April 4, 2025
These are challenging times! . . . . Beginning with COVID, then through rapid interest rate hikes, multiple wars, and now, of course, so much more so. Everything seems inside out and upside down. Uncertainties are amplified. And almost every day reveals the next wild card.
How are you handling it all?
We only know ourselves to the degree life has challenged us. No more, no less. It is with new challenges, that never-before-seen or felt aspects of ourselves appear, both from the psychological level and from deeper more essential levels.
How are you handling it all?
Unsettled? Disoriented? Unnerved? Angry? Enraged?
Scared? Anxious? Scattered? Unfocussed? Overwhelmed?
Motivated? Doubling Down? Fixated? Obsessed? Emboldened? Amused?
Bewildered? Numbed out? Depressed? Withdrawn? Risk-averse? Reclusive? Frozen?
A teacher of mine once said
“we become ill, unwell or injured in and through the parts of ourselves we are not fully inhabiting”
These parts of ourselves we are not inhabiting properly . . . . that’s where we are vulnerable; vulnerable to the outside (and vulnerable to the release of latencies embodied on the inside). These parts of ourselves can either be weak, empty and deficient, or overprotected, brittle and armoured in some way. Both versions are vulnerable. And no two people have the same vulnerabilities, when exposed to the same scenario, whether a twisted ankle, a car accident or a messy divorce.
The health and integrity of our borders, that boundary and filter between us and the outside world, are different for each of us. It is in that ankle or stomach, finger or shoulder, lung or bladder, thyroid or adrenal, heart or head, emotional or intellectual intelligence . . . where the outside, whether it be
virus or insult,
ice cream overindulgence or relationship betrayal,
threat or temptation,
attack or enticement,
can gain hold, breach our borders and do harm. That is also where we are less than able to fully meet the world, to stand in the world as who we are. Sometimes that outside can seize the vulnerable opportunity and move in on its own and sometimes, some part of us actively extends an invitation. A battle may ensue. Or the entry, the invasion may be a quiet one.
(Please note: This is not to deny that sometimes, we just get sick or that bad things happen! There is, of course, much in the world we can do nothing about. This blog is about the part we can do something about. Ordeals are always to some degree, an opportunity.)
Are you fully inhabiting yourself?
With the world around us presenting so many new (in your lifetime, likely unprecedented) and intense challenges, are you able to bring yourself fully and appropriately forward, with all your physical, emotional and intellectual boundaries, filters and response mechanisms intact? Are you being receptive, assertive and responsive? Or are you being reactive, charged and brittle?
Acupuncture, as part of Chinese Medicine, offers a remarkably full integration of mind, heart and body. The channels of acupuncture, the points along those channels and their many characteristics, connections and relationships provide a practitioner like me with a prism through which to make sense of all of this and gain access to it all, therapeutically. Through that prism, all of you . . . your physical self, your mental and emotional self, your form and your function are all fully connected, integrated and, at the most accomplished level of understanding, all one.
(Caveat: Amongst providers of acupuncture, there are lesser and greater degrees to which this is understood and applied. The spectrum is very wide).
There are 12 distinct channels of acupuncture. In the three dimensionality of anything, there are 12 distinct edges and 12 diagonals that converge in the center. Understood separately, each of these 12 is a facet of our being. Comprehended together, they give rise to 13, Oneness. In Hebrew, the gematria 13 is common to the words for both Oneness and Love. We popularly associate 13 with bad luck; a building floor, calendar date or airplane seat number to be avoided . . . a reflection of deep-seated fear of Oneness, for at that level, a person stands completely in themselves, a force to be reckoned with. In such a state, one would have full immunity to any and all forms of tyranny, external and internal.
When you come to my clinic for persistent pain in one toe that suddenly appeared three months ago and I start asking you about your impatience level or your capacity to focus, it is not off topic. I am seeking to understand you through a very integrated prism. The ultimate goal is oneness . . . that is a lifelong journey, a big reach, a high bar . . . on the way is increasing integration and harmony.
As we know, the present state of the world is made so much worse, so amplified and intensified by the echo chambers and algorithms of social media. We are all presently spinning inside a powerful collective centrifuge. . . with hurricane-force outward thrust, flinging us to the extreme poles of entrenchment, dogma and intolerance (including being excessively tolerant and being intolerant of those who aren’t, such is the peculiar paradox of the matter). Holding the center in such an intransigent and persistent force field is not easy. It takes steadfast resolve. It takes inhabiting yourself as fully as possible.
Chinese Medicine is all about the center. The whole point of Chinese Medicine is to ask the question, ‘what is off center here and what can be done to encourage movement back to the center?’ That is the question I ask when you visit me as a patient; of course, always in reference to your stated goals and priorities in treatment, which I am ethically bound to honour.
Take a moment to look at the Chinese Symbol for Center:
The specific acupuncture practice I have been cultivating, developing and refining through 25 years of practice and study, and most intensively over the past 5-7 years (in collaboration with a small, highly focused, dedicated and brilliant international group of colleagues), the very particular approach I have trained in, and am now offering, is exceptionally capable under just these circumstances, . . . . to activate and potentiate all of your body-heart-mind. So no part of you is compromised and left behind. So you are able to meet what is coming at you, with more of who you are, with more of your borders, boundaries and filters in tact. So you can more fully connect with and hold your center with resolve and clarity, and from there, be consistently responsive and not reactive. In some cases, that is better combined with qualified talk therapy. In other cases, it stands alone. What I am able to access and leverage with often great effectiveness, is the somato-psychic domain, that very particular and pivotal intersection of your body and your psyche, your heart, head and body.
Note: Of course, every case, every person is unique and distinct and needs to be understood and considered in it’s particular context.
The silver lining in this tumultuous time is the opportunity to know yourself better, discover aspects of yourself, both the essential necessary parts and the accumulations of no-longer-necessary coping mechanisms, unexamined habitual behaviours and structures from your past. It is a golden time to observe your reactivities and effectively rectify what is being revealed as much as you can. It is a time with particular potency to heal and more fully inhabit yourself.
How are you handling this all?
Are you fully occupying yourself?
Let me help you.