Friday I got behind the wheel of my car to head into work and noticed I was a few minutes early and was excited to get into work to check a few things before my first patient. That was until I backed out of my garage and noticed something wasn't quite right about my car. I got out and sure enough my tire was flat. I didn't have much time to come up with a solution so I quickly closed my garage door and started walking. I had already mapped out my bike route and knew the office was 3.6 miles away and it was a nice day. I got a little over half way to work and realized I would be a little late so my first patient was kind enough to pick me up. I went about my day and when all of my patients were finished I decided to walk home and it was really quite lovely. I'll take an hour commute by foot any day over one sitting in a car. I enjoyed all of the colorful flowers and bright green buds on my path home and started to think about spring and our bodies.
I know many of us have been just a little tired of cloudy skies and rain and cold and everything else that isn't associated with sunshine and 70+ degree weather. Spring really is a whole lot of back and forth. It takes time for the earth to wake back up after being frozen and sleeping all winter long. Each rainy day in between breaks of sun is kind of like mother earth hitting the snooze, saying "10 more minutes please and then I'll get up." The great thing is that even when it doesn't feel like it, eventually the earth does wake up and the air stays warmer and continues to get warmer and flowers bloom and there are more days with sun then clouds.
It got me thinking about how our bodies heal. Healing is a lot like spring time. When our bodies feel "off" we want them back to normal right away and don't like to wait but just like with spring weather we don't always get a choice. Acupuncture is like those rainy days, the snooze button giving the body some rest and nourishment, some stillness to recoup. The flowers don't usually shoot up and bloom after one sprinkling of water or one nice day although many times it feels like one day the earth is brown and the next its blossoming. Healing is the same way. Its hard to remember what a day without pain feels like when you have pain kind of like when we haven't seen the sun in a few days. Once pain is gone its hard to recall what it felt like or how debilitating it was much like how we feel when the sun peeks through. The earth knows when to wake up from the winter slumber and the body knows how to heal- it just needs the right conditions in order to do it. Sometimes one of the most important conditions is space and time.
Sarah Zender LAc
Neighborhood Acupuncture Place
230 Florence St
Crystal Lake IL 60014
815.893.9825
www.clnap.com
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