Don't settle for mediocrity

I went to an event at a wonderful, temporary space in SF called Freespace. At an event/discussion titled "Don't Settle for Mediocrity, A Discussion about career transitions and finding meaningful work"

I was on the fence about attending since I am on the road to meaningful work as a Licensed Acupuncturist. But I am in a career transition in the respect that I have my career chosen, I just don't have my career yet.

Acupuncturists aren't exactly recruited by the top five clinics in the U.S. during their last year in school. We aren't met at the gates with signing bonuses, big salaries and health benefits. However, we have chosen meaningful work which can be fulfilling for a lifetime. I really appreciated this talk, because it acknowledge the scary parts, the challenging parts and the community of people that work to find meaningful work. It may not immediately be financially stable. It may not be a road with a path that is easy to follow. Yet there is meaning in this work and it took work to get here. Here is a list I got from the workshop. As we wound the discussion through different people's experiences we covered these points on how to make the transition. (As life seems to be one everlasting transition, this list seems pretty apt for a lifetime of meaningful work). I thought I would share. Maybe it can inspire you to, #6, take a tiny tiny step, towards whatever meaningful work you can imagine. I hope you can join me and we can share a life of work that is meaningful together.

1. Listen to that VOICE within

2. Lean INTO fear, be vulnerable. Name your fears.

3. Excuses: distinguish your voice vs. other voices

4. Find believers, not haters

5. Take your ideas seriously, SHARE THEM

6. Take a tiny tiny step

7. Embrace the journey

8. Balance $ + meaning (some venn diagram of SKILLS/IMPACT/LIFESTYLE)

9. Don't waste time!

Tea As Medicine

I bought a local food package over the holidays as a gift for my partner and recently found this tea laying around. Made by an Oakland company, Sky Tea, it was Tangerine-Ginger. Recently, after carting it around and never giving it much thought, I took it out and read the ingredients:

• Hibiscus
• Tangerine Rind
• Schizandra berry
• Dried ginger 

Three of the four ingredients are commonly used Chinese Herbs! I love having food as medicine, herbal teas to me now usually mean some odd tasting powdered herbs mixed with hot water or long boiled raw chinese herbs to form a strong tasting tea. But this is a tea that is marketed to taste good, not for medicinal purposes, those are just a bonus.

If you are interested in the herbal details, I break it down after the photo. This is the tea covered in hot water, and secondly backlit by the sun. Look at that amazing magenta color that hibscus gives, beautiful!

 

Ok, so if you are still reading, I want to talk about the medicinal herbs included in this tea and what they do.

Hibiscus - is not in the Materia Medica that we use, but has lots of modern research of health benefits, the most common being that it reduces inflammation

Tangerine Rind aka 'Chen Pi' or Citri reticulatae Pericarpium - This type of tangerine peel is aged and known for "regulating qi". This is a commonly used herb to balance out a formula that can be strengthening but doesn't have enough movement qualities. Tangerine peel also has great effects not just on moving but on drying dampness and phlegm. Aka, this is a great hangover cure! Some symptoms it can help are: 

• feeling of fullness in your upper abdomen and chest
• indigestion
• vomiting
• hiccups
• belching
• flatulence
• poor appetite
• diarrhea
• loose stools
• productive cough

Schizandra Berry aka 'Wu Wei Zi' or Schisandrae Fructus - this is at type of Astringent Herb. These herbs help pull qi and or fluids together when things are dispersing too much. It is also known to be very sour, but the translation is called "five flavors seed". The herb can help:

• chronic cough/wheeze/asthma
• diarrhea, spermatorrhea, nocturnal emission, leukorrhea, frequen urination, enuresis
• spontaneous sweat, night sweat
• thirst
• diabetes
• palpitations
• insomnia
• irritability

Dried Ginger Root aka 'Gan Jiang' or Zingiberis Rhizoma - this is a type of warming herb. It can be great for lots of digestive issues that have a Chinese Medical diagonsis that is 'cold' and other issues as well.

• chronic diarrhea
• vomit
• pain in upper abdomen
• cold feeling in abdomen
• low back pain
• spontaneous sweating
• cold sweat
• cold extremeties
• cough
• dyspnea
• frothy sputum

Making Peace

For some reason I find that my mind easily goes to the 'what if this was better' about various parts of my life. I constantly look for things that could be improved, or with some sort of adjustment, there would be a radical perfection over the way life just...is.

In a personal challenge, hoping for the best outcome, but with very little control over the situation, I was given the advice, "do everything you can, but make peace with what could happen." Now, a year later, those words "make peace, make peace, make peace" ring over and over in my head like a mantra. Isn't that what we are all trying to do? We are all just trying, desperately to make peace with our situations. But, what is it that tears us away from that peace, why is there so much making, and not as much peace?

In our current 2013 world, most of us have smart phones with 3G/4G/LTE speedy connections. Whatever our connections, our brains are quick to jump from one topic to the next, with the hope that we will receive positive feedback, or some sort of feedback. This, "connection" seems to keep us going. This is the 'making' part. We are used to moving, making, working, controlling, acting upon something. We are not so used to what can come with the 'peace' part.

Peace has very different meanings for different people. While it can mean a variety of specific things, it has a general meaning of space, of stopping, of finding the calm within the storm. We try, I try to 'make peace' all the time. But, what if I just stopped and looked for the peace that is inherently there, within every situation, no matter the visible chaos that surrounds it.

The current auto-survive mode of stress, control, technologically-connected-real-time-disconnected feels like the storm, the chaos, the 'making' part. But within that there is a calm, a quiet, a peace that is cored into it, being a part of a bigger balance. When we are able to see that, when we are able to find that piece of ourselves, then we can see it everywhere, finding peace amidst any situation that may arise. Yes, there are tools to develop this, to give your mind space to find those moments of peace. Meditation, yoga, acupuncture but those are simply tools, reminding your body and mind how to do something it already knows.