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In This Newsletter:
*Hygge - the Danish Art of Coziness - featured next month, we are asking for Your Input Here!
*Heart-Brain Coherence Part Three"
*Bringing Lessons from Gregg Braden into the Treatment Room
*Questions We Get Asked - a NEW section of the newsletter - this month, why don't we do tongue and pulse diagnosis with everyone?"
*Reminder about New Rates Starting January 1st, 2020
*Link to ValleyFree Radio Interview with Rachel on "Energy Matters" 12/6/19
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Getting Thru Winter, Danish-Style - Hygge (Featured Next Month)
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Hygge, pronounced "hoo-gah", is a word of Scandinavian origin which loosely translates to mean "coziness." One definition I found online describes it this way:
"The best translation is coziness, but not the physical coziness you get when you put on a warm sweater or cuddle up with a blanket. It's more of a state of mental balance and psychological well-being."
Sounds good to me! This is a concept well-known amongst the Danish, who seem to be onto something important here. Consider this - they have some of the longest and harshest winters in the world, AND also are touted as being
one of the happiest countries in the world!
We are going to feature this concept in February's newsletter, and
would love to hear from YOU- what activities do you find that help you get into a state of hygge or coziness?
And while it's about more than physical comfort, getting physically cozy can definitely help improve your state of mind and sense of well-being.
Email us back by clicking
HERE
,
and we will share your responses plus our own ideas, on cultivating the ultimate Coziness this winter!
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Heart-Brain Coherence Part Three
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Rachel Condon, Lic. Ac.
In the
November newsletter
,
we featured an article on "The Little Brain in the Heart", and the scientific discovery made in the 1990s that there are about
40,000 specialized neurons surrounding the heart, which communicate directly with the brain
. I discussed the connection between these modern discoveries and Traditional Chinese Medicine's understanding of the heart and mind, and how it feels when the heart and brain are working together in a coherent manner. Click on the link above if you'd like to re-read that article.
In the
December newsletter
, I furthered the discussion by considering the implications of the discovery of the heart's electromagnetic field, which is the strongest one in the body, emitting energy up to 7 feet away from the body!
I also introduced the work of the
Institute of HeartMath
(IHM), which has been studying the significance and practical implications on such findings as these for the last 30 years. It really is extraordinary to think about just how much positive and negative emotions impact our brains, our health, and our overall outlook and perceptions of the world we live in.
Even considering
this one fact has profound implications
: we can only be in fight or flight OR healing and growth mode (otherwise known as rest and digest) at one time. And the problems arise because this survival mechanism, which developed to allow us to react quickly in times of threat and danger, is working far too hard in most of us today, with our fast-paced, overstimulated, technology-driven world.
So in this newsletter, we are going to look more at the practical implications-
how we can influence our health outcomes
by intentionally focusing on heightened, genuine, positive emotions, using the techniques as outlined in Gregg Braden's work and the work of IHM.
In the next article,
Anne Louise describes how to work with this material as you receive an acupuncture treatment.
This can truly benefit your health and well-being, and just might benefit those around you in the treatment room as well!
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Bringing Lessons from Gregg Braden into the Treatment Room
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Anne Louise Smallen, Lic. Ac.
The articles about Heart Resilience and the connection between the heart and the brain can help us
multiply the benefits of acupuncture treatments
. Part of an acupuncture treatment is to learn how to be the best possible recipient of the benefits of acupuncture points. Or said another way, to foster a welcoming healing attitude during treatments.
You, as the client, will benefit more if you are actively involved in your own healing.
The new quantum physics science is clearly demonstrating that
everything is connected by energy
(between us and others, us and the universe or between the different parts of our body, mind and feelings). This is most important to our health and well being. Many current assumptions are being questioned by these findings: that we are essentially isolated human being and that competition is what allows us to survive. In fact,
isolation and competition are often proving to be detrimental to our well being and to human development when they are prevalent
. They release hormones detrimental to our nervous system and impact our health. We are inviting you to look instead at the value of connections and cooperation within you, with others, and with the whole universe.
It can start on the treatment table
by concentrating on the connection between your brain and your heart. As Rachel mentioned,
the heart and the brain have a constant conversation
because they are linked by more than 35,000 neurons. They are both responsible for our capacity to think, analyze and make decisions. Both are meant to converse together and help us make our way through life. Use the connection to your advantage during your treatment.
The first step is to bring your attention inside
rather than outside (being distracted by others in the treatment room, thinking of what is on your schedule or what you need to do the day after). Instead as a patient,
I invite you to bring your attention to your physical heart and see what arises.
