When we think about the eliminatory system, we usually think about getting rid of physical waste. The skin perspires. The bowels eliminate. The lungs release carbon dioxide when we exhale.
We also know that healthy elimination is a matter of balance.
If the eliminatory system is underactive, we may become constipated. If it is overactive, we may experience the opposite. Neither extreme represents health.
But what if elimination isn’t only something the physical body does?
In Gemstone Therapy, we understand the body’s systems to function not only in the physical body, but also in the subtle bodies. The fundamental activity of a system remains the same at each level, although the way that activity is expressed can be very different.
For the Eliminatory System, that fundamental activity is remarkably simple:
Letting go.
The more I’ve explored this system, the more I’ve come to believe that letting go is only half of the story.
We let go so that we can receive.
Letting Go Makes Room to Receive
Breathing gives us a familiar illustration of this relationship, even though letting go is not the fundamental activity of the Respiratory System.
We breathe out carbon dioxide and breathe in oxygen. We release, and we receive. One makes the other possible.
The Eliminatory System suggests something similar.
We let go of what no longer serves us as it once did, making space to receive something that can serve us even better.
That’s a helpful thought the next time you’re cleaning out your closet.
Getting rid of clothes you no longer wear isn’t simply about having less. You’re making room for something that fits you better, and reflects who you are now.
And this brings up an important point: something doesn’t have to be bad for it to be time to let it go.
A dress may once have been perfect for you. A belief may once have helped you navigate a difficult period in your life. An emotion may have needed to be felt. A memory may still be important.
The question isn’t necessarily whether something was good or bad, or even whether it once served us well.
The question is: Does it still serve us now?
Letting Go in the Emotional Body
What does elimination look like in the emotional body?
Here, letting go has a very particular meaning. It is the emotional body’s ability to let emotional energy go from the emotional body so that this energy can move toward physical expression.
In my discussion of the Muscular System, I described how emotional energy moves from the emotional body toward the physical body, where it can be expressed. Before the Muscular System can move that energy, however, the emotional body must first release it, or let it go.
This helps distinguish the roles of the two systems. The emotional body’s Eliminatory System helps the emotional body let go of emotional energy. The Muscular System then helps move that energy toward physical expression.
When the ability to let go is underactive, we may hold onto resentment, jealousy, anger, or hurt. Instead of being released for expression, those emotions linger and accumulate in the emotional body.
And that brings us back to receiving.
If we remain filled with resentment, how much room is there for contentment? If we’re holding tightly to anger, how readily can we receive happiness or joy?
At the other extreme, emotional energy may be released too readily and uncontrollably. Anger or jealousy may spill out before we have the opportunity to regulate how it is expressed.
Healthy emotional elimination lies somewhere between the two: the ability to let go of emotional energy appropriately, without either holding onto it or releasing it uncontrollably.
What Does Letting Go Mean in the Causal Body?
The causal body presents a more puzzling question.
In Gemstone Therapy, we associate memory with the causal body. So if the Eliminatory System functions there, what exactly is it eliminating?
An experience with a client gave me an interesting clue.
She had been very upset with someone. The experience continued to bother her for over a week. Then one day she told me she no longer felt upset because she had forgotten why she had been upset.
I asked her whether she could go back and remember what had happened.
She could.
The memory wasn’t gone. She could still retrieve it. But something had changed. Remembering what happened no longer made her upset.
Earlier, it had seemed as though the memory wouldn’t let her go.
Perhaps We Don’t Let Go of the Memory
This made me wonder whether I’ve been thinking about causal elimination in the wrong way. Perhaps the causal body isn’t letting go of memories at all. Perhaps it’s letting go of energy associated with those memories.
My current theory is that the causal Eliminatory System helps regulate the amount and type of energy available to our memories. We don’t yet know what this causal energy is, other than that it appears to be something inherent to the causal body.
If the Eliminatory System is underactive, excess or no-longer-useful causal energy may remain associated with a memory. That additional energy could help keep the memory active, causing it to return again and again. The memory may continue to stimulate our emotions; our thoughts may reactivate the memory, and the cycle continues.
Healthy causal elimination may allow the causal body to let go of that excess or no-longer-useful energy while retaining the memory itself. This may be what happened with my friend. She hadn’t lost the memory. What had changed was its ability to keep returning and upsetting her.
But we’ve all probably experienced the opposite: a memory that seems to have more energy than it needs. We replay what happened. It intrudes when we don’t want it to. It can feel as though the memory won’t let us go.
What might happen at the other extreme?
If the causal Eliminatory System is overactive, perhaps it releases too much useful causal energy. This could create a deficiency, leaving too little energy available to adequately support memory.
