The first one I called Things to do when I have time and energy:
After sharing this great idea with a friend, she told me I needed another kind of list. So, like a good planner, I made one. Things to do when I have time and no energy:
I was pleased with these lists. They felt like good planning. A system to make sure I would not waste my time, would not become lost to my phone, and would not let a single pocket of open time go unused.
Then I mentioned them to my own Chinese medicine practitioner last week, half expecting a little credit for being organized.
He said, “You need to add one more item to each list.”
I grabbed my pen.
“Nothing,” he said. “Add do nothing to both lists. And then practice it.”
I would like to tell you that I laughed and easily agreed. I didn’t.
I actually felt a flare of resistance. Doing nothing wasn’t on the list because doing nothing didn’t count. I have resisted being a time waster my whole life. If I wasn’t accomplishing something, surely I should at least be reading a Chinese medicine classic, or trying to better something, somewhere.
The idea that doing nothing could be valuable felt uncomfortable.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
Sitting with that discomfort reminded me of a question I hear all the time in clinic. After I finish inserting the needles, dim the lights, and make sure the person I am working with is comfortable, they ask me exactly that: ‘What do I do while the needles are in?’
My answer is almost always the same.
Absolutely nothing.
If you have ever had acupuncture, you know that time feels different on the table. Thirty minutes can feel like ten minutes, or like an hour. It is a rare moment when we are invited to stop doing.
Those thirty minutes are not the waiting room for your treatment. They are part of the treatment.
Try simply noticing.
There is no productive version of rest. There is only rest.
So why do we leave the needles in for thirty minutes?
In Chinese medicine, we think of the needles as an invitation for the body to respond. In our training and classical texts, we are taught resting with the needles for this amount of time allows the treatment to work best.
I have watched this happen thousands of times over the years. Breathing slows. Shoulders drop. The face softens. Modern research points the same direction: during treatment, the nervous system shifts toward its “rest and digest” state.
That shift does not happen the moment a needle goes in. It takes time.
The half of the system we keep skipping
Chinese medicine describes this through Yin and Yang, two ideas that get made far more complicated than they need to be. At their heart, they describe the two halves of any healthy system.
Neither one is better. We need both. When Yang carries us through the day and Yin restores us at night, we have energy because we know how to replenish it.
The trouble is that our culture celebrates one of them much more than the other. We admire productivity. We reward busyness. Rest becomes something we have to earn first.
I had two lists and no category for stopping.
But Yin cannot be earned through effort. Everything else on my lists could be accomplished by trying harder. This one cannot.
An invitation
Lately I have been practicing adding “nothing” to my own lists. Some days I am better at it than others.
But every time I sit quietly in the treatment room after placing the last needle, I am reminded of something. Healing does not always happen because we do more. Sometimes it begins because, for thirty quiet minutes, we finally stop.
Upcoming Class: From Restless to Rested, A Chinese Medicine Approach to Sleep
This is also why I think sleep is such an important conversation. If we never practice rest during the day, it is no surprise that our minds struggle to settle at night. In August I will be teaching a class at Mississippi Market. If you are interested, I would love for you to join me.
From Restless to Rested: A Chinese Medicine Approach to Sleep
Come curious. Leave with practical tools for a better night’s rest.
Root & Restore Acupuncture Treatment: When you want more time
Everything I have written here comes down to one idea: the body responds when we give it enough time. That idea is also what led me to create a new Chinese Medicine visit.
Root & Restore is a sixty-minute visit, one on one, for the times when a standard appointment does not feel like enough. The extra time lets us step back and look at the whole picture, and it lets me draw on the fuller toolkit of Chinese medicine: herbs, moxibustion, cupping, gua sha, stone medicine, essential oils, and food therapy, depending on what will actually help you that day.
Learn more about Root & Restore here.
I invite you to join me in class, or in the clinic. Or you can start exactly where I did.
With a pen.
And a very short list.
Julie
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