“If there is no free flow, there is pain; if there is free flow, there is no pain.”

不通這痛,痛則不通

Bu tong ze tong, tong ze bu tong.”✨

-Huang di Nei Jing

The source of all pain is stagnation, whether it be due to physical injury, sedentary lifestyle, lack of movement, stagnant emotions, or because you feel stuck in life because of circumstance. When there is pain there is a lack of energy and blood flow.

When you move and flow, pain no longer has a place to stay in the body. When you physically are unable to move, you can facilitate movement in the mind and body through breathing, creative expression, heat, massage, herbs, acupuncture, cupping, singing, writing or talking about your feelings.

“Qi is the commander of blood and blood is the mother of qi.”

Often times physical stagnancy will magnify when emotions or energy are also stagnant. That is why when you physically move, you improve your emotional well-being, and when you move through your emotions, you improve your physical well-being. If you move one, the other will follow. This is why in clinical practice, the treatment principles for pain is to move qi and blood.

When people ask me, “what do the needles do?” I always say, “At the most basic level, the needles are promoting circulation by moving your energy and blood.” I proceed to talk about nerve bundle stimulation and thermal studies that show acupuncture is increasing blood movement for the scientific mind. However, the simplicity of promoting and maintaining movement within the body is very powerful. Movement is what keeps us animated; alive. When there is no movement, no breath, no heartbeat, no neural communication, we die. Our bodies are yin, and the animation is the yang. When our yang, movement, heat and vitality slow down, we become inch closer to the non-living.

Pain is a symptom of our body pushing back the decline of health and a request for attention and care. When it shows itself, make sure to thank the pain and take it for a dance.