“There’s a disconnect between up here and down there,” my new acupuncturist said on our first date. “What is it about your body that you don’t want to hear?”

She said this to me as she pointed first to my head and then to my achy bones.  She said we have some work to do.

Now, I am a therapist.  And a writer. 

I help people stop drinking, stop smoking, eat healthy, exercise, breathe, do yoga, write, date, have sex, not have sex, spend time alone, gather support, go for a walk, sing, play music, paint pictures, take photos, leave their job, their abusive relationship, move, stay put, be with their dying mother, and go to their own death with purpose and dignity.

I help people get connected, stay connected, be present, feel their feelings, grieve their losses, express joy, honor their inner child, go to their center, heal their shame that binds, find their true north and live their purpose.

I help people.  As best I can, that’s what I do. 

What officially qualifies me to do this is a degree in psychology, classes in human development, sociology and religion, and an MFA in creative writing.  I’ve had training in various therapeutic techniques in a myriad of settings and I’ve done this job for 20 years.

But it is my own journey as a person that has provided the juice from which I operate in my job.  And what Chinese Medicine Woman was telling me was there is a glitch in the works.

I grew up a toughy, much like many country kids, in a rock em sock em family that held no sympathy for wimps.  This was farmland – stocked with hard working people. Two of them, my parents, were both dedicated to their Puritan Work Ethic and united in the resolve that we rise above our circumstances.  They wanted us to make something of ourselves and, as they saw it, that required square shoulders and no crying.

I wanted to be all that – strong willed, principled – to set my jaw in the face of pain or hardship and maintain forward momentum without complaint.  I sprained and broke and sliced and diced most of my limbs and much of my main frame.  I got stitched and casted and bound together – a good healer I was told – and mostly without a peep.  I worked hard.  I made a good life.

But what was also true was that I was an emotional tenderfoot.  I cried easily when left alone or in my bed at night.  I cried with books and at movies and when someone else cried.  Other people’s sadness came right into me and became mine.   I crumpled on the inside but on the outside, I held firm.  Stoneface was my mother’s nickname for me and she said it with pride.  The name, and the resolve that went with it became cemented to my backbone and I walked on.

And I suppose this is what the acupuncturist could read in my pulses – a mind full of what I thought I needed to be and, perhaps, what I told myself I was.

I ended up at her office because my back hurts enough that it’s hard to bend over and my neck hurts so that I can’t turn it to the right.  She was efficient in her manner and concise in her remarks. 

Q – What do you do when something hurts?

A – What do you mean?

Q – Do you stop doing what you’re doing, do you take drugs, do you call a doctor?

A – I don’t know.

Q – What makes your neck worse?

A – I can’t tell.

She went through her assessment and she wants me to come back again for the next few weeks and we will see what she can do. 

I have the feeling that it is mostly an inside job.