YiMatrix · Academy Journal
Which of the Five Elements Are You Stuck in Over the Past 30 Days? Self-Check with 5 Modes and 3 Steps to See Your Next Move
In the past 30 days, was the thing you did most about 'charging' or 'retreating'? The Five Elements are not attributes but verbs. This article uses 5 verbs (Charge, Burn, Carry, Cu
Stop now and answer one question —
In the past 30 days, was the thing you did most about 'charging' or 'retreating'?
No need to check your birth chart or fortune-telling. Go with your gut.
Got an answer in mind? Remember it.
This article will reveal what lies behind that answer.
5 Modes = 5 Verbs
No need to start with the Hong Fan or Bai Hu Tong. Today, we focus on one thing: the Five Elements are 5 verbs, corresponding to 5 types of actions you might have taken in the past 30 days.
Wood — Charge
Like spring grass, pushing past rocks to reach the light.
Characteristics: Expansion, exploration, spreading out, can't stop. You're sprinting in a startup, learning new skills, chasing a new opportunity.
Fire — Burn
Like the summer sun, radiating in all directions.
Characteristics: Outward, high output, the brightest phase. You're holding a launch event, running exposure campaigns, creating viral content, filling your calendar with social events.
Earth — Carry
All seeds eventually return to the earth to be digested.
Characteristics: Bearing, integrating, maintaining. You're leading a team, hitting targets, taking care of family, digesting the results of the previous phase into a system.
Metal — Cut
Like the autumn sickle, cutting away everything unnecessary.
Characteristics: Decisiveness, simplification, subtraction, setting rules. You're reviewing, decluttering, cutting projects, tightening budgets, declining social engagements.
Water — Hide
Like a deep winter well, the quietest but deepest.
Characteristics: Settling, resting, waiting for opportunities. You're reading, seeing a doctor, taking a vacation, slowing down, figuring out the next step.
Five verbs listed. Look back at the 'charge or retreat' answer you gave in your mind — charge leans toward Wood and Fire, retreat toward Metal and Water, with Earth in the middle bridging them.
The Five Elements are not attributes; they are verbs. Which one have you been doing most in the past 30 days?
Lack of Water Doesn't Mean Lack of Water Drops, but Lack of Timing
Fortune-telling bloggers often say: 'You lack water in your Five Elements, so drink more water, wear more black, and wear more blue accessories.'
This is the biggest misunderstanding of the Five Elements on the Chinese internet.
Water is a mode, not a substance. Drinking more water or wearing black clothes won't switch you from 'Fire' to 'Settling.' You don't lack water drops; you lack 'hiding when you should have hidden.'
Suwen: Yinyang Yingxiang Dalun describes the essence of the northern element in just four words: 'Its emotion is fear.' The essence of Water is the reminder that 'you can't go on without stopping.' A senior executive should be reviewing and building momentum at the end of the year, but instead keeps pushing for year-end results. By the second half of the year, their health collapses first, and the team follows. It's not that Water overcomes them; it's that they missed the timing to move into Water.
The Five Elements don't lack substances; they lack timing.
3 Steps to See Which Element You're Stuck In
Knowing the 5 verbs is useless for yourself. To see 'which element you're stuck in right now,' you need to do a 3-step self-check.
Step 1: Look at Your Actions
Look back at your calendar for the past 30 days.
Which of the following 5 actions took up the most time?
- Charge (Wood): Working overtime to expand client base, negotiating partnerships, chasing new projects, trying new directions
- Burn (Fire): Creating content, running launch events, social exposure, creating viral hits
- Carry (Earth): Leading a team, spending time with family, maintaining old clients, digesting previous results
- Cut (Metal): Reviewing, decluttering, cutting projects, firing, tightening budgets
- Hide (Water): Taking vacation, reading, seeing a doctor, writing in seclusion, figuring out the next step
Pick one out of five. Only choose the one that took the most time, not 'I did a bit of everything' — that's avoidance.
Step 2: Look at Your Emotions
Now look back at your emotions over the past 30 days.
Which emotion dominated you?
| Emotion | Corresponding Element | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Anger | Wood | Want to charge but can't |
| Joy | Fire | Burning but afraid of burning out |
| Pensiveness | Earth | Carrying but mentally exhausted |
| Worry | Metal | Cutting but afraid of cutting wrong |
| Fear | Water | Hiding but afraid of missing out |
These 5 emotions and their correspondence to the 5 modes have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Whichever emotion rings loudest in your heart is likely the element you're stuck in.
Step 3: Look for Misalignment
Compare the 'action' from Step 1 with the 'emotion' from Step 2.
Consistent type — Action and emotion correspond to the same element. For example, action is 'Charge' and emotion is 'Anger,' both Wood. In this case, you're on the right path; the problem isn't your position but the emotion. Just deal with the emotion.
