One Year of Practice

In one year of practice I have treated around 500 different patients, I have discovered how to have fun with Chinese Herbs, I have dreamt up a business plan for a wonderful future and I have created work in acupuncture 5 days a week.

All of these things add up to a successful journey.  A beautiful first year, with the mission of learning and providing affordable acupuncture for many people. However, I have yet to learn how to thrive on this lifestyle.

Each place I work has taught me something different. Berkeley Community Acupuncture, my comfort zone because of history has taught me what it looks like to be a functioning business that is surviving, not thriving. My dear colleagues there have been an inspiring group to explore what it means to be a person, acupuncturist and how to dive deep into the internal ocean of knowledge and wisdom we all have. However this has been mostly on an administrative and personal level, and less on a practitioner level.

San Francisco Community Acupuncture has taught me how to treat many people, with a full schedule, with herbs and acupuncture to get better. How to meet people and connect, how to retain patients, how to still feel energized after a full day of conversation, needling and herbal prescription. They have taught me what a smoothly running business looks like, what it takes and what support means to an acupuncturist.

SWAP has taught me how to explore myself as a person and a practitioner. It has given me the freedom to attract my own patients, people who really relate to me. And how to ride the roller coaster up and down and up and down.

Still learning, growing, moving on. It's been quite a year.

Taking up Space

In my practice I notice that many people have a hard time taking up space. They have a hard time even taking their own space. I don't mean retreating away from people to take your solo time to recover. I mean taking up your physical and emotional space, owning it.

For some reason there seems to be a common disconnect from feeling things and allowing yourself to feel those feelings. Often times it seems to be from some internal concept that it is hard to take up space. That if we take up space we take away from someone else.

However there is a truth to taking ownership of yourself and your space. There is a deep truth that honors who we are and what we feel. That truth can unlock so much power, drive and infinite wealth of possibilities I think that we fear what is within.

This is all abstract, sub conscious. But if we can point our conscious effort towards taking up our space then we can move towards that. Help our abstract, subconscious self take up that space and own our physical space. Stand up straight, breathe, speak loudly, enunciate. And our emotional space, feel our feelings and express them.