My year-end stock-take

This is a longer blog than usual as befits the final summing-up of a year.

I always see the end of a year as a time to look back at the months that have passed and to try to fit them into the pattern of my life.  What, then, has 2015 brought me and taught me?

It has brought me much joy, and some sadness, from my family and friendships.  It has brought me introductions to many new writers, many of these in other languages I am familiar with, such as German, and renewed my interest in writers I have enjoyed in the past.  At the end of this blog I am listing some of my favourite reads of the year for anybody who, like me, is fascinated by the written word.

And what has it brought to my calling as acupuncturist?  After publishing my book, On Being a Five Element Acupuncturist, at the start of the year, I experienced a kind of mental blankness for some months.  I missed the feeling of being compelled to write by something inside me.  I continued with my blogs, but could find no central theme around which to build what might eventually become another book.  I struggled with this for some time until one day a friend told me that her son, not an acupuncturist, enjoyed reading my books because they taught him to understand human beings better, and that he was looking forward to reading more about the elements.  Somehow this stirred something in me to life, and I began to write odd bits and pieces, focusing on how I was developing new ways of interpreting my own reactions to the elements. I am continuing to do this, still with no particular structure in mind, but just darting here and there with my thoughts.  I trust that a structure will emerge at some point, as it did with my other books, and that the different pieces that I am now writing will in some miraculous way fuse themselves together into a book with which I will again hope to interest my lovely publishers, Singing Dragon Press.

Moving forward from my personal acupuncture-focused life to my more public life as a teacher, what of that?  Well, increasingly this now works on expanding what I am doing in China.  I have written before of how, much to my surprise, my work appears to have changed direction in the last few years, from an emphasis on helping five element acupuncturists in this country and Europe, to introducing it to China.  Increasingly now my task appears to be to continue adding to what I have so far achieved over there, which is a lot, indeed much, much more than I could ever have dreamt of when I first met my host, Liu Lihong, more than four years ago.  There must now be some few hundred Chinese acupuncturists who have come to our seminars and are venturing to start five element practices of their own.

This year-end also brings news of the Inauguration Ceremony of a Foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine which is being set up in Beijing, with my contribution to this enshrined for perpetuity in a lovely certificate I was honoured to receive from Liu Lihong in April stating that I am a Consultant in Five Element Acupuncture to this Foundation for a period of 5 years until 31 December 2019.  Seeing this date on the certificate pointed me to further work that I need to do in the intervening years.  By the time we reach December 2019, I will, I assume, be well past the age when I will be of practical use as a teacher over there, although possibly still be a kind of five element figurehead to be wheeled out at intervals to remind people of the long five element lineage to which I am heir.

In China there are also moves afoot to translate more of my books (only one, my Handbook, is published in Mandarin).  My non-English-reading students are always clamouring to read the others in Mandarin.  I and my two regular companions, Mei Long and Guy Caplan, during our next planned visit to China in April 2016, will make our presence felt in Beijing to support the new Foundation there in addition to holding our usual seminar in Nanning.

So my stock-take for 2015 has shown me much that I can personally be very happy about.  It does a little to offset the news pouring in from around the globe of all the strife which human beings, alone of all the animals, seem to enjoy engaging in, and all the mostly man-made disasters bringing floods and famine to many parts of the globe.  I like to think, though, that what I can offer my patients, and encourage others to offer theirs, in some small way helps to contribute something important to the sum total of human happiness.

I wish all my readers a fulfilling and happy year to come when 2015 turns into 2016.

 

Postscript:

A few of my favourite books from my 2015 reading-list (D = Detective story):

Wade Shepard:  Ghost Cities of China
Jill Ciment:  Heroic Measures
Tom Drury:  The End of vandalism
Jenny Erpenbeck:  Wörterbuch (for my German readers)
Alexandra Fuller:  Don’t let’s go to the Dogs tonight
Robert Seethaler: A Whole Life
Elly Griffiths:  The Ghost Fields (D)
Atal Gawande:  Being Mortal
Ann Granger:  Dead in the Water (D)
Kent Haruf:  Our Souls at Night
Vaseem Khan:  The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra (D)
Attica Locke:  Pleasantville
G M Malliet:  Death and the Cozy Writer (D)
Alexander McCall Smith:  The Woman who walked in Sunshine
Robert Peston:  How do we fix this Mess?
Marilynne Robinson:  Gilead
Bapsi Sidhwa:  The Crow Eaters
W G Sebald:  Austerlitz
Magda Szabo:  Iza’s Ballad
Anne Tyler:  Searching for Caleb
Elizabeth Taylor:  A View of the Harbour

Fred Vargas: Dog will have its Day (D)

Anthony Trollope: Is he Popenjoy? 