Misaligned type — Action is in element A, emotion in element B. This is the real sticking point. You are in A, but your heart is in B. Your next step is not to keep carrying A but to admit you should move to B.
Two most common misalignments —
Person in Fire, heart in Water: You're busy with launch events, roadshows, and pumping up your team every day, but when you lie in bed, your only thought is: 'I want some peace and quiet.' It's not that you're bad at Fire; you should have moved to Water long ago, but you're trapped in Fire and can't get down.
Person in Earth, heart in Wood: You're leading a team, hitting targets, and maintaining old clients every day, but when you see others doing something new, your eyes light up. It's not that you can't carry Earth; you should have moved to Wood long ago, but responsibility keeps you stuck in Earth, unable to move.
Where you are in terms of action doesn't count; where your heart is counts.
The Five-Element Cycle: It's Not You, It's the Timing
The 5 modes are not a parallel menu but a cyclic sequence —
Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → back to Wood.
Charge, then burn, then carry, then cut, then hide, then charge again when ready. The order is set. Violating the order leads to inevitable collapse.
Collapse A: 'Fire without Earth' in startups.
In 2021, Zhong Xue Gao's Series C funding valued it at 4 billion yuan. Employees grew from 20 to over 1,000, and they deployed over 100,000 freezers offline. Channels, branding, and exposure were all burning fiercely. But Fire was so enjoyable that no one wanted to switch to Earth to solidify products and supply chains. In 2022, a public relations crisis about 'ice cream not melting' hit, and online sales halved. By 2023, cash reserves were only 47 million yuan, while accounts payable piled up to 120 million. Staff was cut from 2,000 to 600-700. They kept burning non-stop, and in 2026, asset liquidation ended at 21.1 million yuan. It didn't die from too much Fire; it died from burning hard in the year it should have moved to Earth.
Collapse B: 'Double Fire draining each other when Water was needed' in marriage.
A middle-aged couple hadn't spoken properly for 3 months. One night, one wanted to talk about the relationship, but the other had just come back from overtime. It started with an argument: 'You never care about me' vs. 'I work hard to support the family isn't enough?' The conversation quickly escalated into a fight. Neither was willing to stop and move into Water — both were burning, and neither would hide first. The relationship slowly cooled in the mutual drain of double Fire.
Collapse C: 'Burning when you should hide' in health.
A 2025 workplace sub-health survey report shows that over 90% of office workers suffer from sub-health, with 17.3% at 'severe or extreme' levels. Typical scenario: still working after 11 PM, sleeping less than 6 hours, headaches, back pain, weakened immunity. The body has long been calling for Water, but most choose to 'carry on,' and no one stops to listen to which element the body is signaling.
Success: A foreign trade boss's 5-year rhythm.
A boss who has been in foreign trade for over a decade. In 2022, when the industry was frozen, he didn't follow peers in slashing prices and grabbing customers. He did the opposite — cut SKUs from 200 to 30, selected clients from 50 to 10, stopped 3 projects that were 'still running but no one knew why,' and then spent two full years without launching new products, attending exhibitions, or traveling. Everyone thought he was finished. In 2024, he re-entered the market, chose a niche, and signed orders in 3 months that would have taken 3 years before. Revenue increased tenfold compared to two years ago. He executed two steps of the 5-mode cycle: first Metal (cutting SKUs and clients), then Water (two years of silence). His own words: 'I'm not smarter; I knew those two years were for Water, and now it's time for Wood.'
There is no best element; only the one you need to follow.
Final Words
Go back to the intuitive answer you gave at the beginning — 'charge or retreat.'
Charge corresponds to Wood and Fire. Retreat corresponds to Metal and Water. Your intuition is your dominant element for the past 30 days. But to see where to move next, don't look at your actions; look at which element your emotions are in.
After studying the Yijing for ten years, I now stop for 20 minutes every Sunday evening to do this 3-step self-check — which element was I mainly in last week, which element should I wrap up next week, and which should I start. This is the small habit that has influenced me the most over the years.
Comment with one word — your dominant element + heart element for the past 30 days: Wood/Fire/Earth/Metal/Water. Just one word, or dominant + heart. I'll read them one by one.
Share this with that friend who always says, 'I lack something in my Five Elements, so I need to supplement it.' He hasn't been working hard enough; he's learned the order wrong — the Five Elements don't lack substances, only timing. Also share it with that friend who keeps saying, 'I'm tired but can't stop.' He doesn't want to stop; he just hasn't realized he should move into Water.
Click 'Wow' — it's the biggest encouragement for Nanhuang. Follow me. Starting next week, a new series will bring this Five Elements/Yin-Yang framework into the Bagua — you'll find that the Bagua is not fortune-telling but the ancients' earliest 'information encoding system.'
This concludes the three-part series on the Five Elements — Yin-Yang is rhythm, the Five Elements are modes. Next stop: the Bagua is encoding. See you next Tuesday at 22:30.