Movement (or Action) and Nourishment; What a Formula has Taught Me About Change

Over the course of the last 16 months I've been immersing myself in the ancient system of Chinese Medicine. Within that time, I've spent hundreds of hours with clients in a one to one clinical setting, spending several hours more with each case to formulate a personalized formula and a wellness plan each week.

Something often happens when we're integrating information within a system, we can begin to see ourselves in so much of it, especially when we've been battling our own mysteries for so long. Previous to starting my TCM program, I was already feeling into Liver symptoms. Then, as my program began, Spleen - my own teacher noted "Your symptoms are uncommon, but they're textbook." Later, I found myself looking at the Heart with my long standing sleep struggles.

Eventually, my understanding of this system brought me to the Kidneys, the place where our Jing, our Essence lives. The life force energy within each of us, the thing that some of us come into this world already deficient in because Essence is primarily generated through inheritance, often called Prenatal Jing- a part of this system that reflects the modern idea of Epigenetics. And with my own dark-house, detriment Sun limited vitality is all too familiar a topic for me.

Chinese Granules

While Prenatal Jing can lay a solid or rocky foundation for us at birth, we also have access to something called Postnatal Jing as well. Postnatal Jing is created by our bodies through food, air, and certain lifestyle choices. Our day to day choices can enhance or diminish our existing reserves. Some ways that our current lives diminish our Jing include chronic stress and overwork, poor sleep habits, constant information intake, emotional suppression, as well as various other common lifestyle and environmental stressors.

Something, in particular, that struck me about the Kidneys in relation to my own personal struggle was their relationship to Willpower. The energetic force that the Kidneys manifest for us. And, no matter what I tried, I couldn't will myself to make certain changes in my life- just exhaustion and biding time. Time that turned into years. No amount of rest, no amount of effort could break the cycle for me. And so I started seeing a practitioner who's been working with Chinese Medicine, through both herbs and acupuncture, for over a decade.

In that first session, everything I had been discovering about myself through the lens of Chinese Medicine was confirmed. Within a remarkably short time, she was able to name the unending burnout I had carried for years. She identified a state of freeze within me and, more specifically, how a dysfunctional relationship between the energetic Kidneys and Heart can manifest this way—a pattern this ancient system has recognized for millenniums.

What felt profoundly comical to me was that just before my first appointment, I had half-jokingly considered creating a formula for myself—the very same formula that nearly every one of my clients has received over the past year of my clinical practice. A "every else is taking it, so why shouldn't I?" And wouldn't you know, that formula is exactly the formula I was prescribed in that first visit.

In my perspective, one of the most potent considerations of Chinese Medicine is that it recognizes that each person has a unique constitutional pattern, so while each of my clients has received this formula consistently, each version was tailored specifically to each of their needs individually. For some, I've made adjustments every few visits to address areas still emerging in their healing process.

I've been on this formula for a little over a month now, learning what it must feel like for my own clients to experience the change that comes from this particular formula- Xiao Yao San, a formula designed to alleviate Liver Qi stagnation and to help to nourish the Blood. Its alternate names are 'Rambling Powder' and 'Free and Easy Wanderer,' names that point to the levity this formula can bring to those it's well suited for.

Xiao Yao San works specifically on the Liver and Blood, but can also indirectly provide essential protective support to the Kidneys by addressing the patterns that most commonly deplete our precious Jing reserves. In TCM, the Liver and Kidneys share a delicate relationship—both of which store vital substance (the Liver stores Blood, the Kidneys store Jing), and both are easily damaged by stress and overwork. When Liver Qi stagnates over a long period of time, it creates a cascade that eventually taxes the Kidneys.

In the capitalistic, productivity-oriented society we find ourselves in, especially here in the US, many of us are extremely stressed, overworked, and depleted. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, if you came into this world already lacking sufficient Jing, you are already at a higher risk of depletion when pushing beyond your own capacity.

Once we have pushed ourselves to depletion, our burnout may feel extremely hard to get out of, and, perhaps feel unending. Sometimes rest is just not enough. Necessary, daily tasks like cooking and cleaning begin to feel impossible to navigate for ourselves, let alone participating in joyful activity or hobbies. It is when that state of freeze might feel most relatable, when it feels impossible to get up off the couch and put our phones down, because it feels like all we can do. All the while, still not truly resting because of the constant intake of information, ruminating thoughts, or the little voice in the back of our heads telling us that our rest is indulgent and that we have so many things we should be checking off our list, instead all the while not doing any of it, and, still not resting. A strange form of FOMO, fear of missing out on limited time, yet still not being able to act upon it.

Jia Wei Xiao Yao San (bottom) + Ba Zhen Tang (top)

While so much of my work for clients is navigating chores, managing schedules, and cooking, over the past several years I haven't had the energy to do it for myself much. I found myself batch cooking soups for so much of the last year because I could garner enough yield to freeze and eat for a week or two at a time with only one day of effort. And within a weeks worth of time on my formula, I found myself not only sleeping better (hallelujah!,) but I also found myself having the capacity to cook not one, but two meals in my day on a random Tuesday. More than that, I've found myself leaving the confines of my living room to go outside, to dig in the dirt, to manage my tiny, but growing garden. It is like the life is slowly coming back to me after feeling so utterly depleted and dull.

Today I transitioned from one work role to another, and then to finalize a couple of formulas for a client- one to move stagnant Qi, Jia Wei Xiao Yao San (modified Rambling Powder) and one to nourish, Ba Zhen Tang (Eight Treasures). And as I sat there and weighed out granules, I couldn't help but think of how perfect a metaphor these formulas were for the process we must move through when we are in the midst of unraveling years, if not decades of conditioning, trauma, overwork, boundary crossing. The way true change can only manifest through movement, or action. And how that action can only manifest through nourishment, because if we are depleted, we have no fuel to move, we have nothing to support us in that change. There is no Essence. There is no will.

If you, like me, have been feeling stuck in a state of depletion and longing for something other than a lackluster life, reach out. May it be the first step toward a lifetime of change.