The Four Elements and Self-Awareness in Crises

The four elements, of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water provide a neat little paradigm and typology for understanding ourselves and healing during times of crisis.

The Earth element represents grounding, support, solidity, and certainty. Wind or Air is mind or ideas which propel us forward and beyond difficult times and situations. Fire is our passion, our active high spirit which moves things forward despite all odds and which is more like a sprint then a marathon. While water represents our emotions, our heart as well a loving presence that flows. We can find which element seems to describe us at that moment or is our dominant element in our daily life. Each one of us has all of these elements all the time and it is as well a personality style.

If you are a big fiery fan of your home sports team and they lose and there is a major controversy about how the winning team may have broken the rules to achieve their victory, how do you respond in this Four Elements rubric? It all depends, as noted, on your dominant element, so if you are dominantly fire, you will be yelling, screaming, and arguing as to why your team should have won and why and how the opposition bent or broke the rules to achieve their win. If you are earth, perhaps you would sit for a moment in silence, calm yourself, tune to your inner rhythm, and calmly state what you feel may have been an inequity in how the game was officiated. The more pathological Earth reaction might be a kind of paralysis or an overly solidified response. A wind figure might go straight to the rule book and try to show how the rules were ineffectively applied and what would have been the proper way to enforce them. And they might suggest ideas as to how to overturn the decision or achieve some kind of a rematch. The water element may tear up, upset by the loss endured by the team they love, a loss which may have been illicitly obtained. This would even evoke sadness and depression, so much so that they could become non-functional, like still water, turbid and choked with algae.

Let’s look at these examples and find what elements there are inside of us to balance our dominant element. We can find these balancing elements within ourselves and we can find them in others. Helping professionals can keep this typology of the elements in mind when they meet people who need a balancing element other than the one that seems to be overridingly dominant and destructive during a crisis. And so the Fire screamer at the end of the game, yelling unfairness at the refs, and generally losing control could take a moment on a seat and close their eyes, breathe, and feel the energy going to the earth through their feet and coming back in with each subsequent breath . . . or they may be there with a sensitive, Earth dominant friend who can speak about the game without hysteria, suggest they sit together and chill. The Wind figures racing mind could be calmed by a sober earth figure making calming gestures and speaking from a wise and wholesome place within themselves. A Water person might also help the Wind figure by giving them kind and loving support in this time of loss and frustration with the authorities. The broken-hearted Water person might also be supported by an Earthy person who gives them a place to feel safe and trustful.

I recommend that when we recognize these elements in ourselves or others that we take a compassionate pause and give ourselves or the other that may not respond in a way in which we expect them to, a dose of an element which has healing value for them.

The Four elements provide a useful typology in helping us see what we may need for ourselves, in helping others see the same and in showing caregivers what is a useful tact to take in their approach to specific personality types encompassed by the four elements in a time of crisis.



Aaron Roy Spungin Ph.D

psychotherapist, social worker