Winter 2021 Newsletter
2020 Through the Lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine
It was a transformative year we’ll never forget, and the history books won’t either! As the New Year rolls around, many of us take a moment to reflect on the passing year — and find that this past year gives us lots to reflect upon! The pandemic, the social convulsions, the everyday changes. We adapted; we fought the adaptations. We surrendered; we raged. We looked for silver linings; we got depressed.
Sounds a lot like yin and yang to this health care provider! So let’s take a look at 2020 through the lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and see if we can find some useful insights.
Let’s start with yin and yang, the theoretical foundation of TCM. Yin and yang are the endless opposites that compose the world: light-dark, wet-dry, male-female. The list is endless. But let’s pick one pair that was significantly altered in 2020.
Yin is stillness. Yang is activity. Americans live in a very yang (and therefore out-of-balance) culture. Activity is hugely valued over stillness. What did you DO today? I didn’t get anything DONE. Working overtime is expected in many fields of employment. And then shutdown happened for all but “essential workers” (and we’ll get to them in a moment). I remember a day, way back in March, when I thought, “Wow, almost everyone in the world is at home today”. When has that happened in my lifetime? Never.
There was a stillness. No traffic jams. No aircraft flying overhead. Empty airports. Empty streets. Wildlife loved it. The lagoon in Venice turned blue from the cessation of pollution. You could see Catalina Island from L.A. and Beijing had blue skies for the first time in decades. We missed the social gatherings, but also learned to love the spaciousness of fewer social commitments. Our habits were broken. Which ones do we want back?
Insight: We need a balance of yin and yang, activity and stillness, for planetary and personal health. Many people are looking at that fact as we move forward. Perhaps I can work more from home? Can I use my car less? Maybe I don’t need to jam my social calendar in order to feel loved and important? How can I rearrange my priorities to reflect a commitment to personal and planetary health?
“Essential workers” became a buzz phrase in 2020 that most of us had never used before. Suddenly we became aware of all the people we never think about who keep the wheels of our lives turning. Power company employees. Garbage collectors. Postal workers. The beleaguered health care workers. Agricultural workers. Grocery store clerks, caregivers of all kinds, truckers. We can’t talk about “essential workers” without talking about entitlement — because these are the people we take for granted without thinking about them or their needs. Except now we saw that these people still had to go to work every day, exposing themselves and their families to a dangerous virus, while the luckier among us got to stay safely at home.
Who are the essential workers of the body? The organs. Those hard-working citizens of your body that you almost never think about until a malfunction occurs. We just assume they’ll do their jobs no matter what we throw at them and frankly, we often abuse them without a second thought.
Insight: Stop taking your body for granted! Stop acting like an entitled trust-funder and give your essential workers the gratitude and protection they deserve! The number one thing each of us can do in response to the presence of Covid-19 in our world is get rid of our co-morbidities. This is the year to improve our diet, drop the weight, commit to the exercise, the meditation. Our essential workers will thank us by working better than ever. They love their jobs, but they don’t love mistreatment, same as the essential workers in society.
The word “pandemic” means an epidemic that affects the whole world. It’s useful to remember this when we think the media reports are overblown. Take a look at Britain, at Brazil, at India, at the Los Angeles hospitals. It’s bad alright, and we’re citizens of the world, not just our little locales.
Lesson: In TCM, everything is connected to everything. It is a very “pan” medicine! Your body is a world which lives within a larger world within a larger world . . . to infinity. What this means is that everything affects everything regardless of what your blood panel shows. If your lungs are compromised, everything in the body is affected. Same with the heart, the kidneys, etc. The pandemic is telling us to be a little more aware of our choices and their consequences — on our own body, on the environment, and on the welfare of others.
This is a good thing. I can’t think of a time in my life when the longing — worldwide! — for connection with others was so strong. The pandemic has made us long for the old venues of connection: parties, concerts, cultural rituals, meal-sharing, sports events. TCM says you ARE connected. You can’t NOT be connected. It is inherent in your being. The problem comes when we make choices as though we were separate. Traditional Chinese Medicine can help point to a healthy way of living the truth of our connection both within our bodies and our communities.
