Acupuncture and My Spiritual Awakening

When I was in my final year of grad school, I was pretty discouraged. Due to massive authority issues and burnout, I didn’t even want to be an acupuncturist anymore.

My clinical supervisors assured me, “just graduate and then you can practice however you want. You’re so close, just graduate.” I didn’t want to. I really wanted to give up. The rigorous curriculum and lack of support left me and my classmates feeling stressed out, anxious, and exhausted. I thought, “this is NOT why I wanted to go into this medicine. Acupuncture was supposed to be the antithesis of all of this!”

When I initially found acupuncture, I had a spiritual awakening.

I came to this medicine broken and hurting. I felt like the sensitivity of my heart that has been with me my whole life, was responsible for my pain. If I didn’t feel so strongly, if I didn’t care so much, I would not be suffering so deeply and feel so very broken. My experience of acupuncture taught me that I was wrong. It was in fact my sensitivity and the strength of my heart that would help me to heal.

And this has been the hardest part of my job- explaining the unexplainable. Acupuncture does not treat physical pain. Not in the way people think. Acupuncture opens a door to something greater and reminds us, on a very deep level, that life, our life, is valuable and worth fighting for. And this connection, this spiritual rejuvenation, is what helps the pain.

The only way to truly understand what I am talking about it, is to experience it for yourself.

Maybe you already have. Maybe reading this your body is remembering the feeling as we speak. I know I am. And this is why, as you know, I did graduate. And I did become an acupuncturist. Because I love this part of it so very much. Thank you for being sensitive. I love your loving heart and I know that it loves you.