 

Two more interesting quotes

I love collecting quotations which open my mind to new thoughts.  Here are two more, one from the detective writer, Michael Dibdin, and the other from an American author, Vivian Gornick, I know absolutely nothing about.  I don’t think I have read her book, which is apparently an autobiography, but I must have found the quotation tucked away somewhere.  I love the idea of “driving into a vast darkness” when I am reading a book which reveals a new side of human nature to me.

 

Michael Dibdin: A Long Finish

 

“You couldn’t be sure of doing the right thing.  All you could hope for, perhaps, was to do the wrong thing better, or at least more interestingly."

 

 

Vivian Gornick:  Fierce Attachments

 

“For Davey, reading was a laser beam – narrow, focused, intent – driving into a vast darkness.”

 

 

Our responses to the different elements

At different times we all display the whole range of emotions associated with the five elements.  One way of helping ourselves become more alive to the differences between these emotions is therefore to think back to any situations which have led us to experience them ourselves. 

I am sure we have all at different points in our lives felt ourselves in the grip of fear (Water), longed for some understanding of what we are going through (Earth), become irritated by somebody (Wood), wanted to share our happiness with others (Fire) or retreated into ourselves to deal with some loss (Metal).  At different times we will express each of these emotions reflecting reactions to the different stresses each element is being subjected to, irrespective of what our dominant element is.  We will therefore have at least some inkling of the effects within us of these different emotions.  If we extend this understanding to what we feel a patient of a particular element may experience as their dominant emotion, this will go some way to feeling ourselves into elements which are not our own.  It requires some persistent work to do this in such a way as to give us accurate feedback, but once we recognize how much our work is enhanced by an ability to understand within ourselves the emotional responses of patients of other elements, this will be an enormous help in pinpointing the right element and therefore responding appropriately to its needs.  For each element demands responses which will reassure it that we recognize what these needs are.

It is not only that we all feel more at ease in the familiar company created by our element, and therefore tend to think other people will be as well, we also like to spread our particular emotional sphere around us by trying to draw other people into it on the assumption that this is what these other people want as much as we do.  We therefore live our lives enveloped within a kind of cocoon which our particular element spreads around us, and in which we inevitably seek to draw those who approach us, since this is the emotional atmosphere we are familiar with. 

It is a useful experiment for us as five element acupuncturists to observe our own interactions with others very closely to see what kind of an emotional net we spread around those we meet.  We may be surprised to note, as I was, how often what we are offering others in these interactions is not in fact what they want.  In normal social situations this will not matter too much as we have all become used to accommodating ourselves to whatever the people around us demand of us, and usually manage to shrug off what we find irritating.  In a clinical situation, however, things are very different.  We are not there to demand of our patients that they cope with approaches which disturb them, but to adapt ourselves through our knowledge of the elements to what will make them feel sufficiently comfortable to relax and be themselves.  This is often the opposite of what happens in the world outside the practice room, and unfamiliar as this will be initially as we learn our craft, how successfully we manage to do this will depend upon some persistent work on our part.

Back from my 8th visit to China

I’m amazed to think that I have now been eight times to China.  Here I now sit back in London looking at the group photo of Liu Lihong, Mei, Guy and me, surrounded by the 90 people, practitioners and lay people alike, who spent a very happy, productive week with us, steeped in the elements, and learning how they can be used as part of an acupuncture discipline about which most of them have, until now, heard nothing at all or at least very little.  Obviously not all who come to our seminars are practitioners;   some just attend because they are fascinated by the connections between five element acupuncture and what they have studied in the classics, such as the Nei Jing.  But most want to use what they learn from us in their acupuncture practices, and have to decide at the end of the seminar whether they are brave enough to start incorporating what they have learnt into these practices.  It takes courage to embark upon what is to them a completely new discipline.  With great joy, I was also told that some of them are now teaching others the basics of five element acupuncture, creating a little pyramid of five element practitioners throughout China.

As a very important part of this development, the Tong You San He centre is establishing a new Foundation in Beijing for the study of traditional Chinese medicine, with its inauguration taking place in a few days’ time.  One of its branches will be the study and development of five element acupuncture.  I am honoured to have been asked to act as Honorary Adviser to this Foundation.  Five element acupuncture is therefore spreading its Chinese wings ever wider.

 

 

A reminder not to forget the basics : Windows of the Sky

I had a salutary lesson recently in the danger of forgetting the basics of what I do.  It showed me that it is unwise to ignore the principles that were drilled into me at acupuncture college all those years ago.  One of these concerned when to use the points called the Windows of the Sky.  We were told never to choose these points until we have given our patients at least eight treatments, because we need to be sure that a patient’s energy has been strengthened sufficiently to be able to cope with their effect.  As their name indicates, they are points which are there to open up a window on to a patient’s life.  We were warned that the light pouring into a patient’s spirit as a result of opening these Windows too early on in treatment may shine too brightly for them to cope with the reality flooding in.  The poet T S Eliot says this very well in one of his poems:  “Human kind cannot bear very much reality”.

