Procrastination is when we unnecessarily delay or postpone taking an action that we believe we need to take. It is probably something we have all done at different points in our lives, and some people find that it becomes a recurring pattern for them that they struggle to overcome.
When we procrastinate the flow of our life energy can become blocked and stagnant. We are not moving forwards as quickly, freely, and easily as we could, and instead our energy is diverted to other things, or simply goes in circles without flowing forwards.
Procrastination isn’t just lack of motivation
It is common to think of procrastination as coming from a lack of motivation, and that is sometimes the case, but if we dig deeper into what is behind a pattern of procrastination we can often find that we really do want to do the thing – there is plenty of desire and therefore motivation, and yet we still put of taking action – so there must be something else going only leading to this pattern of avoidance.
The five elements help us to understand energy flow
The five elements or five phases is a model from Chinese philosophy that helps us to understand how energy flows within nature and within us. Whenever our energy is not flowing as well or freely as we would like, and understanding of how the principles of the five elements applies to the situation can help us to identify what is interrupting the flow, and how we can bring it back into harmony, which will allow us to move forwards.
Each of the five elements represents a natural phase in movement of energy within every aspect of our life. Each of the elements affects the others. What occurs in one phase of the flow of energy affects the balance on each of the others. When we understand these relationship between each of the elements we can understand what needs to occur with each of them to allow the energy to flow freely. You can think of the five elements as points on the circumference of a wheel, with spokes going between them. When there is an issue with one of them, it is like the wheel becoming dented or bulging out, causing the rolling of the wheel to become bumpy, or to even stop. To make the wheel balanced and round again, we sometimes need to use the relationships between the elements to help to push and pull that part of the wheel back into alignment so that the overall energy can flow freely.
How each of the elements relates to procrastination
Wood is the element that represents the rising energy, the energy that puts things into action. The wood element also has a close association with our eyes and therefore having a clear vision of what we intend to do. It is wood that has the closest association with motivation – the energy to take action and get things done, so if our issue of procrastination is primarily from lack of motivation, then working directly with our wood element to clarify our vision and strengthen our rising energy can be effective to help us to overcome the procrastination and allow us to move forward. But as mentioned already, when we dig deeper we often find that we have plenty of motivation, and it is actually something else that is causing us to procrastinate – so we will also consider the role that each of the other four elements can play in this and how they relate to the action taking energy of the wood element.
Water is the element that feeds wood and makes it stronger, so if we find that the wood element and motivation is a bit weak, when we dig a bit deeper we may find that it is actually the water element that is not supporting the wood fully, and that if we address any issues with the water element, the motivation of the wood element naturally becomes stronger and we can take action with far more ease.
The water element relates to our fundamental essence and nature, it also has a strong connection to the emotions of fear, or excitement. So if we have some level of fear about what the outcome of taking action may be, and particularly if that may somehow threaten or run counter to our sense of identity, then the energy of water may not flow through to wood to give us the drive an motivation to take action. If instead we can convert the emotion of fear into excitement (fear and excitement are actually the same energy taking different forms according to how we interpret and channel them – you can read more about that here), instead of our identity feeling threatened we may recognize the potential for further self-discovery and development, our water energy will flow through more freely to support the action taking energy of wood.
Alternatively, we may find that as we probe deeper into how the potential action is affecting our water energy, we may discover that it is simply out of alignment with our deeper character leading to the apathy which prevents us from taking action. In this case it may be wise to reconsider and find a new direction to put our energy towards that is in better alignment with our sense of identity and purpose.
The metal element is the element of refinement and precision. Through its actions we pare away what is not needed so that our energy can focus on what is most important and valuable. Sometimes when we find ourselves procrastinating – rather than having a lack of motivation to do the thing, we actually find that we are simply becoming too distracted by other activities. In these situations, strengthening the refining character of the metal element can help us to reduce or eliminate the time and energy that we are putting into things that are of less importance to us so that more of our energy can flow to the action we have been procrastinating.
Again, you can think of our energy for action as being like a tree growing. If it develops too many branches going in all sorts of directions, so much energy goes into these that often the tree won’t produce good fruit. By using metal tools and pruning back the un-needed branches, more energy flows to the ones that are kept, and delicious healthy fruit can grow on them! 😋 We can more fully enjoy the ‘fruits’ of our labour that we have spent our energy on.
