Are you wondering how herbs, qi gong, and meditation can support you? They each have the potential to help ease both physical discomfort (ie like pain with menstrual cycle, issues with menopause, digestive upset, sinus issues etc) and emotional discomfort like anxiety or depression. They can facilitate physical ease, emotional ease, and help the body be a more comfortable and comforting place to be.
What I really want to talk about, though, is how these practices actually work. Any practitioner of Chinese medicine needs to understand what the physical, emotional, and spiritual experience you are having means and how to apply the resources of herbs, qi gong, meditation, food, or acupuncture to support you in shifting that experience. As an practitioner of Chinese herbal and energetic medicine, I have to have a framework to assess which herbs/qi gong exercises/meditations are the best ones to use for each unique individual presentation and how to understand if they are working and make adjustments as you heal and change. But how does Chinese medicine answer that question?
In Western culture we tend to think of disease in very logical and linear ways, focusing on the concrete and physical signs and symptoms, such as a sore throat, headache, joint pain, etc. Western medicine tends to treat something after establishing a quantifiable diagnosis that fits specific physical parameters, like diabetes or high blood pressure, or colitis. While Chinese medicine also can be used to understand specific and quantifiable symptoms, it can illuminate subtle clues your body, emotions, and spirit offer that things might not be exactly on track or simply need additional support to navigate a big transition, life change, or a period of internal growth and expansion (i.e. this could be something feels off or not right, excessively experiencing an emotion like worry, fear or anger, not sleeping well, digestion is off, etc). These subtle clues offer wisdom and insights about how to best support yourself.
This is so profound and significant. Your body is wise. You have intelligence and wisdom living in the cells of your body. Your body is speaking to you and giving you valuable information about what is working and what is not and how to move forward in a way that aligns with your highest self. Chinese medicine offers a roadmap or language for understanding what the subtle clues are telling you and how your physical and emotional symptoms of discomfort fit into a pattern of disharmony.
The more attuned we are to our bodies, the more we notice subtle changes, even seemingly small elements, that feel off or out of sync. Chinese medicine offers a framework to discern how physical and emotional symptoms of discomfort fit into patterns of disharmony. Simply put, there are patterns of energy flow in the body that Chinse medicine has categorized and explained using several different diagnostic frameworks, one of the most significant of which is the five organ systems – heart, spleen, lungs, kidney, liver.
As a practitioner of Chinese herbal and energetic medicine, I am trained to see how each of the five organ systems is doing individually and how they are working together as a team. Chinese medicine works with correspondences. This means that the time of day, the location in the body, the sensory organ impacted, the quality and type of pain all offer, the body tissues (skin, muscle, bone, etc.), the tongue, and the pulse all offer information that give insight into how the organ systems are functioning. For example, issues with the eyes tend to point to the liver organ system, bone issues point to the kidneys, premenstrual pain tends to point to the liver. There are also symptoms that point to how two organs are working together, like deep inhalation as a relationship between the lungs and kidneys, losing control over your emotions as a relationship between the heart and liver, or dream disturbed sleep/insomnia/anxiety as a relationship between the heart and kidneys.
Once you understand the organ system or systems that are involved, you can also see how specific herbs, food, meditations, or qi gong exercises that can help create a new pattern of energy flow in the body that better supports you. Herbs can bolster and strengthen the physical level (jing) and help you feel more sturdy and supported, both physically (jing), emotionally (qi) and spiritually (shen). It is like wearing a new groove into the energetic flow and it needs to be reinforced, which is why we often discuss how these multiple different approaches of herbs, food choices, acupuncture, mediation practices, and qi gong exercises can assist in establishing a new pattern.
Medical qi gong (Chinese medicine energy work) and a qi gong and/or meditation practice are other ways to disrupt the flow of energy in the body to help establish a more supportive pattern. Disrupting the flow of a habitual or programmed response gives you space and opportunity to create a new flow, one that serves you and who you either have grown or are growing into. An individual daily practice helps you develop the ability to feel that flow and understand what is out of alignment so you can use the specific tools like movement, meditation, sound, and visualization that focus your intention to help you consciously choose and sustain a new pattern.
There is a revolutionary idea embedded in the very structure of Chinese medicine. By observing and classifying what happens in nature and in our bodies when things are flowing smoothly and in balance and harmony, as well as what nature and the body look like when there is excess or deficiency, Chinese medicine offers a way of explaining where you are in this present moment, as well as specific steps you can take to restore balance and harmony within yourself. This is true whether you have a specific diagnosis in western medicine or whether you do not.
Chinese herbal and energetic medicine can provide support to you if you are in a transitional place in your life, like leaving or starting a new relationship, navigating a loss and the grief that comes with it, or adopting new habits or rhythms that do not feel comfortable or established. Chinese medicine can be helpful in supporting your physical body as you practice disrupting habitual patterning, in helping you strengthen your awareness of habitual responses, and in sustaining new choices with herbal formulas, with qi gong exercises, and with meditation.
Chinese medicine can often be combined with allopathic medicine. Whatever treatment you are receiving, there are always steps you can take to become more aware of what is happening in your body and what your body is communicating with you. There may be situations in which herbs are not indicated, but where meditation and qi gong practices may be a better fit. If in doubt, it is always wise to consult your healthcare practitioner and ask questions to better understand what the possibilities are for you and your situation.
I want to close by offering a resource to assist you in bringing your awareness to the subtleties of the five organ systems and how they work together. It is a free course you can sign up for on the homepage of my sister site, www.innerradianceinstitute.com called “What is Your inner Infrastructure”. It is a four part video series, each of which is approximately 30 minutes, that provides a deeper dive into what I lovingly refer to as your inner infrastructure. I also offer more personalized assistance of private consultations for medical qi gong, qi gong and meditation instruction, and herbal medicine. Please reach out through phone or text (336-739-0317) or email (4branchescmc@gmail.com) with any questions or to figure out if a consultation is a good next step for you and your situation.
