BALANCE EQUATES HEALING
Holistic Living Blog
By Rachelle Tetreault, L,Ac
Over my years of being a health practitioner, I often get asked what does balancing the body mean? Some clients new to Eastern Medicine have a hard time understanding how balance and health are even related and how it can be achieved. Balance of mind and body and heart and mind are the main goals of Eastern Medicine. These are also termed harmonization, or harmonizing organs, or harmonizing body and mind, or heart and shen. These terms related to health reflect what true health is. This means free of deficiencies located in the body system and also free of excesses or stagnations. This is true health or should we say balance. When the body is balanced, the immune system is optimized and energy is improved as well as digestion, focus, and vitality.
Balance persists in every aspect of life down to the very cellular existence of sodium and chloride balance to maintain every aspect of cellular metabolism and function. These two electrolytes play a major role in maintaining homeostasis. Our metabolic process relies on both release and utilization of energy and energy exchange to maintain proper balance to sustain life. Atoms, the smallest form of matter, have to rely on an equal number of protons and electrons to remain neutral. Such is life with the need for both day and night, the tide requires both ebbs and flows, and our body requires both inhalation and exhalation. Life itself is rooted in overall balance and harmony down to its very core. This relationship is the yin and yang balance of life.
When the vital life-force of energy is properly balanced between yin and yang energy of our body, there is health. This allows a smooth flow of life-force energy to help maintain and promote a balanced state of both physical and emotional health. This is much needed now more than ever in these times of added stressors and multi-tasking. We now live in a modern world of new technology but somehow have more stress and disease then ever before.
More imbalances are seen today due to our disconnect with nature and our natural biorhythms being off. We are pushed to both work and think like a computer in a digital world when our true energy of life is manifested in sustaining natural energy flow derived from nature and our ancestry of life here on earth. We need to be grounded and find our balance in both purposeful activity yet stillness of heart and mind. This balance exists in each of us and just needs to be reset and gently stimulated.
When assessing patients, observation of both tongue and pulses are used to know the status of what degree of balance is already existent and if deficiencies or excess exist and if so, where are they located. Acupuncture has techniques of both reducing and tonifying certain energy acupoints of the body to achieve proper balance so optimal health is achieved within the individual based on individual assessment and needs. Overtime, even excesses can turn to deficiencies once the body is weakened and under prolonged stress and sickness. Nourishing the body is required before clearing too many excesses or stagnations before regaining health once again.
Each individual is born into this world with different constitutions of health from genetic to environmental factors which influence this natural balance of health. This is why every client needs to be assessed individually despite symptom or diagnoses. Different imbalances exist despite how the body is reacting and needs to be specifically treated according to his or her own unique pattern of differentiation to truly treat the root cause of the sickness or disease.
When an imbalance goes on too long, it weakens the body as a whole and herbal formulas are often used in adjunct to acupuncture therapy to help reset the body quicker yet in a gentle way of regulating the body’s own natural healing properties.
The body heals with a gentle push or guidance. This guidance stimulates the immune system and helps self-regulation. The patient generally notices an overall sense of well-being after just one or two treatments. Food therapy is also given based off of patient’s individual needs to regulate and balance the body to create harmony within both the body and mind. True balance is healing and it encompasses both mind and body and harmonizes our organs to work more effectively as one whole system of flow.
Balance can be achieved to some level despite what exists. Our bodies were created to be full of life-force energy and full of harmony. Call today to begin your journey to a balanced new you, both heart and mind. Optimal health should be for everyone. 772-353-1397