The treatment I gave my patient this week provided me with proof of this.  Unwisely, instead of waiting to complete the number of treatments we were told we should, I selected these points at the 5^th treatment, thinking that since the patient had already reacted so well to his first few treatments, and, as he told me, was “trying to see a way forward” in his life, it would be appropriate to select the Windows to help him do this.  On his return for the next treatment he told me that he had felt very depressed immediately after he had seen me, and could find no explanation for this.  It was only when I reminded myself that this was just after I had done the Windows that I realized that it was likely that giving this treatment too soon had had the effect we were warned about.  Gently talking this through with him, it did indeed seem as if that he had been unable to cope with the insights into his life which these points had presented him with.  I realised then that I should have waited a little longer to select them.

This taught me, yet again, that we need to tread warily when using the Windows.  It reminded me that I should always ensure that a patient’s energy is strong enough to deal with the insights which are one of the gifts the Windows can bring when used wisely.

The elements' different relationships to other people - Part 2

In my blog of 23 October I wrote about the relationships Wood, Fire and Metal like to have with other people.  Now it is the turn of Earth and Water.

There is some similarity between what these two elements want to experience in their encounters with other people, and in each case they express more of a need than we have seen with the other three elements.  Both of these elements enjoy being in the midst of a group, Earth liking to be at its centre with others around it, and Water melding more into the group, each Water person like a drop of water absorbed into the great oceans of life.  Earth will demand more individual attention, whereas Water is most comfortable with safety in numbers.

This picture of Earth surrounded by other people, preferably at their centre, metaphorically echoes the original five element diagram in which the other four elements circle around Earth in their midst.  With Earth the most important thing is that those surrounding it face towards it so that they can take careful note of what it wishes to say.  It is not enough, as it is with Water, for it to disappear into the group, for then its words will not be heard and understood as they should be, an understanding which is a necessary part of its need to process its own thoughts properly.  Processing is, after all, one of Earth’s most important functions.  It takes in, digests and then processes all that comes to it, both physically in the shape of food and mentally in the shape of thoughts.  It then has to pass on what it has processed as physical food worked on by the stomach, and as mental food in terms of thoughts and words worked on by its mind, which it then invites others to hear.

I have always found it interesting to note the somewhat confusing messages Water seems always to be transmitting.  On the one hand, as I have said, it has a need in some way to be swallowed up in the whole, to merge itself with those around it, and on the other, it has the quite contrasting, but less overtly obvious need to rise above the masses around it, and thus to rise to the top.  It is known to be the element of ambition and will-power, and just as water in nature exerts by far the strongest force when it is unleashed in storms and tsunamis, so a Water person will tend to achieve whatever it sets its mind to, often pushing aside those who stand in its way, as storm waters submerge all in their path.  Its relationship to others can therefore often seem somewhat ambiguous.  Appearing at ease in the company of others, it can then surprise them by pushing them aside, determinedly and often unobtrusively, in its fight to get to the top.  A Water person might well be the one in an office who, perhaps to others’ surprise, is offered the promotion these others had wanted and expected to be theirs.

And yet, despite this focused struggle to succeed in whatever it does, with little concern for how this affects others and often at their expense, it constantly seeks reassurance from those around it to still the fears lurking deep within it, fear being its dominant emotion.  

A patient’s comments after his element was changed from Fire to Earth

Here is what a fellow practitioner told me after changing her patient’s treatment from the Fire to the Earth element.  After one treatment on Earth, the patient told her that he 'felt a profound change. Something felt very different'.

I am always delighted when I receive such strong confirmation of the effects of homing in on the right element.  My own patients have used different words to say the same thing, such as “I know who I am”, or “I feel myself now”.  That awareness of self that treatment helps patients to connect with is one of the most moving gifts our practice can offer them.     

The elements’ different relationships to other people - Part 1

Some time ago I had the opportunity to ask several practitioners who were all of the Wood element what was important to them in terms of their interactions with others.  After some discussion amongst themselves they all agreed that what they always wanted was to “engage” with people. Interestingly, two of the definitions given in the dictionary for the word are “to interlock” and “to bring troops into battle”.  Engagement is making some kind of direct contact with another person, and also implies some kind of physical contact, like boxers engaging in a fight.  It represents to me quite the reverse of somebody “walking on by”, which is more the action I associate with the Metal element’s desire to avoid just the kind of close encounter which the word “to engage” seems to describe.  In their description of what they feel most comfortable with, this group of Wood people gave proof of their element’s enjoyment of face-to-face encounters.  They are at ease with meetings with other people which contain some quality of a contest.  Again, we can contrast this with another element, Fire’s encounters, which lack this sense of competitiveness.

