What Helps the Most

Acupuncture is an amazing form of health care. It helps the body perform two of its main functions: healing and repair. Plus, acupuncture-based therapies are comfortable and also comforting.

For me, comforting includes respectful and caring. And, yet, does caring mean there is no additional pain? Sometimes even care-ful action can stimulate a healing response in the body that is uncomfortable.

For example, sometimes a sprained ankle feels worse with initial treatment because treatment helps the swelling go down (which is a good thing) but now the swelling is no longer splinting the injury and the tendency to overuse the ankle shows up again before it has completely healed.

Another example: Some years ago, a client came to me complaining of a constant migraine headache that had lasted 3 years. While treating the headache using ear acupuncture points, I had reason to inquire about grief in her life. She burst into tears and said that her son had died of suicide. She had not been able to help him. When asked how long ago that was, she said 3 years. She looked up at me through her tears, now understanding her old headache. She cried and cried some more, reliving the devastating feelings she had held back.

Her grief and her realization were not comfortable. Perhaps she had grieved the loss of her son back then, but clearly she had NOT grieved and let go of the guilt that she could not help him. She allowed the discomfort during our session, and then she left my office pain-free. The headache never returned. She was able to let go more deeply of her past loss and live her life moving forward.

Many an ailment has some old tendency or weight attached to it: old labels, judgments, and choices. Even diagnoses can act as a slow-down in the healing process. What works best is letting go of these considerations of the PAST. I offer techniques to help with this, and freedom and lightness can be a noticeable result. This is called the Teeter-Totter Principle SM.* At Come Alive Health, I help you explore that weightless moment at the top.

*The Teeter-Totter Principle SM comes from the works of my husband, Hawkeye Richardson and his non-profit organization, Tell Me A Good Story.