Even as a working theory, this gives us a much more coherent way to think about balance in the causal Eliminatory System.
Healthy causal elimination may not be about letting go of memories. It may be about letting go of the causal energy we no longer need, while retaining the energy that allows our memories to continue to serve us.
Letting Go of What We Believe
At the mental level, elimination may involve our ability to let go of thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve us.
Some beliefs may have been entirely appropriate when they were formed.
Imagine, for example, that at some point in your life it really wasn’t safe to leave your house. The belief I need to stay inside to be safe might have served an important purpose.
But circumstances changed.
What happens if the belief didn’t?
Something that once protected us can eventually limit us.
There is another way this shows up that I find particularly interesting. What happens when we encounter evidence that contradicts something we believe?
Can we change our mind?
Or do we hold more tightly to the belief because it has become connected with our identity, our ego, or our understanding of the world?
Healthy mental elimination may include the ability to say:
I believed this. It served me. Based on what I know now, I no longer need to hold onto it.
Again, letting go doesn’t mean that what came before was worthless or wrong. Sometimes we’ve simply received new information that can serve us better.
What would the opposite imbalance look like?
Perhaps thoughts are released too readily. We can’t hold a train of thought. The word we’re looking for repeatedly disappears. It becomes difficult to maintain focus.
These experiences can certainly involve other systems and other causes, so I wouldn’t attribute them solely to an overactive mental Eliminatory System. But they give us another way to begin exploring what too much letting go might look like.
What If Our Systems Are Part of Something Larger?
So far, we’ve been exploring how the same fundamental activity of a system can be expressed in different ways throughout our physical and subtle bodies.
But what if these functions don’t stop with us?
What if some of the same principles can be recognized in the larger natural world around us?
This is something I’m only beginning to explore. Some of these correspondences are less apparent than others, as we’ll explore in future system discussions.
However, with the Eliminatory System, one example is difficult to miss.
Think about volcanoes.
Deep within the Earth, magma rises and can be released at the surface. Material once held within the Earth becomes part of its surface, contributing to the formation of new land and new structures.
Suddenly, the principle we’ve been exploring throughout this article appears on an entirely different scale.
The inside lets go. The outside receives.
Something is released, and through that release, something new can be formed.
And then comes a connection I find even more fascinating.
What gemstone vitalizes the human Eliminatory System?
Rhyolite.
And Rhyolite is a volcanic rock.
Rhyolite: A Gemstone Born of Volcanic Activity
The primary gemstone I use to vitalize the Eliminatory System is Rhyolite.
Rhyolite is born of volcanic activity.
I find this correspondence fascinating. The process we’ve just recognized as an expression of elimination in the Earth is also the process that gives rise to the gemstone I use to support balanced elimination in us.
In my work with Rhyolite, I’ve found that it helps the body identify, sort through, and release unwanted energies through the body’s natural avenues of elimination. It has a particular affinity with the physical body and the organs and tissues involved in that function.
Its symbiote in the Eliminatory System formula is Gray Moonstone.
Gray Moonstone has a strong drawing-out effect in the supraphysical body. It helps the supraphysical let go of certain unwanted energies, extending the formula’s reach beyond physical elimination into the subtle bodies.
Together, Rhyolite & Gray Moonstone support the larger activity of the Eliminatory System: recognizing what no longer serves us and helping us let it go.
Letting Go Isn’t About Losing
We often think of letting go in terms of loss.
The Eliminatory System offers another way to think about it.
We don’t eliminate everything. A healthy body retains what it needs and releases what it doesn’t.
Perhaps healthy letting go asks the same thing of us emotionally, causally, and mentally.
What still serves me?
What have I outgrown?
What am I holding onto simply because I’ve been holding onto it for a long time?
And what might I be unable to receive because there isn’t yet room for it?
Sometimes what we’re releasing was once valuable. Sometimes it protected us. Sometimes we loved it. Sometimes it was simply appropriate for an earlier version of ourselves.
Letting it go doesn’t erase its value.
By letting go of what no longer serves us, we make room to receive something better.
Perhaps that is the deeper purpose of the Eliminatory System.
SHOP RHYOLITE & GRAY MOONSTONE NECKLACE
Isabelle Morton, B.S., is the founder of the Gemstone Therapy Institute and GEMFormulas, and the original visionary behind Diamond and Gemstone Therapy, which she began developing in 1987. She continues to study and explore the therapeutic properties and applications of gemstones and Diamonds. Isabelle continues to expand her library of educational material. Thousands of people and pets around the world have benefited from her work. Her dream is to see Diamond and Gemstone Therapy recognized as meaningful energy medicine modalities.
Learn more at gemformulas.com
