I came across a post by Claire Felicie,a photographer who had captured images of Soldiers before, during and after their deployment to Afghanistan and it inspired this blog entry.

The human body is one of wonder, as a skin care therapist, I look at the different aspects of skin conditions, but as a Noetic therapist, having knowledge and experience of ‘reading the body’ I am constantly fascinated at how experiences in our life actually ‘change’ an individuals physical manifestation.

We all know traumatic experiences affect us mentally, emotionally and of course physically in the form of weight loss or greying hair but to the trained eye so much more is unraveled.
 Claire Felicie, decided to photograph a group of young men through a phase in their life where they would experience fear, trauma and extreme stress. The pictures certainly tell a story of such, apart from the haunted expression in the eyes of the young men, I can pick up spleen, stomach, lung and adrenal stress. Studying Oriental Diagnosis over the years you need to realize when I speak of such ‘organs’ I am not only linking with the physical manifestation of the organ but more of the emotional aspect. Each organ or meridian has an emotional and ‘Chi’ attachment to it. Let me explain further, the spleen is shown in the inner canthus of the eyes, in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) this links to the ‘storehouse’ of Chi – our life force. So if the spleen ‘looks tired’ this would give clues of a strain on the immune system, not getting sufficient rest or appropriate nutrients.
The lungs, now here we have clues of upper respiratory stress which could also be linked to smoking, or not breathing correctly this will certainly take its toll. Under stress we utilize only the upper third of our lung capacity, causing anxiety, panic attacks etc. The lungs are also linked with emotion so we can pull on lines of grief and trauma, that will probably show when the individual smiles but in extreme cases, these lines are very prominent on the face.

The stomach and adrenals are linked in the way of the ‘fight or flight’ response, I like to refer to it as the ‘worrier or warrior’ (Stomach being the worrier and the adrenals the warrior). If you look at the soldiers eyebrows you may notice they look coarser and thicker a major clue of adrenal stress. Adrenals release the hormone cortisol into our system, the ‘stress hormone’ that enable us to cope, when the adrenals are stressed it will have an effect on all major systems of the body. Some of the symptoms of adrenal stress are excessive fatigue and exhaustion, sleep that makes you feel exhausted when you wake and not feeling ‘restored’,
 feeling overwhelmed and rundown, craving for foods that convert to sugar (carbs, alcohol etc – which again can be seen in the faces – pancreas shows), unable to concentrate, poor digestion (this shows in stomach on faces)
All of the above symptoms are what would be expected of a soldier in action, all of which I would have picked up if I did not know the profession the individuals were in.

I only wish the photographer had taken some pictures of ears and feet too then I would have been in my element! 
I have also looked at Presidents past and present during their time in office and again you can see many clues, aspects of fear show up, especially President Clinton, the kidneys and heart are very clear flags. We all know he issues with the heart but it is the element of fear that is the biggest give away. Fear is the emotion to the kidneys and they are also linked with circulation so it all goes hand in hand with how he dealt with his time in the White House. Very interesting stuff!

When we are under stress our bodies go into this ‘fight or flight’ mode. In the fabulous book ‘The Biology of Belief’ Lipton explains the theory that our cells are like that of factory workers producing goods for the community, when an air raid sounds the workers go into hiding – nothing is produced until the all clear sounds and they go back to work but what would happen if the all clear never sounded – the factory would be redundant and shut down, this is what happens under extreme adrenal stress.

We are what we are not only by what we eat but also what we Inherit and what we experience.

Click on this link to see the photograph’s of Soldiers by Claire Felicie.
http://www.clairefelicie.com/category/marked