Sometimes when you feel into a person’s wrist, as you’re listening to the moderate level of the pulses, something extraordinary happens—the pulses suddenly adopt a pendular action, swinging laterally toward and away from the tendons in very regular fashion with every beat. This happened a couple of weeks ago in a patient with a very intense history of childhood trauma, where every night was filled with the realistic fear of a murder occurring in the house. Up until that day she had been unable to truly rest. The swinging action was in the middle and proximal positions of the pulse and those two positions felt as though they were connected together. This is a classic pulse of Yin Wei Mai, a channel that brings trauma that is re-triggered every day into the past and anchors it there. This anchoring allows the mind to be in the present moment recognizing that the past is gone and that the present moment is the only place where we have any kind of power. As instructed by the pulses, I needled that channel in the patient. Today I checked in to see how she was going.
ACS: Hi JD, just checking in. How are you?
JD: Still a little sad but it’s ok. I slept better than I have in a while. Internal change is a bit odd lol. I do feel like it’s a big change going on inside myself hence not knowing exactly who I am anymore, but it is interesting.
ACS: I think once a person loses sight of who they think they are, a huge freedom opens up. It can feel a bit too open, like there’s no footing, but it’s just that we’re in the processing of jumping.
JD: That’s exactly how I feel. I see how much of how I feel, and my actions, were dictated by abandonment – the fear of it and other things. I don’t regret the past but I want a free future.
ACS: You’re taking the steps to have that.
JD: My friend is worried that I’m depressed. She said my energy is different, but I’m not depressed. I’m not sure what I am, but I’m not depressed.
ACS: Right, it’s not depression, it’s the absence of running adrenaline, which, by comparison, can seem to an observant friend like depression as you adjust to be able to be relatively calm. The beauty of this is that you’re healing. Most people with that kind of trauma spend their lives trying to not feel. You’re not doing that and therefore you can change. It’s huge.
JD: That’s exactly how I feel, hundred percent.
Our path is never straight. The curves and twists and the unpredictable camber of the road forces a lifetime of gear changing. The eight extraordinary channels describe in detail these natural shifts on the human journey of self-liberation, a state that is inevitable whether it occurs during a life, or at its end. The eight extraordinary channels act by releasing the pause button we hit when we feel we can’t process what has happened, but it does so by providing an opening forward. The feeling of losing one’s footing, of feeling temporarily lost, is an indicator of reducing mind activity focused on the past. The habitual minute-by-minute replaying of events, words, thoughts and imaginings wanes, leaving the mind clearer. As I continue to treat this patient, I feel the quiet joy of being able to be of service in this way—watching her slowly regaining the natural human ability to perceive life in continually opening freshness.
Ann Cecil-Sterman
17 September 2024
London, England.