In a few days I will be flying out with Mei Long on my third teaching trip
to China , first to Chengdu and then on to Nanning where a group
of 50 or more acupuncturists are waiting for us to induct them into the mysterious
world of the elements. Of these, 30 are
people new to five element acupuncture;
the remainder are part of the group of students we have been teaching
for the past year.
It seems strange to me that it was only a year ago almost to
the day that I first met what have become my Chinese friends. This year has been such a profound
exploration for me that it seems that all I have learnt could not possibly be
contained within the space of a year – half a lifetime, yes, but not a mere 365
days. It is interesting how time expands
and contracts in this way, one day sometimes seeming so brief and a year, as
here, so long.
I will be away for three weeks this time, with a weekend’s
break in the middle during which, I gather, we will be taken on a mystery trip
to somewhere beautiful near the Vietnamese border. Then back to Chengdu for the final week to give seminars
at the large traditional medicine conference there.
I will return, as usual, very changed, and, as usual, too,
stimulated by the excitement our work there arouses. I feel very lucky to have been given the
opportunity to continue my work so productively and in such a welcoming
environment. With all the slaps life can
deliver, it does indeed often give us the most surprising and unexpected gifts. This is one for which I offer up thanks each
day (but not yet in Mandarin, though my studies are going on apace!).
I often say to patients who come with apparently intractable
family problems that it is not selfish for them to concentrate on getting
themselves into balance, because the changes in them will inevitably have a
ripple-on effect on all the people around them.
Often I see quite amazing improvements in the dynamics of a family as a
result of the treatment of one of its members.
I witnessed one such change this week, when a patient, who
had spent the past 20 or so years of her life trying to cope with the trying
demands of her close-knit family, told me that over the past six months things
had changed to such an extent that the entangled relationships which had so far
made her feel so trapped were slowly resolving themselves. She is now strong enough to demand that
instead of bowing to her family’s needs they must now take her needs into
account. As a result, there has been a
change in all her relationships to her parents and siblings; with some she now feels much closer, with
others she has learnt to keep her distance. And their relationships with each other also appear to have changed for the better.
In effect, we could say that our work makes us into family therapists.
