Psycho-Spiritual Evolution
In Classical Chinese Medicine, there are “Three Treasures:” vitality, energy, and spirit. When all three are integrated, an individual can realize his/her full potential. An acupuncture point can be an opening to your deepest healing, a doorway to the next stage of the evolution of your consciousness.
Living in Accordance with the Essential Self
When a person is able to recognize his or her purpose and live in accordance with it, this person is said to have fulfilled their destiny, according to Taoism. To do so requires a connection between the consciousness or “shen” housed by the heart, and the Kidneys, which contain the will and our potential. The acupuncture meridians that deal with our life’s curriculum and how our innate potential expresses itself and unfolds through time are known collectively as the Extraordinary Vessels. They are indeed “extraordinary:” by accessing their qi, we can tap into the level of the blueprint, the level of programming that affects the development and unfolding of the Essential Self. They deal with such issues as:
*Becoming aware of your essential nature or curriculum in this life
*Lack of support early in life, limiting beliefs that “run in the family”
*Issues of trust, bonding, the ability to be nurtured
*Confidence, risk-taking, making the world yours
*Shifting the sense of self, breaking free of socially determined roles
*Stored guilt, shame, insecurity, traumas
*How you see yourself and how you see the world
Often, these deep constitutional-level issues have been dealt with in talk therapy, but still hold sway because the energy is still stuck in the body. Acupuncture can serve as a tremendously powerful catalyst to transform the energetic holding patterns that underpin deeply defining core issues.
Survival Strategies
Many people are not fulfilling their potential in this life because their energy is tied up in survival strategies – social masks that do not reflect the deepest essential self. Survival strategies are patterns like perfectionism, people-pleasing, and playing it safe, which may have served well at one point in life, but when they have outgrown their usefulness, can get in the way of being who we really are. If your energy is going into keeping a social mask alive, there is less available to nurture your soul’s purpose.
Acupuncture can help lay survival strategies to rest by accessing the Divergent Meridians, a set of channels which connect the survival level (defensive qi) with the constitutional level (Jing). These channels are often employed in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, when the body is at war with itself. In a sense, that’s what a personality-level survival strategy is: an affront to the Essential self. Points known as “windows of the sky” which help to alter our perception of the world, and “doorways to the earth” which help change how we feel in our physical bodies are often implemented to aid in Divergent Meridian treatments.
Obstacles to Living at Our Highest Potential: The Emotions
To quote qi gong Master Liu He: “the moonlight won’t reflect on a choppy lake –only on a calm one.” It’s very difficult to get quiet enough to perceive what the deepest self is saying with strong emotions churning up the waters. When emotions are balanced, we are better able to be “reflective,” to tune into our deepest selves, and to live in the present moment.
Emotions are simply qi: energy. And the nature of all energy in the universe is that it moves. It flows. This is reflected in our own language as well. The English word “emotion” comes from the Latin “emovere” which means “to set in motion.” Emotions need to move. When we suppress or repress an emotion, we prevent it from moving out, which leads to disharmony. Likewise, when we confuse an emotion with our natural state and identify with it, we get the same result: that emotion sticks around and dominates our state of being. Since the whole point of acupuncture is to help qi flow differently, it can be a powerful catalyst for emotional repatterning.
Each emotion correlates with a meridian system in the body: anger has to do with the Liver system, fear depletes the Kidney system, worry affects the Spleen, anxiety taxes the Heart, sadness weighs on the Lungs. But because all the systems support each other, a problem that originates in one area has the potential to affect all others. In helping to facilitate a free flow of emotions, we help the Heart to transcend and integrate them. When we are no longer at the mercy of our emotions, we are better able to hear the deepest parts of our selves speaking to us.