Someone Gets It

You know that amazing feeling you get when someone expresses exactly what you are feeling for you?

I felt that this morning, when I read this blog post. Reesa perfectly described an experience I have been living alone with for about 27 years. Until around 4 hours ago I didn’t know there was anyone else in the whole world who feels exactly the way I do about making phone calls, and for a brief moment I felt an intense fellowship with Reesa. She had taken away a burden I hadn’t know I carried – being alone with a very specific aspect of the human experience.

Sometimes, this sense of connection is the beginning of healing

Living with pain can be terribly lonely. People around you might try to be understanding, sympathetic and supportive. But that doesn’t mean they get it. They can’t feel what you are living through, and of course you wouldn’t want them to. But humans are social animals, and being the alone with an experience can make us feel, at an instinctive level, that there is something wrong with us. Something that prevents our connecting with other people.

One of the things I love about Chinese medicine is the fact that our diagnostic language is symbolic. I know this is one of the things that makes it hard for the wider medical community to accept Chinese medicine. Doctors don’t have a conceptual framework for dealing with a diagnosis of Liver invading the Spleen, Damp Heat in the Bladder, or Cold Stagnation in the Liver Channel.

But I think most women who have had a UTI can understand the meaning of Damp Heat in the Bladder, and men who have experienced Cold Stagnation in the Liver Channel agree with the description. In the poetic language of Chinese medicine, people can actually identify with their diagnosis, and sometimes putting words to what they are feeling is one of the most important aspects of the treatment.

Over the years, I have seen so many patients react with an amazing sense of peace to hearing that the Water energy that should be flowing through their hip has frozen, or that their Wood energy is overgrowing their Earth like a plant that needed to be repotted. Descriptions like these may make little sense in medical terms, but for some people, the fact that someone, anyone, came up with a description of their condition that they can relate to is revolutionary.

All of a sudden someone gets them. And they are not alone.

What about you? Have you ever felt like your Water is putting out your Fire?

Hi! I’m Havva Mahler, a practitioner of Chinese medicine: acupuncture, Chinese herbs, reflexology, tuina, sotai and a bunch of other words you’ve probably never heard of ?

I also spend a lot of time thinking and learning about human behavior, because so much of our health is dependent on our actions.

You can find more thoughts on health, wellness and personal growth on my blog, and you can also sign up here to get future blog posts delivered by carrier pigeon email.