Acupuncture is Scary

Last night my husband came home from work frustrated with his office mates.   "You have to believe in Acupuncture for that to work" was the comment that got him.  

One of his office mates underwent Chemotherapy over the last year and Damian (that's my Hubby), mentioned that I had worked at a Cancer Hospital and also had cancer patients under my care.

He was telling me all about this conversation and how ultimately, he realized there was just no way they would listen to what they were steadfastly opposed to.  He is not an argumentative person and tends to go with the flow and I think he wisely choose to let that conversation go.

When I first began to study Acupuncture, Herbalism, Eastern Medical theory,  and diagnosis I was very impassioned.  I would engage in hot debate with my friends and family members - trying to convert and convince them of the amazing knowledge I had stumbled upon and everything they didn't understand!

Now, 7 years after that journey began my passion for the practice of medicine still burns brightly, but like Damian, I no longer argue or try to sway or convince.   My understanding of how people come to "believe" is that they must have a need and a curiosity that is stronger than their skepticism.

Skepticism can destroy the best treatment plans.  Even western medicine is aware of this phenomenon.  We are so powerful with our thoughts, that if we believe enough something won't work, guess what?  It won't!   Even the most curable cancers will kill you if you believe hard enough that they will and that you are doomed.

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (just the words!) can be very scary to us Americans.  It sounds like a cult practice, or a weird ritual, maybe even a near religious type of experience that, like my husbands office mates said, you have to believe in for it to work.  Even in Los Angeles, liberal central (as many of my midwestern friends and family would say) this opinion and feeling is not difficult to encounter.  Pop culture images of acupuncture are scary and it is always the ridiculous that makes its way into the mainstream because it is entertaining.

Have you seen Kung Fu Panda?  Or the YouTube video of the guy who has needles all over his body (something that would NEVER happen!), and then there is a fire and he has to jump out  a window with the needles in?  HellRaiser also comes to mind.  These are the images people get in their head.  Thanks Media!  :-)

Acupuncture helped my husband to lower his blood pressure, for him it is a practical matter of health care that has improved his life and his understanding of his own body and health.  He doesn't believe in anything new, but he is more aware and awake to his own body.  He doesn't have to take drugs and he maintains his health.

I often also have people tell me they have referred friends, family, office mates, and told everyone they know how much they have been helped and how good they feel.  I often see their frustration when they hear their referrals haven't called me.  I always smile, and say something like "people call when they are ready", and that's true.  When we suffer enough, we sometimes choose to try new things that might stop our suffering.

I've come to learn and understand that Acupuncture is scary for a lot of people.  And I can't blame them!   How would anyone know what it is, how it works, or who to trust about it?

I had no idea about this medicine until I choose to study it - it all seemed very weird, maybe even fake or some kind of hocus-pocus to me.  There is no authority that we see in the morning news or appointed medical government official who knows.  Even our MD's, when open minded about the medicine have to concede that they haven't studied it so they don't know.  

How this medicine works is weird to us in the United States!  It is different, and it is not intuitive to how we think of health or treatment of disease.  Treatment of illness using our own bodies potential energy?   This can be very hard to grasp, until you try it and feel it working.  We are a culture of drugs and surgery and "wait until I'm sick" to get treatment thinking, prevention or treatment without extreme methods seems impossible.   At one point, we also thought the world was flat and a round globe was blasphemy.  Knowledge is power.

The rest of the world is a bit ahead of us on this but we are slowly starting to catch up.   As those practitioners, like me, start to blog more, grow our practices, and educate our communities, the demand will grow into our hospitals and insurance coverage plans.  It will grow because we will start to demand it because it works and it makes us healthier.    No need to believe.

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine is scary, until you try it.  If you want to know about Acupuncture and how it feels and heals, ask someone you know.