Are you Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water? Take the Quiz!

You know your Myers-Briggs type and your astrological sign, but how about your constitutional type according to Chinese Medicine?

Your constitutional type is like the cards you’re dealt at birth: your physiological strength and temperament: whether we’re Type A, introverted or extroverted, people-oriented; which organ systems will tend to be rock-solid, and which ones will be challenge areas that need support.

Identifying what type you are can help you recognize your super powers: your particular gifts. But it’s even more useful in helping us recognize when we have become a caricature of ourselves, when our greatest strength becomes a limiting factor.

You know that old saying, “When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”? For jobs like getting nails into boards, yes, the hammer is indeed best tool. But if we insist on always using the trusty hammer to unclog a pipe or tighten a screw, it’s easy to feel stuck, frustrated, and stressed.

The cool thing is that we don’t have to be limited by our constitutional type. We have all the elements within us. Even though we’re dealt a set of cards at the start of the game, we get to throw a few of those cards back. Just because breast cancer or diabetes or heart disease runs in the family doesn’t mean we’re bound to get it.

We switch our DNA on and off all the time with the choices we make on a regular basis. Our diet, sleep, emotions, and levels of environmental toxicity all play a role in determining which genes get expressed and which won’t.  Our thoughts and beliefs are even more malleable.

When I know that I’m a Wood type, I can catch myself in those habitual thoughts, beliefs, and strategies that cause me stress and throw me out of balance, and make a more medicinal choice instead. I also know exactly which acupuncture points I can use that help treat these particular imbalances.

Recognizing that we don’t have to be bound by our go-to tendencies and habits, we are free to stretch into the fullness of our potential on all levels.  We may even discover new latent superpowers — inner strengths we have yet to tap.

That’s one of the main reasons I created my new course, the Basics of Chinese Medicine: Your Inner Ecosystem: to help you gain a new perspective on yourself, so you can transcend your habituated patterns and evolve. When we can act with greater self-awareness, we open ourselves up to new possibilities.

Want to get a sense of your type? Take this little quiz I made and find out.

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