Puzzles + Chinese Medicine
On my recent trip to Queensland, there was a bit of rain, so I got to wrestle with a puzzle of Van Gogh’s Starry Night (above).
Spoiler: it makes a really hard puzzle.
As I was going along, I realised how much doing a puzzle is like seeing a Chinese Medicine practitioner (and really, any health practitioner to some degree).
Initially, there’s a big box of many pieces and it can be a bit hard to know where to start. Generally, I start with the outside edges (I think most people do, because it’s the most tangible option given you’re looking for pieces with at least one flat edge, but if you’re a starting-from-the-middle person, I love that for you).
In Chinese Medicine, if there is any sign of exterior or acute symptoms (e.g. sniffles, sore throat, chills and fever), we start there before moving to the interior, generally more chronic, symptoms.
The other thing I noticed about puzzling is that generally I will focus on one section at a time, but inevitably in this example, while I focused on one star, I found pieces for the sky or the town below or the moon.
We usually can’t address everything all at once when you come in for acupuncture and herbs, but often, focusing on one issue can have flow-on effects for others. For example, a patient might come in for period pain, and then they find that through the course of treatment, their digestion is a little more smooth and they are sleeping better.
The other thing I noticed is the process of feeling like I am at square one (over and over), and then subsequently building up momentum where piece after piece almost magnetises to their rightful places.
Acupuncture and herbs really thrive when we create momentum, especially at the start of treatment. And we definitely need more than one treatment.
This means regular treatments in the early stages (generally the first three months) so that we can send the body regular messages to rebalance, clear, boost etc. It’s the equivalent of starting to see the picture come together as each subsequent piece lands in place, and the added ease as there are less spots to fill.
Sometimes a part of the puzzle comes completely into focus and then we take a step back from it, or we finish puzzle entirely. Then we start again on another part or another puzzle. Maybe you go in for period pain first and this settles so you take a break, and then some time later you need some extra support to have more consistent, good-quality sleep.
Finally, I couldn’t help but also notice that when I would try a piece in one place and it didn’t fit, I could try it somewhere else until I gave that piece a home or I found the piece that fit in the spot I wanted to fill. This is pretty much exactly like the process of trying acupuncture approaches and herbal formulas until we get it right.
There are many different acupuncture schools of thought, and different cases call for different approaches. Similarly, there are hundreds of herbs and formulas, and it can take a little bit of tweaking and testing before we get the formula totally right for you.
In summary, I love an analogy, and puzzles really are a lot like seeing a Chinese Medicine practitioner. It’s a process which takes time and care and trying different things on until the puzzle piece fits.
Ready to get started with acupuncture and Chinese medicine? I’d love to support you!