excellence that is concerned with a higher good and is inspiring to others. That which is impure—whether in ideas, behavior, or systems—is eliminated. As the last season of the cycle, autumn carries a sadness, and those whose rhythm vibrates with autumn are simpatico with the world’s grief. This affinity with sadness engenders kindness, honesty, and integrity. Metals have a capacity to express themselves clearly, and they receive well the ideas and inspiration of others, for they have a gift for discerning the pure from the impure. They have an urgency to find meaning and serenity in what has been, for theirs is the final cycle. Forgive them their persistence. It is their rhythm.
Metals are vulnerable to becoming overly serious or sinking into depression. Shunning fun and lacking pleasure, they may find their energies becoming restrained and dry, like the tree without leaves. They may appear dreary and aloof. Living always in the energy of the final cycle, they may have difficulty with time, trying to cram more into each day than it can contain. Oriented toward the future, their wisdom about life is tempered by their awareness of death’s inevitability, so they may become trapped in depression or in the pressure to reach perfection before the last grains of sand have emptied from the hourglass. Their ability to make pure judgments may be clouded by this despair or perfectionism, and their standards may be tarnished by hopelessness or inflated through unrealistic assessments. Either may paralyze them so that they become unable to let go into change, obsessively evaluating and reevaluating to the point of exhaustion, lacking the capacity to complete a cycle of their lives, again failing to reap the benefits of their strongest suit.
The talk of a Metal has a weeping sound. The walk is tall, straight, and subdued, gliding with head high and gaze forward. The characteristic mental state is reflectiveness. The stress emotion is grief. As the leaves fall and the wildflowers die, loss is in the air. The cycle draws to its close. When you come to the close of a cycle in your own life, there may be sadness for opportunities missed and for what must be left behind. If autumn is your primary rhythm, you are oriented toward completions, toward discerning what has been worthy and meaningful. There is a heaviness in these tasks, and you know the grief of what might have been but was not to be. With maturity, however, a Metal’s grief transforms into an identification with the whole cycle, at peace with life, at peace with death.
If You Have a Metal Partner
While you may long for an easier flow of feelings, it is in your partner’s rhythm to apply mental solutions to emotional problems. Still, you will serve your partner’s evolution by beckoning him or her into the realm of feeling, and you will be more effective if you can begin by meeting on the mental plane. Metals expect others to approach tasks and fulfill their obligations according to their own exaggerated standards. Your partner’s perfectionism can lead to beautiful creations, but it can also become a tyrant that makes your partner miserable and, if turned upon you, can be a ferocious assault on your self-esteem. Articulating this vulnerability gives your Metal partner a chance to recognize the arrogance of expecting others to run their lives according to his or her own inner tyrant. Your partner’s single-minded focus, an asset for getting the job done, can, however, lead to isolation and detachment, specifically detachment from you. While you may need to accept that your partner does not want to be disturbed while in the creative process, establish agreements about when you will meet and expect them to be honored and honored wholeheartedly. Your partner longs—often at a level deeper than conscious awareness—to resonate with your heart, and the same single-minded focus that goes into a project can be d
irected to establishing intimacy.
Understanding Your Own and Your Partner’s Element Is a Lifelong Process
The above descriptions are a brief guide for understanding your own and your partner’s Elements and living from them more effectively. While each of us is a unique energy system with a unique vibration, our vibrations tend to cluster in these five areas. Your vibrational signature will likely be a combination of two or three of these elemental rhythms. It is not all or nothing. David is a Water/Metal combo; Donna is Fire/Earth.
As you come to know your primary Element and its dynamics, you come to understand a great deal about your needs and your blind spots in all areas of your life, and you will also be able to meet other people’s behavior with greater insight and compassion. The more that the energies composing your life force are in harmony, the more the strengths of your Element, rather than its liabilities, will express themselves. Beyond understanding the nature of your own and your partner’s Elements, another invaluable step you can take is to balance your energies (here) when you or your partner is caught in the downside of your Element.
On to Part 2
Carl Rogers, among the greatest American psychologists of the twentieth century, was, toward the end of his long career, one of David’s graduate school professors. David idolized Carl, to Carl’s immense annoyance . . . but that’s another story. Rogers’ work is still commonly cited in psychological literature. One of his most frequently quoted statements is, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”44 He goes on to explain, “We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are.”