Acupuncture is Awesome!

Yesterday I experienced first-hand how magical an acupuncture treatment can be. Kay greeted me warmly and asked if I had been feeling any symptoms. I told her I had been pretty stressed for a few days, and the main way I could tell was that I was clenching my jaw. Otherwise, I had been feeling well. Then I said, “Oh, one other weird thing has been happening for a few days — my left toe has been aching!” She told me that an imbalance on one of the body’s meridians (lines of energy) could show up in very different parts of the body. She looked at her foot reflexology chart, and sure enough, pain at the top of the big toe is related to tension in the jaw. How amazing is that?

After placing pillows and the acupuncture needles in various strategic locations on my body, Kay treated me to a choice of great smelling aromatherapy oils, some soothing music, and creative “extenders” she made from clipboards she put under my arms so I could rest them comfortably beside me on the massage table. Before leaving me to “steep” on the table, she set a timer that ticked softly in the background, and she encouraged me to fall asleep if I wanted to. She said some of the best healing happens when we sleep.

At first, I just felt very relaxed, and didn’t have much sensation around the needles. Gradually, I became aware of a pleasant feeling of warmth around the different points, like my body was drinking in energy and liking it a lot! I was starting to drift a little in and out of sleep, and I had a sweet mental image of the sun starting to rise over the mountains and lighting one part of a nature scene at a time. Only I was the nature scene and the sun was the energy that was starting to come into my body through the acupuncture points. By the time the music CD was finished playing, I was feeling like the sun was shining inside my body and could imagine myself just radiating light into the world.

I practically floated in bliss out of Kay’s office, and yet my mind was clear and my feet felt firmly planted on the earth. In fact,  it seemed like the left and right sides of my body were more coordinated than I ever remember being before, and I was able to glide briskly and effortlessly down the street.

I drank lots of water, slept like a baby, and awoke refreshed with a bunch of cool ideas for my business this morning. We’ll see what this has to do with weight loss, but it’s clear to me the acupuncture treatment was a GREAT way to handle stress. I’m looking forward to doing this again!

By the way, you can check Kay out for yourself at her website, http://www.kayfields.com

Thoughts on Scarcity and Weight Gain

It’s so interesting. At my first session with Kay, she suggested I think about the feeling of scarcity that drives me to work such long hours without giving myself real breaks. And in some mysteriously contradictory way scarcity has led to an impoverished condition where two college degrees, proven and marketable skills, plus a grueling work ethic, still leave me scrambling each month to pay for basic necessities. Where did this scarcity come from? What did it ever do for me?

I don’t remember having feelings of scarcity growing up. We weren’t wealthy, but basic comforts and pleasures were always plentiful. As a college student and later as a young teacher, I always had the money I needed to make satisfying choices about where I traveled, where I lived, and what I bought.

I don’t recall money EVER being an issue for me until after I divorced my emotionally abusive, alcoholic husband and was left with two babies in diapers and a thoroughly shattered self-confidence. That’s been 25 years now, and my wonderful daughters are mostly grown, with their own money issues but a whole lot more self-confident than I have ever been.

I’m not saying that the quality of my life is as dismal as I may make it sound here. Actually, the opposite is true. There is a spiritual richness and beauty to my lifestyle that has deepened over those 25 years. I have always lived in places where nature is breathtakingly beautiful. I have cherished friends with whom I share the progress of my soul. My connection to Spirit is profound. I may not be able to buy the variety of foods I enjoy, but almost everything I eat is organic, tasty, and in all ways very good for me.  I enjoy radiant health and have not even had a cold or the flu for 15 years. Over time, I have acquired tasteful furnishings that suit my tastes well — many are gifts from friends who didn’t need them or found them for me. I have finally landed in a spacious and light-filled household with a companionable and generous-hearted housemate, and the move to this new place in an more upscale neighborhood has reduced my expenses by greater than half!

Perhaps best of all, in a struggling economy where people’s fortune reversals have plunged them into increasing despair over all they have lost, I find myself with my feet on the ground and the peaceful certainty that I truly do not require much to thrive and be happy. 

But there’s a lot I would love to do with an abundance of money! I would pay off the albatross of old debts that have been hanging around my neck since the baby days. I would joyfully plan vacations and frequent mini-retreats to old growth forests and the mountains and the ocean. I would give my children the free ride they deserve to the graduate degrees they can’t swing on their own, complete with living expenses so they don’t have to work while they fill their minds with learning. I would become a patron of the arts and commission awesome works from worthy young talents. I would give and receive and give some more and be steeped in all the wonders that money can buy because I know now that I could do that without losing sight of the truth that everything material must pass away and all that remains is the richness we have built with our love.

I’m ready! Bring it on!

First Session with Kay Fields, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine

Had an amazing first session with Kay Fields today in her cozy, restful office in Northwest Portland, Oregon. To begin with, I was 15-minutes late, and she had another patient scheduled after me. Bummer! When I called to tell her I was running behind, I apologized and lamented that I always seem to cram too much into the time between one event and another. Her voice was kind as she told me she would just see me when I got there. I still felt bad.

Though we didn’t have time for her usual full intake session, it is hard to imagine how much better this one could have turned out. She explained that her approach is to listen “between the lines” when her patients introduce themselves and the conditions prompting them to seek treatment. She said sometimes people will say there is not a problem with one body function or another when there is. This is not because they are lying or withholding information. Rather, they just  have not noticed the pattern before, or they thought two symptoms were an apple and an orange when Kay’s training and intuition can see they are really two apples and add up to a treatable condition.

Take me as a case in point. I don’t know how she did it (especially not in less than 45 minutes!), but Kay was able to see what to me were separate threads of my life and how they added up to a lot of extra weight and also to never having enough money to meet all my expenses.  Child abuse (by my grandfather as a child, and later by my husband and a platonic housemate) is connected to my inability to get enough sustenance even from a healthy diet.  Wow, I get chills just feeling the truth of that connection.

What was especially sweet and wonderful were her suggestions for treating my way-too-much weight. I had sort of dreaded the upcoming solutions, because I assumed they would include being pounded into compliance at the local gym plus obsessive calorie counting and a lot more feeling of deprivation. Instead, the tears that came to my eyes were from the joy of feeling REALLY heard when Kay told me the most direct way for me to lose the weight would be to take gentle walks in the forest, that my particular problem had less to do with what I ate than with how I crowded my life with overworking! This deep realization is making ripples of well-being that will impact my life for a very long time.

Kay also suggested some acupuncture and pulse sessions, perhaps an inexpensive combination of herbs that she has found to be effective in supporting weight loss. I’ll keep you posted on what that’s like and how it works!

But mostly, I’m really looking forward to making some space in my life to breathe and walk in the trees and connect to my faith that everything really is ok and will only get better for me.