Our identity, and the way we project ourselves in the world, feeds a fundamental need for acceptance and recognition. Maintaining our projections exerts a stress on our mind, and causes our body to strain under the pressure.

In this book, we explore the development of identity as it relates to the natural elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth, and our energy or life force, a concept which although abandoned by modern science, is still an essential influence on our embodied human experience. We create our identity from the alignment of our consciousness and energy with these elements as much as we do with our gender, occupation, and roles we play in life. As we project our identity into the world, we often find ourselves under mental and emotional pressure, and are forced into defensive postures that have a profound effect on the bio-mechanics of the body.

This exploration reflects our experience of over 30 years of working with this 'energy stress model' within the health care system of Polarity Therapy and includes our perspectives on the work of Dr Hans Selye MD on stress, Dr Lowell E. Ward DC on spinal stressology, and Dr James Z. Said DC ND and his further developments on the model.