Structure without rigidity

Many of you reading this newsletter have some kind of health and wellness plan or practice that you engage with. You’re interested in taking care of yourself and the people you love and you’re intrinsically motivated to learn more.

When you reflect on your personal health practice, what kind of structure do you see?

Did you find something that worked well for you years ago? Have you been doing it ever since?

Do you tend to change habits and try new things frequently?

Are you often looking for an expert or guide?

What kinds of ideas, suggestions, and traditions do you tend to like?

Every person is different and generalizations can be tough, but I tend to see two broad categories of challenges related to this idea in my clinical practice.

There are people who love structure. Rules, lists of do’s and don’ts, a list of steps to follow. Often, people with this tendency come to trust the “rules” more than they trust themselves, and they may miss out on a lot of important nuances that relates to their health and well-being.

There are also people who are intimidated by structure and/or do not have confidence in themselves that they can and will stick to whatever “rules” they have been told they need to follow. For these individuals, a detailed protocol might feel repulsive or function as yet another barrier to vitality.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I can be more supportive of the clients I work with specifically in regard to helping them develop greater trust within themselves, which has led me to the question:

What does it look like for someone to know what they need today?

It is so very important that we are all able to observe how we feel on a very granular basis - day to day - and make small adjustments, regardless of the system, structure, or set of values we most resonate with.

This is the difference between embracing structure vs being ruled by rigidity.

To me, this is a bit similar to what happens when we rearrange the furniture or artwork in our homes. The overall structure remains unchanging, but we place things in relationship to other objects and ourselves in a way that opens the spaces up or creates more coziness - a way that feels good and works for us right now.

For the most part, we don’t want to be working with the same herbs for months on end without changing things up. We also don’t want to get stuck “following a rule” that once served us and now doesn’t just because we’re not sure how to listen to our bodies and/or we’re afraid to mess something up by making changes.

When you wake up in the morning, you can notice if you feel heat in your body and make choices that are in harmony with your observations. Maybe you don’t need a cooling, bitter herbal tea every morning, but today you do. Maybe some days you like to have toast for breakfast, but the heating nature of the wheat + the heating nature of double baking (the bread was baked at some point - either by you or a distributor - then toasted) introduces too much heat into your body, slowing digestion and causing other symptoms like those of GERD. If you notice signs of heat, you can reach for foods with a cooling energetic profile, and perhaps reincorporate bread another time.

In this way, you give yourself a lot of freedom with choices that are guided by the structure of Chinese medicine, rather than sticking to a one-size-fits-all rule that enforces the same choice every day.

Maybe you’re thinking you don’t know how to do this.

I see where you’re coming from - you may be new to Chinese medicine and feel unsure of how to start or you’ve been out of touch with your personal needs for a long time.

But I want to remind you that the role of the practitioner is to help the individual help themselves, and it’s totally possible for you to learn to notice these shifts within yourself.

Warmly,

Artemisia

Clinical Herbalist | Chinese Medicine

innervillagehealth.com