The Healer

Today I went to see my acupuncturist. I’ve been seeing him for over a decade. Early on in our relationship I determined that he was a true healer. I don’t exactly understand what he does, but it’s magical.

I’ve referred countless friends, colleagues, and former students to him and everyone agrees. He’s truly magnificent. I call him the healer.

I can go a year or two without seeing the healer and then, when I realize no one else can help me, I go see him. Every time I see him I fall a little bit more in love with how wise and insightful he is. I’m grateful that mostly I am very healthy but a few weeks ago I went for a back injury I sustained carrying heavy bags of soil and removing a tree. 

After the healer did his assessment he informed me that I had somehow twisted my lumbar spine. He gave me a treatment and sent me home with some exercises to do. For a week I practiced the squats, pelvic rolls and hip openers. I felt good. I felt great. 

Then in the middle of the second week I felt the pain creeping back. I scheduled another appointment for today. When I went in, as he always does, the healer asked how I was feeling and if anything in my life had changed. 

“I’m exhausted,” I sighed heavily, “I feel so tired today.” He asked if my diet or my sleep or my exercise patterns had changed. When I replied that nothing had changed, as if inviting me to dig deep for the root of my exhaustion, he sat back quietly and waited. 

“I think it’s emotional,” I said, near tears, “there’s a lot of change — the weather, work, and my daughter is eighteen, and she’s almost gone and that is so much harder than I thought it would be.” 

He nodded with sympathy and invited me onto the table where he had me lie down so he could do further assessment. I closed my eyes, grateful for the time to rest. The healer moved around my body manipulating my hips, lower back, and legs. After about thirty minutes he settled on where the needles would go.

By this time I was half-asleep, grateful for the familiarity of his presence and the utter faith I have in his abilities. I could rest here for as long as it took. It felt good to be in capable hands. I trusted the healer implicitly.

After the healer placed the needles into various spots on my body, he left the room and I drifted off. I fell into a hypnagogic sleep, imagining my hands moving even though I knew they were totally still with needles in my wrists. After some time (I don’t know how much), the healer came back in. He palpated my stomach and my hips and said, “Can you lie her a bit longer? You’re not fully cooked.”

I nodded, happy to stay on that table all afternoon. On this second round of rest I had a memory of the healer in my early days of knowing him. Many years ago, when my daughter was 5 or 6, I had a similar pain in my lower back. During our initial conversation I shared that I was in a mental tug-of-war about moving my daughter to a new school that her teacher recommended. The teacher said this new school would be more academically challenging and better for her.

I was conflicted. I loved her elementary school and I wasn’t sure if moving her was the right decision. That day the healer did a treatment focusing on my gallbladder channel. After the session those many years ago, he explained to me that the gallbladder channel was often associated with decision-making. He said, “it could be that the pain you’re having is related to the decision you’re trying to finalize OR maybe the decision you’re trying to make is contributing to the pain.”

In the end it didn’t matter which was the chicken and which was the egg. Both existed — the pain and my need to make a decision.

This afternoon, after the healer removed the needles from my arms, legs and hips, he said, “Laura, from what I can tell, your back is fine. What I think is going on is that you’re stuck.”

“I am,” I said as I pushed myself up to my elbows to get off the table. As I put my watch on and laced up my boots I shared the memory I’d had of the day he’s worked on my gallbladder channel twelve years ago. He smiled and nodded. “I remember,” he said.

I put on my jacket to go and walked towards the door. As I opened it to leave I said, “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled, “You know, I worked on your gallbladder channel today too.” 

Back when I was the mom of a young child struggling with the decision about where to send her to school my struggle manifested itself as pain in my back. This year, as I round the corner of my life into an empty nest, I am again faced with some big life changes and decisions and the pain, again, shows up in my back. 

Bessel Van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, writes, “…the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”

He’s right. It’s funny. I taught yoga for twenty years and I still forget to slow down and notice, to remember that the body and the mind are deeply entangled. My first instinct with pain or discomfort is often to try to assign some action that got me to the pain instead of to explore other areas of my life that might be contributing. 

The body keeps the score — my back told me something wasn’t right. But knowing the score doesn’t explain the game. The game is as big as life — there are rules, players, goals, and thousands of other contributing factors. The healer, in his great wisdom, reminded me (again) to slow down and expand my perspective. 

Every time I see the healer I reconnect with the idea that the messages from my body are sharing a bigger story about my life. Maybe I should try to remember this the next time my back hurts. But if I do that, I won’t need see the magnificent healer. And I don’t want that…..