Dignity and Spaciousness

[i]Dignity comes from using your inherent human resources, by doing things with your own bare hands – on the spot, properly and beautifully.[/i]
– Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I have been thinking about dignity and spaciousness lately. Two weeks ago, I saw a movie called [i]Longford[/i], about Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham), who was a British nobleman and politician, member of the House of Lords and the Cabinet. The movie is focused on Lord Longford’s enduring dedication to visiting and supporting incarcerated criminals. Specifically, it tells the story of his relationship with one of the most notorious murderers in British history, Myra Hindley. This woman together with her insane boyfriend tortured and killed five children in the early 1960’s. The case was known as Moors murders because four of the victims were buried on a moor outside of Manchester. Hindley was intensely hated by the British people, yet Longford visited, supported her and advocated on her behalf for many years. He corresponded with Hindley regularly. This friendship clearly damaged his political career and challenged him emotionally and spiritually, because Myra Hindley took advantage of his kindness and repeatedly deceived and manipulated him.

The scene that most struck me in this movie was really nothing too dramatic. It was the first time Longford comes to visit Myra in prison. They are sitting at a table in the visiting hall and everyone around is staring in disgust and disbelief at the man who actually came to visit this monster. Longford ignores the angry stares and treats Myra with total respect and courtesy. He introduces himself, shakes her hand, talks to her kindly and gives her some pertinent legal advice. He also clearly indicates that he believes that every person should have the chance to get paroled. Despite being fully aware of the terrible crimes she committed, Longford believes parole is not impossible for her. He also asks her if she needs anything, notes down her requests and offers to correspond with her and to visit her again, if she would like it.

It’s a very unexciting scene, and yet, the way Longford treats Myra with such dignity affected me deeply and really stuck with me. In the midst of a situation saturated with many layers of deep suffering, he chooses to be spacious in his thinking to allow for possibilities, to relate to this obviously disturbed and troubled woman like a human being.

This led me to think a lot about how Community Acupuncture offers this sense of dignity and respect to all involved – the patients and the practitioners. It does this, by creating space where one can set aside all kinds of assumptions we tend to make about each other. It incorporates more of the generous and spacious silence by doing away with the extra chit chat, and literally allows the space to be more open, more expansive without the walls of the small treatment rooms that separate people like little prison cells. It does it through generosity in the most basic sense, by helping patients to set aside the financial concerns of healthcare without any hint of pity and special circumstance of kindness. I think of this dignified and spacious quality as our (Community Acupuncturists’) secret ingredient in helping patients get better.

I have never been wealthy enough to afford the standard boutique-style acupuncture practice fees. When I need acupuncture, I usually treat myself or do trade sessions. I am uninsured and (barely) get my (Western) healthcare in the public health clinic. After getting my acupuncture license, I was often feeling like some kind of an impostor asking for these ridiculous amounts of money for my treatments while marveling in the back of my mind: “How in the world can they afford this?!” My practice was very slow, almost non-existent. I currently practice Community Acupuncture part-time (not too much longer, I hope) and I still feel this discomfort daily in the boutique part of my practice. This discomfort has become a great teacher for me. It is reminding me where I need to go next.

When Lord Longford decides to support Myra Hindley he makes a moral and spiritual choice to open. Towards the end of the movie, he is on a radio show and a listener calls in and asks if he regrets supporting Hindley after all the trouble she had put him though. Longford responds that, as difficult as it was, he has no regrets because through it all he was forced to grow spiritually and cultivate forgiveness, which he identifies as the cornerstone of his faith. So, he made the choice to make room, to open his heart, to step into uncomfortable controversial territory and this choice brought dignity to him and the woman he was helping. It happened because he refused to exclude her, to allow her to be written off.

I know this is sort of an extreme example but in acupuncture that’s what happens when people cannot afford to see us – they are just not part of the picture, they are excluded, invisible. When we lower the barrier we allow more space, more possibilities for everyone and everything involved – ourselves and our patients and our medicine.

Community Acupuncture allows me to joyfully express enthusiasm about my craft and about being successful in business without reservations around class and money. It restores my self-respect because it frees me from the cycle of fearful and competitive neurosis around my chosen work. It makes me feel spacious, full of possibilities, like a big open room filled with people receiving acupuncture together, enthroned with dignity in comfy recliners.