A vast majority of us have trauma in our lives and if you find yourself reading this post, odds are you are one of those people. Healing yourself on the level of mind, body and spirit is a process, it takes years of observation, reflection and integration.
Mona Lisa Schulz wrote a book called “Awakening Intuition” which is an exploration into how our thoughts, beliefs and emotions change the physical health of our body. Gabor Mate wrote “When the Body says No” which is a similar concept. Both doctors explain how the way we feel and the way we think about how we feel has a direct relationship to the symptoms our body presents. I have had the good fortune of working with clients who are presenting as one issue (example: neck pain from a car crash) but are actually working through a different issue (a traumatic experience 2 years prior). What I find over and over again is treating the symptoms of the current condition can bring about relief for a short time but the treatment never sticks. It isn’t until we begin to address the emotional and spiritual aspects of the person that we see the physical pain begin to heal.
The part that always fascinates me, both in my own life and with my clients, is the way we store trauma in layers, only peeling off the parts we can manage while we integrate this new information and then having to revisit it all over again in 6 months time. It seems most of us believe healing is a linear process, there is pain, there is treatment, there are lifestyle changes and then there is resolution. That is simply not how it works in real life. For the most part the pain we thought we had addressed retreats back into the body in some way only to reappear 2 years later when you find yourself in a situation similar to the one that hurt you to begin with. I believe the process of recognising when you are in reaction mode comes more quickly as we gain more experience working with it, but it can take years or decades to heal all the broken parts.
This is why acupuncture has been such a god send to me. Three years of going to Chinese medicine school gave me the tools to approach pain from many different standpoints. At that time I was working with plant energetics, a shaman, a counsellor and of course an acupuncturist. It doesn’t matter so much the tools you use as the fact that you are in a place to gently acknowledge the pain is present and to approach it with love and compassion as you let it be felt.
When I am treating a person and suspect trauma is a part of what is blocking the healing, the first thing I do is something called an “aggressive energy” treatment. This is a 5 element style procedure where I insert 5 needles on each side of the spine very superficially, I wait for redness to occur around the needle and once that is cleared I take the needles out and put in a 6th needle. This treatment is designed to release the trauma from the body and the redness showing up around the needles gives us a clue as to what emotions might be involved. If you are showing redness at the lung position I will ask about grief, if it is in the liver position I will ask about repressed anger etc. This treatment is incredibly powerful and I have seen deep healing occur. About 50% of the time I get an e-mail the next day saying, “I have never felt so good, what magic was that?” but the other 50% of the time there is no obvious break through, just slow and gentle healing.
When the AE is over if we feel there is more work to be done I move onto the “internal and external dragons”. These are 2 protocols that address blocks caused by a disruption in a persons mind, body and spirit. Internal dragons are more to address internal cause of disease and external dragons look more outside the body.
We can then begin to use the luo points, these are points on every channel that connect the yin and yang pair of 2 organs. They can be used for deep emotional healing by “venting” the luo” to let the emotions out.
We may then decide to approach the body by working with the extraordinary vessels. These are reservoirs of qi and essence in the body and can facilitate deep healing. Because they are the first channels formed in utero they can have a profound effect on healing trans generational trauma.
It would be incredibly unlikely that I would have a patient come in for 4 weeks in a row and treat each of these protocols in sequence and then send them on their way. Learning, healing and integration takes time. We would do one protocol and then continue to work together with the physical body to ensure proper integration is taking place. When we are ready, we would move onto the next step. Healing takes time and when we are working on these deep rooted issues the dedication to consistently and gently approach the pain while working between treatments to honour yourself and your journey is critical. Learning, exploring, healing and integrating can take a lifetime, it is best to show up to this journey ready to be in it for the long haul with curiosity and an open heart – it gets easier as it goes.