It could be feelings of anxiety, anger or shame, and they could make you feel bad. There is a place in life to acknowledge what we have lost, the injustices and hardships that we met, and to realize that they are the past, despite their weight being still present on our hearts.
From there,
we can start the healing work of meeting these feelings with love, compassion or whatever they are hungry for
(which is, at the bottom, love and compassion). If and when we are able to go into that place in our hearts, our stress hormone level decreases along with our blood pressure. Our DHEA (the hormone that is a precursor to all other hormones our body creates) is higher and the body starts using its own marvelous wonders to heal itself. Here are some practical things to do on the table to bring about that state of relaxation.
6 Steps to Creating Heart-Brain Coherence on the Treatment Table:
1. Take deep, slow breaths
2. Acknowledge that the world constantly changes and that what we learned to appreciate might be gone as everything comes and goes.
3. Identify the feeling predominant in your heart (overwhelmed, sad, mourning)
4. Slowly and gently breathe into it to free up some space (breathing creates inner space).
5. If you can, touch your heart center (in the middle of your chest) or rest your hand on it; if you don't want to move your hand because of needle placement, you can simply rest your attention there.
6. Breathe in peace where there is stress, calm where there is anxiety, ease where you feel overwhelmed, compassion to others where you feel anger, or compassion to yourself where you feel guilt or shame.
This is
where the ancient spiritual traditions meet modern science,
and the practical applications and benefits are much needed, today more than ever. The old wisdom traditions, including Taoism, would say that Everything is always new and everything is already existing (even the qualities we thought were gone forever after a trauma) inside of us. They may be hiding or lying dormant, but they are there, waiting to be rediscovered, and used when we need them.
And now we have the additional, validating benefits of modern science showing us in measurable, repeatable ways, that we do have the ability to direct our minds and bodies towards healing, towards growth, towards Love. We invite you to experiment with this and see what happens!
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Questions We Get Asked...
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We are starting
a new monthly column
in the newsletter, to answer your questions! Both Anne Louise and I have gotten many questions throughout our years of practice, covering all sorts of topics relating to acupuncture, our roles as practitioners, and what happens in the treatment room. We will begin answering some of the most frequently asked questions, one a month, in this section here.
And we welcome your questions anytime
. Feel free to email us
HERE
, if you have a question you've been wanting to ask. Or you can always ask when you come in for a treatment.
How come you don't look at my tongue or check my pulse every time?
There are many ways to diagnose in Chinese medicine, of which using pulse and/or tongue diagnosis are but two. While these are both commonly used among many practitioners, especially those doing private one-on-one treatments, they aren't the only methods used to determine treatment approach.
The key element underlying all diagnosis is Observation
. And as we were taught in acupuncture school, observation can be done by Looking, Touching, and Listening. The information we gather from these three types of information are interpreted thru the lens of Five Element Theory, Yin Yang Theory and the Correspondences Between Organ Systems.
Looking
can include looking at the tongue, but it also means observing a person's demeanor, skin coloring, facial expressions, gait and eyes, and/or visually inspecting an area of injury.
Touching
may involve feeling the pulse of the radial artery on the wrist, but it may also involve palpating the meridians or a specific point before selecting it for needling, touching specific points on the abdomen, and/or feeling the temperature of the body at different areas.
Listening
includes not only the questions asked and answers given during an intake with the practitioner, but it also includes tone of voice, emotional expression (or lack of), how loud a person speaks naturally.
Anne Louise and I discussed this and we agree that we both use tongue and pulse diagnosis intermittently, usually not as a primary diagnostic tool, but rather to confirm a diagnosis we have already formed. In addition, thru the added benefit of treating a large volume of people regularly in a community-style acupuncture clinic, we have honed our observation skills quite a bit over the years! So rest assured, we are using the many tools we have in our tool-kits, in order to form a solid diagnostic picture in which to proceed with an acupuncture treatment specific to you.
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Reminder About New Rates Jan 1st
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Please be reminded that our new rates are in place as of January 1, 2020. Please know that we remain committed to offering our medicine in ways that are as affordable and accessible as we can at this time. And we also have to adjust for rising costs and the challenges of running a small business outside of the current conventional medical system.
We appreciate your ongoing support very much, and are grateful, in turn, to support your path towards greater health and well-being!
New Rates:
Initial Visit $60
Follow Up Visit: $40
6 Treatment Package: $210 ($35/treatment)
12 Treatment Package: $360 ($30/treatment)
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ValleyFree Radio Interview with Rachel!
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Click here to listen to the interview with Rachel on VFR's "Energy Matters" program with Caroline Ruderman, on December 6, 2019:
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