taken by me in the summer of 09
So what's the deal with acupuncture?
Well, I'll tell you. Acupuncture is a healing art from the east thats dates farther back then we know. It was developed in a time when we did not have instruments to find out what was going on inside a person when they became sick. For this reason, the people who developed acupuncture came up with a system that uses nothing more than our own senses to be able to understand the nature of a person's illness and treat them. As acupuncturist, we learn this system and cultivate our senses in order to put what we have learned into practice.
So how does it work?
In my experience of receiving and giving acupuncture, it is kind of like reinstalling software for people. When a person's software is working well, it is reflected as health and the ability recover from the things that upset the balance of life. However, things happen that cause our health to breakdown and the ability to recover on our own becomes diminished. As acupuncturists, we use acupuncture to restore a person's energetic system to its own natural ability to heal.
Yea, but what does that have to do with sticking needles into my skin?
When we are sticking needles in your skin, we are hitting specific acupuncture points. Acupuncture points exist along energy pathways called 'meridians'. The meridians communicate to our vital organs such as our heart, kidney, liver, intestines, ect. By needling these points, we are communicating with the meridian which in turn influences the organs. The balance of our internal organs governs the state of our physical, mental and emotional health. We use our senses to find out what the patient's problem is, and then choose specific points to help engage the energy needed for the patient to heal.
That makes a lot of sense... well, I guess I'll let you know next time my energy breaks down.
There is no need to wait! People often don't think about their health until they have become sick. Acupuncture is best used as preventative care. Health problems usually start out as energetic or 'software' problems. Acupuncture's strength is its ability to effect a persons software in a profound way. Western medicine is great to intervene at the level of a person's hardware, but even then, if the software has not been fixed then the underlying cause of the problem has not changed.
When a person's energy is moved towards balance, the energy that was previously going against the flow and creating disease is now to free to benefit healing.
So whether a patient is looking for preventative care, or is in the later stages of disease - acupuncture can always be beneficial in the way that it uses minimal intervention to effect positive change in the whole person.
wow, thanks for answering all my questions.
If you have any more questions feel free to contact me via e-mail (jonpontrello@gmail.com) or phone (425-268-4917). -Jon Pontrello