The Road Less Traveled

“I’m a mess!” Kara* exclaimed at her first visit to the clinic. “I’m not sleeping well, my
digestion is off, my face looks dry and tired, and I always feel short-tempered with my
kids.” Tears welled up in her eyes, so I passed her a tissue.

“You’re not a mess,” I tried to reassure her. “You just need a tune-up. You’ll be feeling
better in a few weeks.”

Many women like Kara have come to me over the years feeling as if their health and
vibrancy have left them. They feel as if they are falling apart at the seams. But after
just a few weeks of acupuncture, plus some dietary tweaks and maybe some herbs,
their overall health does a turnabout. They sleep more deeply, their energy improves.
And as they gain momentum, they start exercising more, eating better, etc. Sometimes,
the more at loose ends a woman feels, the easier it is to gain ground with just a few
adjustments.

But Kara’s condition did not improve at the rate we’d both hoped for.

At her fourth visit, she had yet to order the herbs I had prescribed for her. And when we
talked about how the shifts in her diet were going, she lamented that it was sooo hard
for her to stay away from her nightly cookie habit (which the herbs were supposed to
help her with, btw), and she hadn’t shifted away from her breakfast of just toast.** She
looked visibly relaxed and centered after every acupuncture treatment, and resolved to
do more self-care at home. But after a couple of days she’d fall back into her old habits,
thus making little progress. She would castigate herself at her appointments for
allowing herself to slip backward, but week after week saw the same results. She just
couldn’t get out of her own rut.

This, my friends, is the conundrum we face as human beings, and the space a
practitioner must hold lightly. Changing habits is usually difficult. It’s not about
“willpower.” It’s about tiptoeing past the sentinel of our brains: the limbic system.

Deep in our skull, the limbic system processes information for the sole purpose of
keeping us safe. Change of any kind will set off its alarm bells. “Danger! Danger!” our
limbic brain warns, anxious to keep us on the known path, even if that means sticking to
habits that can in themselves be dangerous. It demands consistency, no matter what.

So what’s to be done? Are we doomed to stay in our old ruts? Are we prisoners of our
own minds?

Absolutely not. There are a couple of ways to sneak around the mind’s panic button.

First, make changes slowly. Start an exercise program with just a ten minute walk per
day rather than going out for a long hike on day one. Read for five minutes per day for
a few weeks before checking out War and Peace from the library. Baby steps, so your
mind and body have no idea what’s really happening!

Secondly, spend some time thinking about what changes you want to make, and then
imagine yourself as the kind of person that is already experiencing that change. Make it
seem real to yourself, and have some emotions around it: gratitude, self-appreciation,
joy. This may seem silly or like “pretending,” but it’s akin to the adage “fake it ‘til you
make it.” Your brain will follow your thoughts, and start to fill in the steppingstone
actions and attitudes you’ll need to get to your destination.

For Kara, things started turning around when she wrote down how she wanted to feel in
her body, and how she wanted her days to flow. She unearthed a feeling that she
somehow didn’t deserve to spend time on self-care, that her kids always had to come
first. And almost as soon as that thought popped up, her rational mind scoffed: “but if I
don’t take care of myself, who will take care of my kids? And what will they learn from
the way I treat myself?” Good questions, right?

Then we broke down her treatment plan into microscopic pieces, so she could manage
doing one small change per week. After a few weeks, Kara finally felt her vitality return,
and it lasted between acupuncture treatments. She told me: “My son said to me the
other day, ‘Mom, you seem happier.’ And I really am!”

And THAT is what good health is all about.

*The patient’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.

** Quick rant: Countless people have asked me: what’s wrong with toast for breakfast?
So here’s my answer: look, really look, at that dry piece of bread. Does it look like it
has any nutrition to offer you? Any juiciness? Any life? Or is it just there to soak up your
morning coffee? What might happen to your skin, your hair, your health if you turned to
an egg with some veggies for breakfast? Or even a small cup of rich bone broth with a
squeeze of lemon and some pink salt? Try it for a few weeks and find out!

This article was written by a human.