The Organ Realm has always been *the Realm of struggle* for me. We each have one (or two), and it’s usually where our body either calls us to immediately or shies away from the hardest. Your body may even vacillate wildly between the two!

 It’s like “LOOK AT ME!” *omg no, don’t look at me (blushes)*

For me, my body took the shies away from route. I had to begin in the bones and create a strong foundation, move through the MuscleRealm  and relationship, and then the Fluid Realm, to trust my body enough to see things differently. Only then did my body trust me with what my Organ Realm had to say.

It took time (and conscious work!) to lay down my story that my organs are dysfunctional, and stretch into a deeply rooted belief that they are feeling, sensing, knowing, intelligent, and perhaps sentient beings doing all they can for me in a world that wasn’t designed for my thriving.

That’s the medicine of the Organ Realm. It shows you where you’re out of sync with the ecosystems you’re in, and if you listen carefully, guides you into a deeper connection with your body and belonging. 

The Organ Realm

Your Organ Realm is where you embody (and trust) that in its own way, everything belongs.

This Embodied Realm has multiple overlapping and interdependent ecosystems made up of autonomous organs that each have their own responsibility, including physical, energetic, and emotional roles. 

I’m sorry, what now?

Not every organ only performs one role or fits into one ecosystem. Take the liver for example: it’s mainly considered a digestive organ, but it also performs roles with the circulatory and the endocrine ecosystems, to name a few. This is the “overlapping and interdependent” part of that statement.

However, each organ is autonomous, meaning it governs its own energy and its own affairs. So the large intestine isn’t expecting the esophagus to do its job, and the kidneys don’t expect the heart to be filtering waste out of blood.

Likewise, each organ co-creates and contributes an emotion and an emotional impulse to the ecosystem.

They each have a specific role and need to trust one another to do what it’s in community for. It’s this deep trust in one another that allows your body to find that same trust and belonging in your inner and outer worlds.

Your Blood Organs set the tone

You’re probably familiar with many of the ecosystems in your Organ Realm, because they’re the same as what you know anatomically, like the digestive ecosystem, or excretory ecosystem. But there’s an energetic group you probably haven’t heard of before, and that’s the Blood Organ Ecosystem.

Your Blood Organs work together energetically, but they aren’t anatomically grouped together in the same “systems.” This ecosystem includes your:

• Heart (circulatory)
• Spleen (immune/lymphatic)
• Liver (digestive)
• Kidneys (excretory); and
• Uterus (reproductive)*

*Anyone is able to work with the energetics of the uterus if they choose. The energy of our reproductive organs have nothing to do with physical reproduction, and are grouped as organs of creation and destruction. Anyone of any gender has access to the potential of creation in this way through uterine energy.*

Your blood organs create a “primary ecosystem,” which means that these organs look to each other first to create health, trust, and relationship, and then take that forward into their own “functional ecosystem.” So when the energy of this blood organ ecosystem is off, it can refer to this “off-ness” into other organ relationships.

These organs, for the most part, co-create emotions that can feel tricky, or we judge as “negative.” Your liver co-creates anger. The spleen is worry. Your kidneys provide a soft place for fear, and the uterus often acts as an amplifier for the emotion of the heart. It can often feel like the heart is responsible for balancing or caretaking these co-created emotions with joy.

But in actuality, there is a balanced expression of each of them. You can experience a healthy expression of anger, worry brings discernment, and fear can be protective.

Unfortunately, we don’t often experience this organ ecosystem in balance, and it’s usually begins with our kidneys.

What happens when the Blood Organs aren’t in relationship?

In my first observations of this organ ecosystem, the kidneys didn’t show up. This happened multiple times! So much so that I initially thought the blood organs were only heart, spleen, liver, and uterus.

When these four show up in a relationship together, they show the energetic connection a bit like a lightning bolt from heart to spleen to liver to uterus, with a vertical line closing the connection between uterus and heart.

I began to meditate in my own body with these four blood organs together but was drawn up short. There was a pulsing in the backside of my body that kept saying ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

As I noticed that persistent beat and let it expand, the kidneys showed themselves to me. “We’re here, we’re here, we’re here, we’re here” they said, but they couldn’t move into a relationship with the other blood organs.

Inviting  the emotion helps balance the ecosystem

When I tuned into my (seemingly missing) kidneys, and then later the collective energy of our kidneys, this is what they relayed:

“We are a blood organ, but the emotion we co-create with is fear, and in many people, fear and anxiety is a constant baseline.

“Because we are often partnered in the co-creation of this emotion, we become consumed and co-opted by the Nervous System Realm. We then form our own ecosystem with the nervous system and adrenal glands, creating a system that co-creates fear, produces adrenaline, and perpetuates a cycle within the sympathetic nervous system.

“When we form this community, we have nothing to give to the blood organ ecosystem and leave the heart, spleen, liver, and uterus to work overtime to maintain that core organ ecosystem.”

“Even when the nervous system moves back into parasympathetic, or we find expansive periods of peace in between co-creation of fear, it is hard to break this bond between the adrenals, nervous system, and us. We need to be consciously invited back into the community with the blood organs, and we have to be relaxed and receptive to that invitation.”

I sat with this for a while, contemplating it in relation to my own journey with PTSD, stress, chronic freeze state, and how much effort I’ve put into both liver and adrenal support over the years.

I began to wonder if my kidneys were still in the ecosystem with the adrenals and nervous system, if they were with the blood organs, or perhaps stuck in the middle, neither one nor the other right now.

I laid down to meditate with this and tune in deeply to which relationship my kidneys were supporting and unsurprisingly found them sort of stuck between ecosystems. The nervous system no longer co-opted them in a shut-down fear state, but they also weren’t integrated with my blood organ ecosystem.

They felt stiff, awkward, and like they were holding themselves apart from everything. I could tell they didn’t like the collaboration and partnership with the sympathetic nervous system response, but they didn’t feel welcome in the soft and supple community of the other blood organs.

So we sat. I let them know that I would be with them for as long as they needed to feel safe (just like I teach with the Cycle of Communication). And I apologized for not noticing sooner that they had spent such a long time out of sync with their natural energetic ecosystem. I felt them get buzzy, heat up, and get bigger, heavier, more fluidy. 

My kidneys returned to resonant frequency with the other blood organs, and then, on a big sigh, I witnessed trust come flooding back between the heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and uterus.

One big happy family.

Embracing Your Blood Organs

I invite you to connect to each of your blood organs and send them some love and compassion. This can be as simple as closing your eyes, putting your hand over where each of them is located in your body, and naming them.

Notice who shows up and how the relationship between these organs feels. Allow them to expand a little and watch how the energy of the ecosystem shifts.If you’d like to work with these organs as an ecosystem or feel like one or two could use some extra support, I invite you to schedule an Embodied Realms Immersion with me. I’d love to lend them (and you!) a listening ear and create a space where they can freely unfold and rebuild a trusting relationship with your body.