Bitters for the feasting season (sale!)
I was speaking to a client a few days ago who has heartburn, and my heart went out to him. OK, OK… but really, it did. In the alternative health community, there’s such a good amount of information about the dangers of stomach acid blocking medications… and often they don’t work as well as hoped. Enter digestive bitters. We like bitters so much we wrote a whole article on them. Several clients who have used our bitters have reported back great results with heartburn and GERD.
We happened to have made an over-order on bitters a while back – so we’re putting them on sale! They’ll be 50% off until December 31st. Find them here at our clinic store.
The zen of weightlifting
Henry Rollins, of spoken word and punk music fame, wrote a great piece about his experience as scrawny, ruthlessly bullied youth, and how weights played a central role in his physical, emotional, and also spiritual maturation as a young man, and continuing on into his adulthood. He’s a great writer, so I think you’ll enjoy. Courtesy of Amy Keys, head coach at Centerpointe gym in Adams Morgan.
Getting into the weights and spirituality vein, I googled “the zen of weightlifting” and came up with an article by a lay zen monk who also powerlifts. His pointers about being fully committed to what you’re doing in the moment, which apply equally to zen practice as well as weightlifting, have definitely helped me in the gym.
Self compassion for the old soul
As an old soul, I’m pretty familiar with this cycle by now:
- Dark, distressed emotion arises
- It happens many times, festering and multiplying, generally causing a bit of a scene
- The havoc gets a bit worse, causing some fatigue and drop in energy, depression, anxiety, narrowing of vision and sense of possibility, adding in a little hopelessness to my everyday equation
- I recognize what’s going on
- When I have a minute, I bring self-compassionate awareness to the emotion – this is an internal process of mindfulness and self-directed loving-kindness
- Sitting with that emotion, allowing it to flower, to speak to me, to allow myself to feel whatever it has to offer, allowing myself to dare to value its presence and message. With dark emotions, this is a courage-requiring process, but I’ve gotten used to it over time.
- At some point (and this is the good part), the emotion feels heard and valued. It turns around, revealing itself as pure energy, “coming home” to rejoin you as pure energy, adding to your insight, vision, energy and inspiration. This is “emotional transformation.”
I’ve cycled through this process hundreds, and probably thousands, of times over the past several years. Since dark, distressed emotions are the very things that cut me off from my connection to inner peace, centeredness and inspiration, it’s vital for me to become skilled at working with these emotions in a way that brings transformation. In fact, this very process is what originally inspired me to call my practice “Transformational Acupuncture.”
In my view, it’s a critical skill and competency for the old soul, because the old soul is someone who wants to live life from a place of peace and inspiration – – because they have a lot to give the world in this lifetime. Since most of you reading this are old souls – – take heart, buckle down and engage your dark emotions, bring your beautiful spirit to your own aching parts… and the energy provided by that transformational process will only fuel your ability to bring your light to others.
And for any of you who could use a little help with this along the way – – I am more than happy and honored to be of service. You can work with me on these topics in my Holistic Health Counseling sessions (which can be done with or without acupuncture).