Designing a Treatment

     How do I design the treatment? For me, it begins with being on time. If I have an appointment at 11:30a, I make it a priority to design the previous treatment with enough time at the end so that I can take care of business with that patient (what happened this time on the table, the payment, scheduling the next treatment, the goodbye, changing the sheets and getting set up) and still be out in the waiting room between 11:29 and 11:31a.
     This being on time may be peculiar to me. I like to start church on time, for movies to start on time, classes at school to start on time. This way of life about punctuality is not better than other ways for those that are schedule-challenged, it’s just who I have come to be, it serves me. Those people and patients in my life can count on me to be just a little bit early.
     I greet the patient with “won’t you please step back this way.” I don’t greet them by name because there are usually other people in the waiting area and this avoids confidentiality issues. I don’t ask them how they are cause they’ll begin to tell me out in the hallway.
     These are small things and here’s a good place to stop and point out it either all matters or none of it matters. For me, it all matters, every bit of it. The greeting, the cleanliness and color of the sheets on the bed, the music in the treatment, how the needles are lined up on the tray, all of it. Does it matter to you?

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One kind word can warm three months of winter. - Japanese proverb

The Basics: A Toolbox for Life

If you are interested, if you are curious how we do this life business, then we must start somewhere near the beginning I guess. What are the assumptions? What are the basics? How do I get you to accompany me on this journey?

It's been my observation that it is the proclivity of acupuncture to shake things up. You wouldn't be here if you didn't want something different, if you didn't want to perturb the status quo; maybe it's to have that hurting in your shoulder go away, or be less angry at life, or see things generally in a different way. Whatever it is, be very clear in yourself: acupuncture will take all your stuff and put it on a tray and then shake the dickens out of it like nobody's business so that it all floats to the top and then sinks at varying rates.

We made these precious trays of foodstuffs for my daughter's wedding, each section having berries or nuts or flower petals and it was going great right up to the part where I managed to flip one of the trays over during transport from the car to the hall. The plastic wrap covering the tray kept everything from spilling but it was all mixed together. Same with acupuncture - all your anxieties, aches and pains, emotional upsets together.

If you think acupuncture treatment is limited to treating your sore shoulder, you're very much mistaken. It will include everything: body, mind a spirit. If you don't plan to extend change into these areas, then don't read any further.

4,000 steps. 159 lbs

Destiny is no matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryant