News & Views on Integrative Healing June 2016

The kidney/adrenal system signals threat. Its first resource is connection along the K’o cycle to the Pericardium. We are pack animals and are safer when we can make eye contact and relationship with our tribe. If our capacity for connection has been undermined by abuse or trauma, we will be less able to seek help when threatened. We may not ask for help when caught in the ocean’s undertow. We may mis-read facial cues and assume threat rather than curiosity from a co-worker. We may escalate to road-rage and engage in dangerous driving practices rather than stay in relationship with other drivers on the road.As children, our metabolic, immune, and endocrine functions got tuned-up through heart-to-heart co-regulation with our caregivers. Our adult ventral vagus nerve brings whole-body regulation to infants and toddlers’ undeveloped ventral vagus. Our bodies literally learn to digest food when we eat in a loving and safe atmosphere. Peek-a-boo and patty-cake; team sports, choirs, bands, and partner-dancing all help develop the whole-body regulation of what we call the Supreme Controller and Western physiology calls the ventral vagus nerve. (Check out the YouTube video below for more on this).

Working with the Pericardium Official will help your clients heal past wounds, enjoy a playful life, and will keep them safer by helping them engage in relationship and ask for help when threatened.

The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures, and Interventions, (published on August 27, 2012)  is a presentation by Dr. Stephen Porges. He is the developer of PolyVagal Theory, an understanding of the autonomic nervous system that describes a nuanced, distinctly mammalian capacity to regulate arousal by the ventral vagus nerve. Operating from our ventral vagus supports the neurological platform for compassion and relationship. This lecture will integrate seamlessly with how you understand the physiology and function of the Zong Qi, the Shen and the Officials of the Upper Jiao.  Absolutely fascinating!

Acupuncturists are in a unique position to serve trauma survivors.

Our theoretical foundation of balance between opposing poles of energy that co-exist in dynamic tension is a powerful anchor to explore and treat the dysregulation caused by traumatic stress.

Our medicine is vibrational medicine. Traumatic stress causes vibrational illness – those “strange, rare and peculiar” things like irritable bowel and chronic fatigue syndrome, complex pain patterns, or autoimmune illness that survivors bring to our treatment rooms.

We bring hope and possibility to survivors. We understand symptoms as disorganization and we affirm the body’s capacity to restore order. We can confidently tell them that when their Qi is balanced, their capacity to both heal disease and prevent future illness is maximized. Traumatic stress is not a life-sentence in our world.

We are able to access the tangible and the intangible and we know that restoring balance in one person brings a healing vibration to their families, friends and community.

The world is fortunate that trauma survivors can find restoration and balance with the help of our needles and our presence.