The compulsive need to care for others may lead Earth CFs to take jobs in caring professions such as nursing, counselling, social work or complementary medicine. Other caring jobs can be pastoral work, teaching or voluntary work, but the need to mother can be channelled into any work. The office worker that everyone turns to for support and sympathy, the hairdresser who listens to her clients’ troubles or the childminder who cares for everyone else’s children can all be using their mothering skills. People often find it easy to talk to them and tell them their troubles as they are adept at creating an atmosphere of acceptance and caring.

This extremely caring attitude can create difficulties for the person. Because the behaviour is compulsive and driven by the imbalance in their Earth Element, many people sublimate their own needs in order to be helping others. For example, they may continue to rush around supporting everyone when they are ill and needing to rest.

When Earth CFs find they are unable to make things better, they can start worrying excessively and can obsessively go over and over any of the smallest problems in fine detail. Watching suffering on the television news night after night can often be overwhelming for people who are excessively sympathetic.

Alternatively Earth CFs may go to the other extreme and find they are unable to give support to others. This might be because they had little experience of sympathy or support when they were young and they in turn feel awkward, depleted or resentful when called upon to give it to others. They are largely untouched by other people’s distress. This may manifest as a harsh belief system that values self-reliance above all else. They may think that people who ask for support are ‘whingers’ or are ‘wallowing in self-pity’ and that people should ‘get on with their life’ or ‘pull themselves together’. They have forgotten that people ask for help because they are struggling and need a small amount of sympathy and acknowledgement.

That is not to say that there aren’t times to encourage someone to stop indulging in their distress. The challenge lies in knowing when to give support and when to withhold it. An imbalanced Earth Element means that people may be unable to make the appropriate judgement as they are driven by their own needs and neuroses. Wu-wei means acting spontaneously in accord with the needs of the situation. If one’s own needs are too pressing then this becomes impossible.

Unlike the more common overly soft and sympathetic Earth CF, Earth CFs who are unsympathetic tend to be hard and ungiving. Metaphorically their Earth Element is like barren and rocky soil rather than a rich productive loam. Their experience of life is not one of having needs which they struggle to satisfy, but of finding themselves distant from other people.

In a close relationship, if an Earth CF’s partner needs support the Earth CF may appear unsympathetic. This can be because Earth CFs feel that their needs and stability are threatened. They are worried that they will no longer get support if the partner is distressed. Over time this can cause their relationships to become empty and desolate.

Being unsupportive is really the other side of the coin from being overly sympathetic. Some Earth CFs go between these two ends of the spectrum of sympathy in different situations.

Some Earth CFs cut off support when they feel tired or if they have given out ‘too much’. They may feel exasperated that they have received nothing in return. For many Earth CFs asking for something in return is anathema to them. It would spoil the enjoyment of giving if they had to say they wanted something back – so they carry on giving. In this process they are demonstrating, often unconsciously, the way they would like others to give them what they need. When others don’t get the ‘hint’ the Earth CF might give out still more. They hope that someone will finally see what they need and do the same for them in return. However, if no one gets the hint the Earth CF can start to become very resentful or feel unsupported.

Some Earth CFs may appear to be very angry – to such an extent that they may be mistaken for a Wood CF. Sympathy and understanding is the key to softening their anger.

Many Earth CFs who mother and care for others may appear to be almost saintly in their capacity to give out so much. It’s clear that most Earth CFs do want to get something back from those they give out to – the problem is how to get what they want.

Rather than not asking for what they need, some Earth CFs will go to the other extreme. Often Earth CFs feel that they didn’t get nurtured at an early age and were left to ‘scream’ when they needed the help of their mother or main carer. Subsequently as adults they may continue to ‘scream’ whenever they feel the need for support. In this case they may try to get their needs met by making excessive demands on other people’s time and attention. This may take the form of endlessly talking about their problems or using attention-seeking behaviour. Sometimes they can seem so ‘needy’ that others find it impossible to satisfy them. An extreme version of this is Munchausen syndrome – a psychiatric disease when people make themselves ill and gain admittance to hospitals in order to win other people’s attention.

More commonly attention seeking may take the form of ‘whinging’ and ‘whining’. Some Earth CFs are aware that they talk about their problems excessively. For example, an Earth CF told her practitioner, ‘I know it would be better if I could get to the point quicker. It’s just that I need to make sure that somebody else understands where I’m coming from.’ Often Earth CFs are completely unaware of how demanding they are and if this pattern is extreme they may wonder why their desire to see their friends is not always reciprocated.

There are occasions when some Earth CFs have been accused of taking up more time than is necessary in the treatment room. A simple question like ‘How are you?’ may lead to a 20 minute discussion about a person’s problems. A practitioner may find it difficult to finish a treatment as the patient seems to incessantly talk about their illnesses in great detail. Practitioners speak of the ‘door handle syndrome’. The treatment is finished and the practitioner is about to leave. At the moment when the practitioner’s hand is on the door knob, the patient brings up another problem they are having, pulling the practitioner back.

Some Earth CFs are driven to extract every last drop of sympathy from a situation. For others, it is not so much the emotion of sympathy they are craving. In fact they sometimes don’t know how to respond if the practitioner is sympathetic. In this case the need to communicate every last detail is driven by the need to feel ‘understood’ and that their needs are being considered and taken into account. The drive is to engage the practitioner’s mind rather than his or her feelings. Sometimes it is not just the time taken to discuss the problems that is striking. What reveals that the patient is an Earth CF is the enjoyment evident when they find an ear for their problems.

Some Earth CFs may feel that no one gives them the appreciation, support or caring that they deserve. They might find it difficult to ask for what they want and disguise their needs. In this case they may have a hidden agenda and try to get support without actually asking for it.

Not expressing and asking for their needs to be met can become a vicious cycle. The more Earth CFs give out, the more they may feel unappreciated. The more they feel unappreciated the more they feel unable to ask for what they want.

Some Earth CFs suppress their needs and reject any sympathy offered to them. If they have not had their needs met when young they may feel undeserving of other people’s support or may worry that they are in danger of becoming too dependent on others. The intimacy that another person attempts to create when being supportive engenders feelings of agitation and insecurity. These feelings are uncomfortable so the person pushes the support away in order to avoid these difficult feelings.

One patient told his practitioner that he hated it if people said things like ‘take care’ or asked him how he was. When offered any support of this kind he would immediately tense up and try and push it away by behaving brusquely. He said that ‘caring’ behaviour was much too ‘syrupy’ and made him feel too dependent on others.

The two types of behaviour described above can run concurrently. Having felt extremely needy, some Earth CFs may flip into the other extreme and try to show that they have no needs at all. Ultimately the Earth CF may reach a balance between these two states. This is a more stable centre point from which they can relate to the world.

Merging can be an important issue for many Earth CFs. Some Earth CFs have an urge to merge with others but the downside of this is that they may find it hard to be independent and they can lose their identity. Some Earth CFs have described a sense of ‘melting’ into another person. This can be so extreme that they actually feel as if they become the other person and are no longer two separate people.

Ultimately an Earth CF may find merging with another a pleasurable experience as long as she or he is able to separate from the person again when appropriate. Otherwise the person finds it hard to remain an individual. One Earth CF patient said that if she was around people for too long she would lose a sense of who she was. She found that the best way to deal with this was to go off on her own for a while so that she could ‘feel where I begin and end’. She described that she could then ‘drop down from my head to my insides and regain the important sense of being myself again’.

Other Earth CFs may find it difficult to achieve intimacy with someone else. Feelings of separateness and alienation often begin in early childhood and continue to be an issue throughout a person’s life. If children do not feel understood or cared for they often harden themselves and cut off from others. They may unconsciously say to themselves, ‘Why allow myself to need support when no one responds when I reach out?’ They may think it is far better to be independent than let themselves be disappointed and rejected again.

An Earth CF who feels disconnected may be mistaken for a Metal CF who is distanced or cut off but the underlying cause is different. An Earth CF’s experience arises from feeling unsupported or a lack of nurturing whilst Metal CFs distance themselves when they feel fragile and need to defend themselves.

Many Earth CFs have a difficult relationship with their appetite and food. When a person feels insecure one reaction is to ‘comfort’ eat. A person may feel they have a void inside which never gets filled. In this case the void makes them feel hungry but the underlying cause may be insecurity or lack of a centre. It can never be adequately filled by physical food.

One patient described how, when her relationship was breaking up, she would raid the fridge in the middle of the night – but it only filled the gap for a while. Another described how ‘sinking hunger leads to sinking energy’. If she didn’t have food to eat her ‘middle would disappear entirely’ and her mind felt clouded.

Other people easily lose their appetite if they are anxious, angry or unhappy. They have to be reasonably content in order to want to eat. In extreme cases this can create major problems such as anorexia or bulimia.

Another way Earth CFs may lose their centre is by paying so much attention to others that they lose touch with themselves. This can happen when they worry about other people. Sometimes it is easy for them to give to others because they have little sense of their own needs. If they satisfied themselves instead they would gain a better sense of their individuality. This pattern can often be seen in mothers who have lost their sense of self after years of putting their own needs in the background in what they perceive to be the interests of their family.

At other times Earth CFs may need to make some conscious effort to find themselves again. This may entail discovering ways to become ‘grounded’. Each person finds the best way for themselves. Some need to get away from other people and spend time by themselves. Others may wish to lie down on the earth and take in the ‘earth energy’. Some may ‘earth’ themselves by doing qi gong exercises. Others may wish to walk in a natural environment and commune with nature.

When the Earth is unstable some Earth CFs have the desire to pamper themselves in an attempt to fill the void that arises. Trips to the hairdresser, long hot baths, a cigarette, a drink when the person gets home from work are all examples of ways they might try to give themselves a little ‘present’. For some people shopping is a necessary evil, for others it is ‘retail therapy’.