Earth is the element that relates to practicality taking all the actions and creating the environment we need to do what needs to be done. Without healthy earth (consideration of practical matters), the trees can’t grow.
As a simple example of this – perhaps the thing you are procrastinating is getting into a regular exercise routine. Maybe it’s something you really want to do, so you have plenty of motivation, and maybe you have a really clear vision of how you would like to do it. Perhaps that vision is of working out at a really nice gym in your city. You’ve visited it before, and you just know that you would love to workout there and they have all of the equipment and facilities to do the type of exercise that you would like to do. Theres just one problem – the gym is 45 minutes away from where you live, and its 45 minutes from where you work as well, so no matter how much you try, you never seem to be able to fit going to this gym into your schedule.
You have plenty of motivation, you have a clear vision, so wood element energy isn’t the issue. What you have is a practicality issue which relates to the earth element. The relationship between earth and the wood element is often referred to as rebelling. If something just isn’t practical it often requires a big shift, the shifting of the earth in this rebellion can completely uproot the trees, sometimes meaning a change of vision is required to fit with the practical reality – but then the wood can start to grow in a healthy way in its new location.
In our example of working out at the gym, it may be that to achieve your desire of exercising regularly, the vision of what exactly that looks like needs to change. You might need to find another gym that is closer to your home or place of work, or you might even decide that you could workout in quite a different way – perhaps even doing different exercises at a local park without needing to go to a gym at all. When you create this new vision, there is nothing standing in the way of you taking action. Your wood energy can flourish, and your energy water of your water which feeds the wood – your deeper character or identity that wishes to exercise regularly, is also supported by the nurture of the practicality of the earth element, ensuring that wood can grow well.
The fire element is the energy of expression, the way we send our energy out into the world around us. Sometimes when our fire energy is not strong enough, we actually do plenty of work, we take plenty of action, but then we never allow ourselves to release the results of our work out into the world. In these situations we can end up with a backlog of not fully realised work which can clog up our flow of energy, making it difficult to take further action.
A different example of this could be someone who loves to paint, and so they do lots of painting – they take action and do the thing. But then when they are done, they just store up those paintings in a spare room in their house. They never exhibit them, sell them, or even give them away to friends. And they might be really good! Lot’s of people might LOVE to have the enjoyment of their paintings, but instead gradually the room becomes so full that they can’t fit any more in, and so it becomes harder to keep on painting…
It’s not procrastination as such, but the flow of energy through its natural cycle is being blocked. By strengthening the fire element – holding an exhibition or giving away some of the paintings to friends, the blockage is released, and the energy can flow more freely through its natural cycle from one element to another again!
Overcoming procrastination
I hope you have found this discussion of how the five elements relate to procrastination insightful, and that perhaps it has given you some ideas of aspects of your life you can look at to better understand why you may be procrastinating. If you work away at the wrong thing… you are unlikely to make a lot of progress, but if you can identify its underlying cause more accurately, you will be able to overcome it much more effectively.
When you have identified the underlying cause, there are a variety of ways that you can take action. Some of them are very practical as in the examples mentioned in the discussion above. These could also include things like creating a space without distractions to work on things that are important to you for strengthening the metal element, or even things like switching off your phone to allow you to focus more fully when you have something important you need to do. You could also for example spend time meditating to strengthen your connection to your deep identity to strengthen or address issues with your water element and so on.
You can also work with the fundamental qualities of the energy of each of these elements through your qigong practice. The five elements are present to a greater or lesser degree in all qigong practices, but there are some qigong practices that focus on them much more than others.
One very simple and gentle qigong practice that balances and harmonizes the five elements within us is called Five Waves Qigong, and you can find a free video of that practice here.
Another type of practice that has a strong five element focus is the Wild Animal Play that we do as part of the Inner Fire Qigong program. These are dynamic qigong practices that strengthen the physical qualities of our bodies and energy through vigorous movement. You can find details of the Inner Fire Qigong program here.
If you want to go deep into your understanding of the five elements, the Elemental Alchemy Qigong program is the one where we focus on them most directly. We study and practice a variety of different qigong practices that focus directly on each of the five elements and the relationships between them. We also look more broadly at how the five element relate to many aspects of our lives, including our emotions, our relationships, and even the food that we eat! If you are interested, you can find more information about the Elemental Alchemy Program here.
Yours in qi!
John Munro
Long White Cloud Qigong