What Do I Treat?
Life Acupuncture
People often ask me what do I do, and what do I treat? Well the answer to that, if I could sum it up, is that I do ‘Life Acupuncture’. “Life Acupuncture?” you may ask. See the point is that everything we do in life effects our health, and thus we need treatment which considers all aspects of who we are, and what we do.
For me, long gone are the days of thinking that a yoga class, occasional trip to the gym or changing someone’s diet is what constitutes or defines someone’s health.
For example, when it comes to work – although this can relate to any part of our life – it’s really no good thinking “I’m going to be stuck in a job for hours that I don’t like but I’ll save my health by going for a run later” All those lost hours of feeling shut down, suppressed or whatever it engenders in you also take their toll.
Your Body-Mind Experiences Everything
See the Body, mind and emotions register things moment to moment, you can’t really trick them. You could try to, by one part of your inner dialogue or ‘ego’ trying to tell you that everything is actually o.k and going well, but in any moment you are not really alive or enjoying yourself then your body is recording and reacting to that situation or stimulus – your internal organs will be reacting, emotions reacting, hormones reacting etc.
Sure we can buffer some strain, a few hours here and there if there is sufficient reason to endure, but really shouldn’t there be a better model of what we strive for in life? I’ve long said that a truly succesful human being is someone who is balanced in all aspects of life, not just professionally. It might grow one part of your ego to think, “but yeah i’ve worked 60 hours this week and earned x amount of money” but is that really the challenge? Really? I would suggest that actually the far more skilful challenge is to balance your work – and first things first, to actually enjoy what you do for a start – with the other Elements of who you are.
Nature Knows What It’s Doing!
See nature is clever, whether we like it or not living force and living matter is subjected to certain natural laws, patterns or requirements. In the line of work I do we call them the 5 Elements, plenty about them in other parts of the website, but in short each Element will correspond to part of your life, and internally in your body to certain organs. There are some fairly obvious correspondences – stay well fed and nourished and your Stomach and Spleen which constitute your ‘Earth’ Element will be pleased and stay balanced. Enjoy good relationships (not just with your laptop but with other human beings) and your ‘Fire’ Element of Heart and your Small Intestine – your ‘gut’ reaction to things – stay at ease.
And then there are some correspondences to our health and body we may not quite be so aware of; Enjoy good growth in life, good vision and direction, and assert yourself with the correct force towards your goals and your Liver and Gall Bladder which make up your ‘Wood Element’ stay free and easy. Get good rest and time for reflection, and your Kidney and Bladder – your ‘Water’ Element – which quite literally filter and reflect our experiences which are imprinted in the water of our body stay clear and calm. And letting go of old waste and breathing in new inspiration in life keeps your ‘Metal’ Element of Large Intestine and Lungs free from clutter and grief.
Effect of Unhealthy Life Choices
But of course then there is the flipside – each time we make life choices which are incongruent with the best functioning of those Elements they get strained. Stay in relationships with people or things you don’t like and your Heart Energy shrinks, contracts, (the chest starts to physically close – I see it often) and your gut instinctively tightens in relation to what is going on around you (can relate to digestive problems). And then the emotional correspondences as well – as we know your Heart is linked to joy – pretty obvious – so do things you don’t like for too long too often and your levels of joy sink. Getting the picture? – lets do another. Say you don’t know where you are going in life, or you are blocked from your path, stulted, there then becomes this collision between the intelligence of your Wood Element which gives you vision and direction, and the circumstances which are actually real around you – result your Wood Element of Liver and Gall Bladder gets upset, your body tightens up (as those organs correspond to your ligaments and tendons) and you get frustrated, or indeed, angry, as this is the emotion of an imbalanced Wood Element! This can also happen if you have an inability to express what you want. In imbalances like this we often then seek to placate the feelings, sensations within our body and mind with distractions, substances, toxins. Will it work? What do you think?
Letting off a bit of steam now and again is necessary, (please note you’ll usually find me in some state of unabandoned expression on a dancefloor at least once a week) but it’s when these kind of situations become chronic that they become a big problem, as the longer they go on for, the longer it takes to come back to balance. In fact in the case of the Liver it actually starts to get physically hot, causing difficulties with the organs around it, but that’s another story!
Consider The Health of Both Your Body and Your Life Circumstances
So as well as the therapeutic work that is required on the organic matter of your body, (hello acupuncture and yoga) it’s obviously also a consideration in some situations to contemplate what circumstances are creating these imbalances in the first place. So even from just looking at a couple of examples we can see it’s no simple matter this health business – well it’s not….and it is! Learning about oneself, and the signals your body is giving you, allied to learning a decent health model such as the 5 Elements gives us some kind of perspective that makes sense on a deeper level to the mind. I mean, when did they ever really teach us any of this in school?! When did they ever say that everything in nature is counterbalanced by expansion and then contraction – day and night, winter and summer, so if you work work all the time with little rest then you are going against the natural flow of life, and part of you will suffer.
So the health game is not just about the condition of our physical body; the body, mind and emotions may tell us the story of what’s been going on, but it’s the way we are navigating through life and our life choices which are creating the bigger issues.
Support Finding The Answers Within
But luckily, you don’t actually need another person to tell you what to do, (that’s not my thing or the purpose of treatment) it’s more you have to learn to uncover those answers in yourself – because once again you guessed it, nature has a way of knowing what it needs to do to bring balance – that is also inbuilt – it just happens in the world around us. So since we are also part of nature – although we sometimes forget – that intelligence, that potential is also still in us.
Now that’s what I treat.
Not your illness, but your potential to be better! Better in body, better in emotions and better in mind.
So where is the true challenge now? in the next 60 hour week, or in having a truly balanced time congruent to all your needs?
I’ll leave it with you.
5 Elements Acupuncture London with Richard
Five Elements Acupuncture is a powerful system that treats the root cause of imbalance and not just symptoms. North London Acupuncture in Islington & Crouch End. Central London Acupuncture in Marylebone. Wellness Coaching also available, online or in person.
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