When people become dissipated their internal feelings of stability are often precarious. They are inclined to be rather emotional and easily upset. Without strong feelings of internal stability it is easy for them to have a dramatic view of life, where molehills become mountains and problems seem like crises. In this case the tendency to feel dissatisfied is strong. They may become restless in regard to their work, relationships, home or interests as they slip into the unconscious belief that the ‘grass is greener’ elsewhere.

At the other end of the spectrum, instead of feeling uncentred and dissipated, many Earth CFs can feel stuck and heavy inside. The feeling of stuckness can manifest on many different levels. Physically the Spleen’s lack of transportation and transformation may make them feel that they don’t want to move. They may feel weighed down, flat and clogged up. One patient told her practitioner that her most frequently used saying was ‘why stand if you can sit and why sit if you can lie down’.

Other patients may experience feeling clogged up mentally. Their thoughts may be stuck inside their heads because the Stomach is not assimilating and the Spleen not transforming and transporting on a mental level. This may make it difficult for them to think clearly. Different patients have described this in various ways. One patient said, ‘I have thoughts in my head which can’t get through. It’s like there’s something in there stopping me thinking properly.’ Another patient described it as feeling like spaghetti ‘where all of the spaghetti gets knotted up and I can’t separate the strands’. Other descriptions have been a ‘feeling as if there is a tight band around my head’ or feeling ‘as if my head is stuffed with cotton wool’.

The state of feeling stuck and the state of being dissipated and uncentred are two ends of a spectrum which may alternate. Many Earth CFs have to be careful about what they eat as it affects them mentally and emotionally as well as physically and this may exacerbate the swing between these two extremes. In these cases if they don’t eat properly they may feel disorientated whilst if they have too much they go to the opposite extreme and feel full, heavy, tired and unable to function.

This internal feeling of stuckness also means that they can also lead to a rather stolid and phlegmatic temperament. If this is the case Earth CFs experience very little of the highs and lows of life. They are neither very enthusiastic nor very upset about anything. Life is bearable but diminished.

Our sense of belonging extends further than to those around us. We can also get a sense of belonging to the earth itself. Lack of nurturing on the inside may send people searching for a home on the outside. Children ideally grow up in a stable, loving and nourishing family and environment.

When these qualities are missing it can create difficulties. For example, some people grow up in families that move around a great deal. This is particularly common when one of the parents is in the Armed Forces or moves around because of their occupation. A consequence of this is that the child may then grow up with no strong feeling of being rooted or having a real sense of home. Often they also had little continuity of friendships. Constantly changing schools meant that they had to often make new friends and adjust to changing circumstances. While this is not a problem for some people, it is a serious problem for others.

Problems can also arise if children grew up with a sense of uncertainty. For example, they may wonder if the parents are going to stay together or the life expectancy of one of the family may be very uncertain. In this case it is then very difficult for a child to feel secure. This lack of stability often contributes towards a person’s Earth Element becoming imbalanced.

Many Earth CFs move from place to place searching for a connection to the earth. The problem is internal and they never find the ‘right’ place. Often later in life they might settle. If this is the case it may have profound significance for them and enable them to feel more grounded and gain more of a sense of belonging.

Some Earth CFs report having moved a large numbers of times. For example, one patient told her practitioner, ‘I travelled a lot in my youth and I always felt like a fish out of water – like a refugee or a foreigner. Wherever I lived I felt I had more community somewhere else and wanted to move on again.’ This patient is now working on settling in one place: ‘I’m trying to stay put at the moment and am hoping that it will help me to gain more stability.’

At the other extreme some Earth CFs get so attached to one place that they become very insecure if they have to move. One patient described travelling 100 miles a day so that she could continue being with her old workmates after she had moved when her husband changed jobs. After two years she became tired and ill and she begrudgingly realised that she had to stop and find a job closer to her home.

Others can be reluctant travellers as being away from their home for any period of time gives them deep feelings of unease. Foreign parts are all very well if you like that kind of thing but really they would rather be snuggled up in front of the fire at home. People of this disposition might also generate physical symptoms when they travel. Sleep, bowels and the menstrual cycle especially can become disturbed.

Feeling at home is important for everybody but it can be especially important for an Earth CF. Being able to build a home and make a nest can give an Earth CF a sense of being centred and can help to build more stability inside them. The Chinese visualised people standing on the earth with their heads in the Heavens. The feet being on the ground is a sign of being ‘down to earth’, practical and grounded. Many tai ji and qi gong exercises encourage people to ‘develop a root’ and these can be especially beneficial to an Earth CF. By connecting with the ground they can gain nourishment from the earth and in turn feel more centred and balanced.

Some Earth CFs may find it difficult to develop a sense of equilibrium and be unable to reach a stable and centred place. They may think they have found stability for a while only to find that they are swinging over to another extreme again. One patient described feeling either ‘brilliant’ or ‘overwhelmed’ and that it was hard to stay in a centred state.

Over time it may be possible for some Earth CFs to develop more internal stability. One Earth CF recently described how she can now feel that she has a balance from where she can ‘act in a positive way’. This is a sense of equilibrium that many Earth CFs try to find. Acupuncture treatment may be an important key to helping them to achieve this.