The Architect: A Large Intestine Meridian Archetype

Meridian Archetypes Part 2: The Architect

The Large Intestine meridian helps us sort through what we take in and decide what is worth keeping. At Infinity, we represent this energy with the Architect archetype. The Architect looks for structure, clarity, and what is essential. It wants to understand how the pieces fit together and what needs to be removed so the whole can function more efficiently.

To find the Architect within yourself, look at your relationship with order, standards, and letting go.

Do you naturally look for ways to improve a system?

Do you have a clear sense of what is necessary and what is excess?

Is it easy for you to release what no longer serves you, or do you hold on long after something has stopped working?

When Large Intestine energy is out of balance, discernment can become rigidity. High standards can become perfectionism, and a desire for structure can tip into control.

As you investigate the large intestine meridian inside you look at the quality of your friendships, your compulsive tendencies, issues in your lower digestive system, and any muscle imbalances in your upper back, neck, and shoulders. Infinity’s training system uses exercises that target the muscles along your meridian to bring them back into balance with the rest of the body.

As you learn about the large intestine keep in mind that its balancing meridian, the lung, is an equally important part of your healing process. The large intestine meridian’s corresponding muscles on the back of the body are the upper trapezius triceps, and posterior deltoids while the lung meridian muscles are found directly opposite on the front.

Since these muscles are necessary to maintain good posture, large intestine exercises are great to help with upper body strength and alignment. Gain access to your inner Architect and explore your relationship with structure, discernment, and letting go. To understand the large intestine meridian’s place in our series we will examine its Western medicine functions, archetypes, common imbalances, and exercises to help restore the healthy flow of our meridian.

The Large Intestine in Western Medicine

Our gut is often referred to as our second brain. Much of our ability to think comes from the digestive system. In anthropology, the cooking of meat is often cited as one of the main reasons why humans were able to develop such complex brains. Many meridians play a role in our digestion process including the stomach, small intestine, gallbladder, liver, pancreas, spleen, and large intestine. The large intestine’s job is to absorb nutrients and water from partially digested food and to remove waste from the body. Our colon is contained within the large intestine and is the last stop in the digestive process before excretion.

Even small disruptions in our large intestines can cause seemingly unrelated health issues throughout our entire body. When waste is not properly removed from the body, it can affect the rhythm of our heart and breathing. Problems in the large intestine can lead to health issues such as asthma, bad breath, bloodshot eyes, dehydration, bloating, blood pressure problems, and constipation. 

Cleanses for the large intestine and colon target the buildup of toxic substances that come from the food we eat. Colonics is a process where we physically remove waste build-up to aid in healthy digestive processes. Lymphatic drainage can also help with cleansing the body of unnecessary waste buildup in the lymphatic system. If excretion and absorption aren’t functioning properly, waste can build up in different parts of our body including the stomach, intestines, lymphatic system, fat cells, and skin. 

Proper diet and exercise are crucial to the health of the large intestine. While the connection between mind and gut is still a subject of conjecture and debate, it is interesting to note the difference a healthy diet can make to your brain health. 

Sayings such as “trust your gut,” “too difficult to stomach” and “to feel gutted” show the intuitive human sense that our guts and our emotions are linked. Exercises that target the large intestine meridian can help us explore that link and bring balance to the body. 

The Exercises

Beginner

Kneeling forearm press 

Intermediate 

Grapevine arms, or assisted face-down grapevine arms

Advanced

Mula bandha

TRUST YOUR GUT: The Architect and the Large Intestine 

Associated Archetypes: Architect, Activist, Dreamer, Visionary, Crusader, Warrior, Prince, Knight, Dictator

The large intestine meridian is the last stop in the digestive process. Food enters the body and by the time it reaches the large intestine, it is broken down to its essentials. The large intestine absorbs what is useful and discards what is not, creating a healthy, balanced body. Like the architect, the large intestine is only concerned with what is necessary for the stability of the body. It easily separates the good from the bad, the essential from the non-essential.

The Large Intestine is constantly sorting what is useful from what is no longer needed. The Architect does something similar. It looks at the whole structure and decides what belongs, what is supporting the system, and what can be removed. When this energy is balanced, it can create clarity and strong boundaries. When it becomes excessive, discernment can harden into criticism. The desire to improve something can become perfectionism, and the need for structure can become an attempt to control every variable.

Mula bandha, one of three “locks” that help us control the prana in the body, can also help to regulate your peristaltic rhythm. Peristaltic rhythm is the expansion and contraction of the smooth muscles of the large intestine which move waste through the digestive tract. Meditation and breathwork can be used to access the three bandhas and can help us clear physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental waste.

By using Infinity’s training system you can reestablish balance in your muscles and give power back to your inner Architect. Even those who feel strong in these areas may want to tap into the strengths of the large intestine meridian. Infinity’s exercises can help with that too. Use them to explore Large Intestine energy when you feel overly critical, rigid, perfectionistic, or caught in the need to control every detail.

Balancing Control With Your Large Intestine

One way Large Intestine imbalance can show up is through our relationship with control. Being overly controlling doesn’t guarantee success.

One way that we all experience this is during illness. For example, say we go to the doctor with a bacterial infection and get a course of antibiotics. We accept the doctor’s treatment instructions to take the antibiotics for 14 days. Then, fearful of not getting well and wanting to enact some control over an uncontrollable situation, we start to think that our 14-day course of antibiotics would be better if it was 28 days long. But there is a reason that your doctor gives you a 14-day course in the first place. By not listening to the instructions and trying to enact control incited by fear over our body’s healing process, we can cause our body harm. 

Since the lung is the balancing meridian for the large intestine, the Desk Jockey case study from our lung article is also relevant for someone with large intestine imbalances. Any injury to the triceps, biceps, upper trapezius, levator scapula, posterior deltoids, and extensors of the arm can cause imbalances to the large intestine and lung meridians.

Other issues related to your large intestine meridian are constipation, diarrhea or irregular bowel movements, water dysregulation in the body, and dehydration leading to constipation. Our bodies are not separate pieces operating without regard to the whole. Muscles affect organs which in turn affect our mood, energy, and thoughts.

Our muscles are home to lots of pent-up emotions that only come to the surface when we are trying to heal. Know that you are not crazy, and it is entirely normal to cry, laugh, or get angry upon release of these physical blockages.

Infinity Flexibility does not just focus on the physical body. Your mental, emotional and spiritual health all play a role in balancing the meridians. If you notice yourself becoming unusually rigid, perfectionistic, critical, or preoccupied with controlling the outcome, it may be worth exploring the Lung and Large Intestine meridians. As you work to heal your meridians, become aware of these feelings, thoughts, emotions as they come to the surface and sit with them without judgment before breathing to release them. 

Looking Forward…

In Chinese medicine, periods of transition are infused with earth energy. When great change is upon us, we need to be grounded and sturdy in our base. We allow change to wash over us; but like a tree in a flood, we sway with the flow of the water and do not drown.

The Stomach and Spleen make up the Earth element in this series. The Stomach is represented by the archetype of the Entrepreneur and explores curiosity, appetite, learning, and our relationship with taking things in. The Spleen on the other hand is represented by the Mediator, and helps us process, integrate, and find connection between the different pieces of our experience. Their exercises target the lateral quadriceps and the medial hamstrings. Keep reading to learn more about the earth meridians.