What A Healthy Heart Protector Can Do For You

Posted: June 11, 2013

The Heart Protector channel (also called the Pericardium channel for the fluid-filled sack that surrounds and protects the heart) supports our capacity to create intimate connection. It travels the inner arm from the palm though the inner elbow crease, and up into the chest where it meets the pericardium and heart. The Heart Protector’s yang Fire partner is the Triple Heater, which runs along the exterior surface of the arm. Branches from the Heart Protector channel also travel deep into the digestive tract. When we hold someone’s hand as an intimate gesture, we often allow contact between our Heart Protector channel and that of our friends’ as the wrists and palms gently touch. While the Triple Heater facilitates our social relationships, the Heart Protector nurtures those that we allow to touch our heart.

It is not uncommon to find tenderness or achiness down the middle of the inner arm when there is suppressed anxiety or discomfort arising from safety or trust issues in a friendship. Inner Frontier Gate (Heart Protector 6) is located on the inner forearm two to three inches proximal to the wrist (and exactly opposite the Outer Frontier Gate, Triple Heater 5 on the exterior forearm). Inner Frontier refers to the emotional boundary that we allow our intimate relationships to cross, as distinct from the Outer Frontier, the realm mediated by the Triple Heater where we maintain a mental and emotional boundary for our merely social friendships.

Healthy Heart Protector qi allows us to flexibly and graciously connect with another in a shared private moment of understanding or closeness, and then to just as easily move away to respect our own and others’ boundaries. Flirtations that bring fun and warmth to an interaction are a healthy expression of Fire. But flirtations that suddenly feel too close and disrespectful of boundaries can result in sudden and rapid departures by one or both parties, creating anxiety. A healthy and well-tended Fire gives warmth and comfort.