Solstice Newsletter, June 2012
“One who contains contentment remains content.” — Lao Tzu
“When you realize that there is nothing lacking, the whole world
belongs to you.” — Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, lakes are sparkling and filled with laughing children. Joggers run past your house, chatting amiably. Trails have melted out, ready for hikers. The ice cream parlor is staffed with giggling high schoolers.
And you’re sitting on the sofa, staring into space, having a dreary conversation with your old friend: depression.
The diagnosis of depression has reached epidemic proportions. The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030 more people will be affected by depression than any other health condition worldwide. Moreover, although depression can afflict people anywhere, most of those people will live in affluent, technologically advanced nations.
What is happening here? I quote Andrew Weil, M.D.: “Consider that we eat manufactured food, stay indoors where we are generally sedentary, are subject to information overload, are overstimulated by the media and, in an age where connection is but a mouse click away, we are becoming more and more isolated from one another. Spontaneous happiness is incompatible with social isolation.”
What does Asian medicine have to offer this scenario? How can we help ourselves and our loved ones? Are there options besides a lifetime of anti-depressants? Are anti-depressants the whole answer?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the Western diagnosis of depression is called “qi stagnation” or “qi depression”. Remember that “qi” is energy, life force. The person’s qi is too stagnated, too slowed down, too stuck to lift their body off the sofa, to let them enthuse and enjoy. This is different from fatigue – although the two are often related. In fatigue you don’t have enough energy; with depressed qi you’ve got energy, but it isn’t moving in a healthy manner.
What is the cause of “qi stagnation”? Unfulfilled desires. Now, that’s a little tricky because as one of my instructors once said, “That’s pretty much a definition of adulthood!” We may want to throw ourselves to the floor of the grocery store and shriek, but we don’t. We may want to wear our feather boa and tutu to work, but we don’t.
“Qi stagnation/depression” shows up as depression, severe PMS in women, moodiness and irritability. It gets difficult to smile sincerely. We may have aches and pains with no real physical cause. Our fuse gets short and we snap at people. We become judgmental instead of open and accepting. We sigh a lot. We grind our teeth.
It can be really helpful to sit with pen and paper and list some of those unfulfilled desires: I want time to paint. I want friends to call me to do things together. I want to yell at my boss. I want to quit my job. I want to work out of doors. I want to laugh till I cry. I want to travel. I want to learn Russian. I want recognition for my accomplishments. I want to feel attractive. Et cetera. Sometimes we have to recognize a desire as the first step to figuring out how we might begin to fulfill it.
Then go back to that list of Andrew Weil’s. We don’t have to eat manufactured food, stay indoors, and subject ourselves to endless media and information overload. We can connect with our fellow humans offline as well as online, although it takes more courage. Every one of those conditions has a solution. We can help one another to create it. Notice I said, “Help one another”. One of the common complaints of the depressed person is that they feel isolated. We must help one another, not only ourselves. Indeed, a depressed person will often feel unable to make a change – they’re too depressed.
And yes, of course acupuncture & herbs can help with depressed qi! People often comment after an acupuncture session that they feel calm, happy, renewed. Athletes perform better after acupuncture because their qi is moving. You’ll perform better in your daily life too!
The standard Western medical model for depression considers it to be a biochemical abnormality, remedied by a pill. While I would never discount the value of an appropriate pharmaceutical, I believe that most depression is a multi-factorial health problem rooted in complex interactions of biological, psychological, and social variables. Optimum emotional well-being requires a multi-fronted approach that encompasses a wide range of attention: our social interactions, lifestyle, diet, exercise, belief systems.
We live in fascinating, yet challenging times. One of those challenges is the healing of depression at both an individual and a cultural level. May we all use this lovely summer to connect with ourselves, our lives, our friends and enthusiasms in ever more meaningful ways!
Yours in radiant health, Lynn.
P.S. This is a huge topic and I’m aware of barely touching the surface. However, it feels like a surface that needs to be touched. I’m happy to talk more with any of you about depression and its possible solutions.