青柳诊所手记41

我的不少病人都催着我写我的诊所手记，但我因为工作忙，总是一拖再拖。还有的人问我们能不能搞一个静思班专门教大家静坐和能量疗法？这是我和大师兄有一天乐于做的事情，我们也在朝着这个目标努力着。但现在时机还是不大成熟。

上个月诊所最大的亮点就是帮助一个还有三天就到预产期的妇女催产。她已经累得多日没有睡觉了，体力非常不好。她只希望孩子快点生下来。我们用气功、针灸和中药帮助了她。我给她做气功时，她说明显地感到子宫在收缩。大师兄给她在至阴穴扎针时，她说她可以感到孩子的体位正在发生变化。第二天一早，孩子就在医院顺利生产了，几乎没有什么曲折。孩子的爸爸从医院给我们寄来照片，那是一张一出生就会微笑的粉红色的脸！

最近得呼吸道疾病的人比较多，而中药，就是此时大显身手的时候了。人们往往认为中医只能治疗慢性病，其实在急症方面，中医有着不可忽略的优势。我们的诊所，在这方面，已经积累相当经验了。

当然对于慢性病，中医也能够起到很好的调节作用。我今天想特别谈到的一点就是慢性痛症，因为作为一个治疗师，我们每天面对最多的就是病人的疼痛。表面上看起来这些痛症几乎都是来自于身体方面的疼痛，比如肩膀、脖子、腰、腕等等，但渐渐地，随着临床经验的增多，我发现其实大多数的慢性疼痛不过是以肌肉骨骼关节这样的表面症状体现出来，而其最根本的原因，还是跟一个人的生长环境，成长经历，情感世界，人生态度，性格嗜好等等有直接的关系。

这些慢性痛症看上去就如一座座形态相仿的冰山，而我们看到的痛，远远不足这座冰山的10%的体积；剩下的那90%，它还在黑暗的海底里藏着呢。而作为一个医师，我们也不能潜游到海底里去探个究竟，我们能做的也只是从浮在水面上的冰块去揣测水下大约是什么样的形状。

正如世界上没有两片一模一样的树叶，世界上也没有两种一模一样的疼痛。

喜欢怀疑的你，也许会问：难道我的肩膀痛不是跟我的不良姿势有关？或者跟使用电脑手机等过久有关？

当然有关。但像这一类的疼痛，在改变生活方式和工作方式以及进行了适当的治疗之后，它应该就已经大为减弱甚至不复存在了。

我说的是那种无论你如何改变，似乎也无法缓和或根治的病痛。

你相信吗？每一种负面的能量，无论是来自于哪里，甚至来自于你几乎已经忘却的童年，都可能在你的经络里留下一个瘀滞点？这些瘀滞点积少成多，最后让我们的气血能量大大受阻，然后就变成了你今天挥之不去的疼痛或病症？

要去掉这个令人烦恼的问题，或者至少跟它和谐相处，你必须学会重新组装自己的能量场。

我大学快毕业时，曾经因为一次巨大的车祸，几乎全身粉碎性骨折。我也因此而差点失去了生命。后来医生好不容易把我挽救回来，他们同时告诉我的是：从此你会在轮椅上度过余生。

经过了好几十个小时的大手术，在病床上躺了整整十个月，我的纤弱的身体从上到下都打着厚厚的石膏，手脚都不能动一动，连手指头都不能动。翻身当然不可以，甚至厕所都是在床上上的。那么年轻的我，身体却要面对如此巨大的疼痛，心灵的疼痛就更不用说了。那时我唯一能做的就是看着窗外小小的一角蓝天，微笑、呼吸，感恩自己竟然活着。那时，我不能动自己的身体，却可动自己的脑子。每天，我都在脑子里回想我生命中发生过的一切，问自己是否有什么可以修正的地方。如果有，我就默默思考将来该如何去把它们修正好。如果我认定那是我所无能为力的事，我就把它们同着我的祝福一起埋葬掉。那，是我生命中的一个特殊时期，也是我学会重新组合自己的身心能量的时期。

十个月再下地，我用的是拐杖，没有用轮椅。再过了一两年，我恢复得非常好，至少从外观上看去，没有谁看得出我曾经历过一次可怕的巨大的创伤。

如果你现在问我，能不能够帮你缓解你身体的痛苦？

我当然能。可是，我必须诚实地告诉你：如果你想真正疗愈你自己，永远告别你的疼痛，你只有学会审察你的生活，重新组合你的能量场。疼痛并不是惩罚，而是一种语言，一种语言在唤醒我们去了解自己身体和心灵的需要。

每一种慢性病症或者疼痛，它的后面都有一个令人心酸的故事。作为故事主人公的你，必须学会去解读这个故事。当你学会解读它，你已经是一个全新的你了，你不但可以疗愈自己，也可以帮助别人踏上他们的疗愈之旅， 你相信吗？

Whispering of Willows 41

By Dr. Anna Zhao

https://whisperingwillowclinic.com/

Some of my patients inquire when I will publish my next Whispering of Willows, but I sometimes put it off.  I responded something about being too busy with work, of course. Some people asked if we could set up a meditation class at out clinic to teach meditation and energy healing therapy. This is something that both Dr. Daniel and I would love to do one day, and we are striving towards this goal, but the timing is not quite right yet.

