To Vinod and Amy ...weak stomach in TCM ??

[Guest guest]

I'm going to respond to this in two posts because I have a lot to say.

I'll do the second at a latter time.

 

Chinese Traditional Medicine , " Mrs. Barley "

<chosenbarley wrote:

>

> " That's the way it is. " This is a shocking statement! That " all

diseases

> can be cured, but not all people " could be viewed (as it is by me) as

> an escape clause for doctors who don't know what they are doing, for

> they have no deep instinct about a patient and what that patient

truly

> requires.

 

While it's true that SOME (not all, not even most) healers don't even

try or halfway try - falling back on " escape clauses " like " Will of

God " , " It's psychological " , etc. - healers sometimes do encounter

people who choose physical sickness and even death over making some

very frightening, scary, and hard changes in their being. Healers need

to be aware that this situation sometimes arises. They need to be

aware because some of these cases can break their hearts. Some can

leave them drained. Some can make them angry.

 

I have known people like this. Unfortunately some of them were

relatives whom I loved. More unfortunate, I did not know about TCM at

the time as TCM does offer ways to deal with at least some of these

cases (though not all of them).

 

Let's examine why some clients, for example, may be overly fatatlistic

and what can be done. Some people are raised in families and

communities where from the day they are born they are given a message

that they don't count, that they have no right to ask for something,

that they're nothing but big zilches who have to wait on someone else

to rescue them, etc. In such families and communities any displays of

initiative and independence are punished swifty and severely. These

people have had some heavy-duty negative conditioning/ brainwashing

done on them. If they attempt to go against the negative conditioning/

brainwashing, it sets off a cascade of fears of punishment and the

erroneous belief that they somehow are " sinning " and going against

God's will. Another thing about these families and communities where

abusers and exploiters are in charge is that the abusers and

exploiters deliberately inculcate a sense of fatalism in their

victims. " Resistence is futile. " It makes their victims easier to

manipulate. It's also a control-freak thing.

 

Sometimes the act of healing can summon up from deep within a person

all kinds of very strong and troubling emotions and realizations: The

rage of having been abused, strong feelings of fear and vulnerability,

the very painful realization that one wasn't really loved by someone

who should have loved the person, geelings of guilt, etc. I also want

to add that when people go back and face up to certain things, they

don't do it as adults with an adult's strength and coping strategies.

They do it through the eyes and emotions of whatever age they were

when the trauma occured. If they were adults when the truama occured,

they re-experience it not as adults sitting safely in a counselor's

office but as though they were back in the traumatic situation. A part

of them - the part that has to face and deal - is back in that time

and place. Time and situations move on in the outer world and for

part of the person, but there is another part of the person which in

effect got separated off and frozen in that awful time. If the client

was a child when the trauma happened, it's not unusual for the person

to start uses phrases a child would use (the child the person was) and

wanting to watch cartoons. It's also not uncommon for the person to

want foods that were enjoyed in childhood. Foods like ice cream for

example. Personally I favor in most cases letting the split-off part

have the ice cream and watch the cartoons. Eventually the split-off

part will " grow up " and rejoin the rest of the person. But only if the

trapped part of the person feels safe enough. (I want to stress that

this is NOT Multiple Personality Disorder though it is a

disassociation problem like MPD is.)

 

Change can be very scary. Especially when it involves deep layers of a

person. Healing can be like any initiation experience. There is a

point at which the person lets go of the old but the new has not yet

materialized or settled in. The person is in limbo, and it can seem

like limbo is going to stretch into eternity with the person frozen

between having let go of the familiar and facing a very uncertain and

unfamiliar future. Powerful and very frightening archetypes can come

flooding up out of the unconscious during the act of healing. Some of

the best info on this aspect of healing can be found in the works of

Karl Jung on the collective unconscious and archetypes, from Native

American healing traditions, and from shamanism. Also in literature on

kundalini experiences in yoga. Complicating this aspect of healing for

most Westerners is that they are totally clueless or nearly so about

these experiences. The culture at large doesn't realize that these

things are normal and do sometimes happen. The result is that the

person may feel like s/he's going insane.

 

Fortunately, there is help in TCM for at least some of these cases. As

I have pointed out before on here, a person who is having certain

imbalances addressed will be in a better position to benefit from any

therapy that may be required. In some cases, counseling may not be

required.

 

If the person is having lacks courage, is timid, and has a lack of

iniative, suspect and rule in or rule out Gall Bladder Deficiency.

(Summation taken from The Foundations of , p. 285.)

Gall Bladder Deficiency also can result in the person being " easily

discouraged at the slightest adversity " . (p. 116.) " It cocntrols the

spirit of initiative, the 'drive' and the courage to take decisions

and make changes. Although as we have seen, the Kidneys also control

the 'drive' and vitality, the Gall Bladder gives us the capaciety to

turn this drive and vitality into positive and decisive action. " (p.

116.) " The Gall Bladder provides the courage for the Mind, governed by

the Heart, to carry out decisions. " (p. 116.)

 

While the Liver is said to control the ability of planning one's life,

the Gall Bladder controls the capacity to make decisions. The two

functions have to be harmonized so that we can plan and act

accordingly. " (p. 116.)

 

There are other things like this in TCM. It will be very helpful to

many for readers to think about other examples and post about them.