Sending a Message

For the TCM practitioner, the mind and internal organs affect each other moment to moment through an unending exchange of psychic and somatic messages.        

A masterful TCM doctor uses needles and herbs to influence the cycle by sending a ‘directive’ to organs in need of assistance  thereby producing an energetic realignment which can even bring relief to mental conditions like anxiety, depression, or anger.

To Handle the Tiger

Like all endeavors, your skill level in TCM is related to the amount of practice you do.  You must spend a very long time practicing to become an expert.  If you just practice to have a convenient schedule or to make money, you will be unable to treat difficult cases.  When confronted with a challenging situation you may see the patient as a tiger about to bite or a snake about to strike.

The Shadow of Suffering

Many people who have been through trauma of any kind lose their capacity to deal positively with the challenges of life.  The pain of the experience seems to cast a shadow over every-thing in the patient’s life.  People like this who are not well, even though they want to be healed, will have a difficult time getting better.  They will always doubt the treatment and suspect the practitioner; they will always see things in a negative light.  Even after a problem is taken care of sometimes an unhappiness, a dissatisfaction, lingers.        

This situation challenges even the skilled practitioner: how can we help the patients open their minds so that the intention for happiness and healing dispels the shadow?

Don't Burn Your Diamond

Physical activities and emotional states – both require the body’s energy.  But digging a ditch with a pick-ax requires very little in comparison to being angry.  In such a state, the energy you are expending is enough to burn a diamond.

A Balance of Work and Rest

Sometimes you hear that just after retirement from a strenuous career, the person gets cancer or has a heart attack and cannot enjoy their retirement.

If we keep ourselves in a state of complete exertion, we will not even be aware of the aches and pains in our body.  We keep pushing ourselves in order to keep up with our work.  Then when we relax our mind and body, some problem will manifest and give us trouble.  It is just like when a house has a small problem but you don’t fix it.  The problem may not be causing too much trouble for quite some time, but the situation is steadily getting worse as time goes by.  At some point you will have to give it your full attention, because a major repair will be in order.

 It is important to remember to work, but not to overwork, and rest, but not get lazy.

Stone Not Bone

A very elderly lady came in for treatments, and she improved steadily with each successive visit to the office.  Even so, her husband remained skeptical about the efficacy of acupuncture, always thinking that I was just treating his wife in order to take her money.  Sometimes it is as if a person’s head is made of granite and no new ideas can penetrate.

Fear of Needles

Some people are afraid to take acupuncture treatment because of the thought of being stuck by needles.  They think the needle insertion will be like the action of a sewing machine needle.  Actually, the patient should ordinarily experience needle insertion as though they were making contact with a pine needle.  When the doctor inserts it quickly and not too close to the surface where it will really hurt, the patient will not feel pain.  Also, the experience of pain is relative.  For a person who leads a life of physical hardship, the discomfort of a needle seems minor, even nothing.