on things new and different

This week marks the one-month mark since I opened my community clinic here in Victoria. (A quick shout-out to all those folks in Maine starting up, glad to know I will have a place to visit when I travel back to visit family!)

I have spent these past four weeks on a roller coaster of love -- up and down, and I realize that I am somewhat out of practice with things new. With kids turning seven and eight I feel like I pretty well have the parent thing down, and I certainly felt comfortable in my previous role of yoga teacher, body-worker, acupuncturist, and carpenter! But this new thing, community acupuncture, really has my brain and heart communicating again, though not always so gracefully.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, business is going well for 4 weeks and no advertising, with up to 12 patients per shift I am really on my toes to keep up at times. What is amazing is how out there you are in this practice. I made the anaology of a waiter a few weeks ago, but actually I feel more like a chef, except my kitchen is right out in the dining room for all to see! “Nowhere to run to baby”… suddenly comes into my head. So when I get fixated on a “problem” or frustrated about my ability to “fix” someone, my frustration and beliefs loom large in the room, staring me right in the face, begging me to challenge them. I’m in the new and uncomfortable phase!

Last week I posted a question about treating shoulders since I was suddenly getting so many. I was looking for some magical formula that would take all the pain away. My inability to “make” something happen was working on me, bringing up a myriad of old beliefs, and stopping the natural flow of qi between my head, heart, and hands. Then as I was searching through the website for something inspirational I came across this lovely quote from Nora: “I think part of my problem is that I was trying to give patients a sense of hope, but hoping is about living in the future, whereas it seems a strength of acupuncture is that it helps people be in the present, in the bodies they have right now, and see what's really going on.” Nora set me straight, and Wednesday, as I was looking around the room at five slumbering patients and Yo-Yo-Ma was playing a selection from Bach, I too felt present, and humble, and grateful that I was right here in this moment, with nothing more and nothing less than me and them and community.

Thanks everyone!