Connection...
I’ve been thinking a lot about connection this year.
These musings started when I listened to a Ted Talk about an 8 decade long study that Harvard did on ‘Adult Development’. It found that connection, in the form of good relationships, is a huge factor (if not the primary) to health and happiness. The data is clear on this.
Then I spent a weekend with 2 girlfriends. One was telling me that she talks on the phone with friends and family daily, but only for 6 minutes because it’s the duration of her commute to work. This opened my eyes. When I think of talking on the phone, I think about the hour long conversations I typically have with a good friend whom I haven’t chatted with in a while. Those don’t happen as much as I would like. But 6 minutes, that seemed more feasible. And of course, shortly after this weekend with girlfriends, New York Times published an article on the mental health benefits of an 8 minute conversation with a friend. It showed that these connections can rapidly reduce the sense of loneliness, depression and anxiety.
One of the many things that I love about being an acupuncturist is the connecting with clients. I don’t have a 7 or 15 minute time limit for how long I’m in the treatment room. I get the opportunity to truly listen to you and understand your full story. I get a peek into your life and how your pain, be it physical or emotional, takes a toll on your life. Having that connection is a crucial part. I listen to what you verbally tell me and I listen to what your body tells me through palpation and your pulse.
And on a deeper level, what I love about East Asian Medicine is that connection is a crucial element. When one organ system is out of balance, it will affect the others. The organ systems use each other to find balance in the whole. Sometimes I will have a new patient tell me, “oh I’m a hot mess, here is the laundry list of what is wrong”. From my point of view though, it’s only one thing. They’re all connected. The puzzle is in finding the one or two strands that weave it all together and bring it back into balance. More on this next time.
Connection... We need it more than we think, but it doesn’t have to take as much effort as we think either.