We really have been busy – it is not just my excuse. The highlight in our hectic times of late was helping to induce labor for a lady who was only three days away from her due date. She was exhausted from a lack of sleep and her physical strength was deteriorating rapidly. She wanted her baby to be born as soon as possible. We helped her along with Qigong, Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. When I was doing Qigong on her, she said she could clearly feel her uterus contracting. When Dr. Daniel gave her a needle in her small toe, she said she could feel the baby's position was changing. Early next morning, their baby was delivered smoothly at the hospital with no eventful complications. Later her husband sent us a picture of a happy content newborn – such a cutie!

Recently, we have encountered an increase in respiratory problems.  It is a good thing that Traditional Chinese Medicine is quite effective in dealing with this kind of issue. People sometimes tend to regard TCM as an alternative way to deal with chronic diseases, but actually, TCM has quite a few techniques and advantages to treat such urgent conditions.

No doubt, TCM does help with chronic diseases. What I want to talk specifically about is chronic pain, because as a therapist, it is often encountered – almost daily. On the surface, it seems that these pains are identical differing only in their location - shoulder, neck, lower back, wrist, etc. But gradually, with my increasing clinical experience, I realized that most of what we call chronic pain is not as completely physical as we would like to think. Our body does demonstrate chronic problems in our muscles, or tendons, or joints, but these are only the façade of the real cause. Much of this chronic pain we have, directly or indirectly, stems from our foundational years as we matured – our childhood, our living environment, our emotional state, our attitude towards life, our personality, our likes and dislikes, etc.

Many types of chronic pain appear like similar shaped icebergs, but this iceberg barely shows 10% of its volume above the water. The remaining 90% is still hidden unseen in the dark ocean.  As a medical practitioner, we can't peer directly to find out what's really going on. All we can do is surmise from the ice floating above the water to determine what kind of conditions lurk beneath the dark water.

If no two leaves are alike in the world, there are no two identical pains.

Being skeptical you may ask: Isn’t my shoulder pain related to my bad posture? Or due to spending too much time with my computer or mobile phone? Of course it's related to this. But a pain like that should ease after changing your lifestyle, work habits, and appropriate treatment.

The kind of pain I’m talking about is a chronic lingering pain, that no matter what you do, you can’t seem to shake it off or get free from it.

I believe that every negative energy, no matter its origin, even from your almost forgotten childhood, can leave an imprint, or what TCM refers to as a stagnant point, in your meridian. These stagnation points once accumulated sufficiently form a blockage in the blood and energy system, eventually manifesting as a lingering pain in your body.

To liberate yourself from this kind of pain or lingering symptoms, or at least learn to coexist with it, you must learn to reassemble your own energy field.

When I was about to graduate from college, I was in a huge car accident and suffered comminuted fractures all over my body. I almost lost my life because of it. The doctors managed to bring me back to life, but also frankly told me: from now on, you will spend your life in a wheelchair.

I endured dozens of hours of major surgeries, and was kept in a hospital bed for ten months. My body was covered in heavy plaster from top to bottom. I couldn't move my hands or feet, or even my fingers. Nor could I turn over. Even the toilet work had to be done in bed.

I was very young, and had to face such excruciating pain in my body everyday, not to mention the mental and emotional pain. The only thing I could do at that time was staring at the window where I could see a small corner of blue sky. I simply taught myself to smile, and to breathe, and to be grateful that I was alive. When pain limits moving your body, please tell yourself: “fortunately, I still can move my braincells”. That is what I did at that time.  Every day I meditated and visited the depths of my soul and used my time to re-examine everything I could recall in my life experience. I faced everything squarely, and for those I could fix, I developed plans to work on them in the future. For the ones I could not repair, I gave them blessings and buried them for good. That turned a nightmare time into a most particularly beneficial era when I learned to regroup my energy.

When my trembling feet retouched the ground after ten months, I used crutches, but not a wheelchair. With the passing of another a year or two, I recovered so well that, at least from a distance, no one could tell that I had experienced a terrible and devastating accident.

If you ask me now: Dr. Anna, can you help me relieve my pain or chronic conditions?

Yes. However, I must tell you honestly: If you want to truly heal yourself and say farewell to your pain forever, you have to learn to reexamine your life and learn to reorganize your energy field. Pain is not punishment, but a language that beckons us to pay attention to the needs of both our body and soul, and reveals in quiet moments how to make these repairs.

Behind every chronic pain or problem, there is a heartbreaking story. You are the protagonist of your life story; you must learn to interpret it. Once you have learned how, you will be transformed. By then, not only can you heal yourself, you can also lend a hand to those on their healing journey. Isn’t that a cool thing to do?