Sometimes the honor to touch someone, to needle them, to help them is overwhelmingly beautiful.
I am human. Which translates to, no matter how much I always deeply love treating people, sometimes it takes some internal persuasion to get excited about it ahead of time. Other times, I can't wait to get to work, I can't wait to connect with people who are in pain, to alleviate them, to find relief to dis-ease. At the very high points, I feel a bursting quality of energy expanding from me to the people I work with and to the world, creating deep relaxation, ease and knowing.
Sometimes I feel unsure as a practitioner and as a regular patient of acupuncture. I always trust the medicine at its core, but I can be unsure about my diagnosis, about my treatment when I play the role of a practitioner. As a patient, there are times I feel unsure if I need it, if it's helping me, what is happening. There is an the unsure is an unknowingness that can be gnawing, wanting to transform into knowing. That same unknowingness can be transformative in unexpected ways. If willing, as a patient or a practitioner, to surrender to the unknowingness of what might happen, what transformation could take place, or not, big things begin to happen. In a treatment, this is sometimes very physical, very tangible. It can be bringing sleep to a sleepless person, relief of pain, release of stagnation, strengthening from deficit. As a patient, it is often to present your symptoms, but also to give yourself away, truly trusting your practitioner. This trust is hard even in the most intimate of our relationships so how can we do it with a person who is merely a fraction of our lives? How? I'm not really sure, but trying to surrender, to the treatment, to your practitioner opens the door for a depth of healing that is always breathtaking.
It is my honor to have this role, as a practitioner, to ask people to surrender, to trust. I am honored each moment that this happens. These are the best days, the best moments.