What Fire wants of its interactions with others is instead not a contest, but to set up relationships, gifts which the Heart, buried within this element, wants to offer all it encounters.  The challenges which Wood offers those it meets become in Fire’s hands offerings it hopes to give others, ultimately of course the gift of love.  The warm smile with which Fire greets everybody is in itself such an offering, and if this is not responded to warmly in return it will be viewed as a rebuff, a rejection of this gift.  Often we will see Fire people persist again and again with their offerings of smiles and laughter in an attempt to draw some reaction of warmth from the other person.  Wood, in the same position of being denied the engagement it looks for from another person, will simply metaphorically shrug its shoulders and move on, something Fire will find difficult to do, as it will judge the lack of response to its approaches to be a reproach to itself and will therefore try even harder to extract a response.

It is not a response of any kind which Metal wishes for.  Far from this.  It will view all encounters with other people as a test of its judgement.  They are still challenges, as in some respects all meetings with other people are, because they demand responses from each person’s elements, and in particular responses with which a guardian element feels at ease.  Metal’s challenge lies in the area of how accurately it assesses the value of any encounter.  This assessment will also consist in evaluating its own reactions, for all that Metal does includes a high level of self-evaluation, its task being to weigh up all things, itself included, on the scales of some value they assign to them. 

Metal judges itself as harshly, if not more harshly, than others.  And to judge you have to stand back and observe as impartially as you can.  So there is nothing here of the close involvement of one person with another that Fire strives for, or the challenging encounters Wood enjoys.  Instead, there is always a space around Metal which it builds for itself so that it can give itself some distance from which it hopes to view things in as detached a way as possible.  Of course, the degree of detachment and the amount of space depends upon the level of balance within a Metal person.  The more unbalanced the Metal element is, the less it can stand back and observe as impartially as it should, and the more its judgement will then be affected.

And what about Earth and Water, then?  That is for another blog.

Being happy is healthy

The following is an extract from an article in What the Doctors Don’t Tell You (8 October 2015):

“Be happy: it could save your life if you have a heart problem

People who are happy and retain a positive attitude also have a healthier heart—and that can be the difference between life and death for people who already have a heart condition.

Positive people are living longer after they’ve been diagnosed with a heart condition, say researchers who tracked the health and psychological outlook of more than a thousand patients with coronary heart disease.

They were more likely to be alive five years later than others who had a negative outlook or suffered from depression.”

It’s good to have this confirmation from Western medicine of something acupuncturists have always known.  The Heart, an official of the Fire element, the element which brings us joy, must indeed be healthier the happier we are. 

 

 

Two laments for the end of an era and one happy thing

I start this blog with my laments.  The little café, Stefano’s, which I would pop into daily on my way to the clinic, and which I wrote about in my blog of 29^th March, has now closed and been taken over by what looks like a very much more upmarket place.  I think I can no longer call it a café, but would describe it more as a small patisserie.  And my favourite espresso has nearly doubled in price.  Stefano and his Italian family seem to have been the last survivors around here of a time when small family-owned businesses ran a one-shop enterprise.  Now the coffee chains, such as Starbucks, with their standardized fare, are taking over everywhere, perhaps understandably in view of the rents charged.  Even this new little patisserie has other branches elsewhere in the up-and-coming areas of London.

My second lament is for the puzzling substitution in train announcements of the good old-fashioned word “passenger” by the word “customer”.  I wonder who decided that this change was necessary.  Did a group of railway executives with nothing better to do solemnly sit around a table to discuss the merits of the one word against the other?  And why change it at all?  When I hear “passengers” I always thrill slightly to the thought of all those large ocean liners, like the Queen Mary, or indeed the Titanic, or people climbing aboard The Great Western  or the Orient Express.  When discussing the Titanic disaster, is anybody likely to ask, “How many customers were lost?”  The word now only reminds me of the money I paid today for my rail ticket to a much less exotic destination, Sussex.

But to relieve the slight gloom of writing about these two rather sad things, I tried to think of something good that has happened to me, and came up with quite a few examples, none more heartwarming than a little incident that occurred in the street a few days ago.  There was a different Big Issue seller from the usual one outside my local supermarket, and I thought I recognized him from seeing him somewhere else.  He smiled at me, and said, “You may not remember me, but you’re the lady who called to me to come across the street in Bond Street some time ago, so that you could buy a copy from me.”  Now I recalled that this must have been over a year ago.  So he had remembered this small act of kindness from all those months back.  Perhaps too many people treat Big Issue sellers as nuisances, and walk on by, and too few as people, trying hard to put their lives together.  We smiled at each other like old friends, and I walked on with my heart a little warmer.