Shadow in respect to treatments

The benefits of treatments can lead us to states of health that we have never thought possible, giving us greater quality of life, health and a sense of well being on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. In order to get to this level requires work and good patient compliance What does this work involve? There are many levels to this work but mostly it is inner work. When you have a treatment of acupuncture and come in for headaches with a ten year history for example, you realise whilst having the treatment the first and second time you felt fantastic no pain and headache relieved. Come treatment three and you felt good for the first two days and then something stirs inside you.

Some old familiar dark emotion and you question, why am I feeling this again? What has the acupuncturist done? I feel terrible. This old feeling so familiar from the past that you haven’t allowed yourself to express has surfaced. This is when the real work begins and when these feelings come up you are in the right place. Most patients tend to run at this point not realising that this is the most critical point in the treatment phase. These feelings can be referred to the dark night of the soul or healing crisis.

There is a quote on my astropillars website on the treatment page by Jefferey C. Yuen that states; “there is no such things as incurable diseases only incurable people.”

I find this statement very powerful, healing and treatments are a transformative process and most people are unconscious of this.It is very rarely just headaches unless there is an obvious trauma.Stubborn recurring problems usually stem from blind spots we have in ourselves, or we are aware of these and deny them.There is usually psychic symbolism involved in this.When darker uncomfortable feelings surface a process is developing.This process is backed up by a very powerful archetypal energy which astrologers refer to as Pluto.Though the patient might not be going through a Pluto transit,

but anything that stirs up a deeper feeling will be symbolic of this. Pluto in a nutshell is about psychic cleansing and will draw the skeletons out of the basement of your being in order for you to change. Pluto demands this in order for the body to regenerate itself and move on. We are here to evolve, grow and as painful as growth can be it is still growth,still part of living.

The myth of Hades the god of the underworld relating to the Pluto archetype is very important to understand when going through this process. Most people depending on when they are born and the life cycle experience the Plutonic energy around Mid-life. We can be specific about this but I am just talking generally for now. When in a healing crisis situation we make our decent into the underworld, we can feel profound depression to the point where we are cut off from ordinary reality. This usually relates to a psychological death of some kind, such as death of hope, death of relationship or death of purpose. I am not going to delve into the full myth of Hades, the main point I want to get across is that in these depths of depression, anger, rage and hopelessness there is a great treasure. We are not talking about literal treasure, this is symbolic, when we are in the depths of despair we can transit through the cycle with the right support and find treasure. This treasure is referred to as inner gold. Sometimes we have to struggle to obtain it, there is nothing for free we have to work for everything.We even have to work to obtain our

own inner peace and happiness. This is what the shadow and the healing crisis demands of us. The shadow represents voices inside us that need to be heard. Like a screaming child that is demanding attention from their parent, the more you deny the baby the louder they scream.

Carl Jung states that,“people will do anything no matter how absurd from facing their souls.”

The amount of medications such as anti-anxieties and anti-depressants are pretty much here to block the process of growth. There are consequences for this and that is disease, just like Jeffrey C. Yuen states in the above quote it is only when people don’t want to change that disease is incurable.

There is another classic quote in the Tao Teh Ching that states;

“Only when we are sick of our sickness,

Shall we cease to be sick,

The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness,

This is the secret of health”

Usually people only seek Chinese Medicine after trying everything else and nothing has worked and they realise they are sick of being sick. Obviously there are many deeper aspects to the disease process that are too big to go into here, but the root of it is that if we don’t want to change or the embrace the alchemical process that healing involves we will be in trouble, trouble that leads to an unfulfilled destiny in our lives or worse a disease. It is absolutely mind blowing that there is medication that has been produced for every emotional experience of the human being. Sadness, grief, anger, excitement, anxiety, depression are now being classed as mental disorders and are demanding chemical treatment via prescription. The sad truth is most of these drugs are prescribed to people who don’t even need them leading to complications and diminishing quality of life. Healing takes courage and the hardest thing to do in life is truly face ourselves. The resurgence of the ancient healing traditions is starting to have a comeback. This is most needed in a world that and only allows us to live part of ourselves. Today’s culture takes away the simplicity of life and makes it more sophisticated and complicated, leading to greater emotional and mental problems. Sometimes we need to experience an illness or a disease as this can give us greater insights to ourselves and also a chance to transform ourselves.When having consultations with Chinese Medical practitioners it takes a tremendous amount of honesty with yourself, this is the only way to truly reap the benefits that this profound medical system has to offer.