Hello, my friend!
When I was 24, I had the gift of living in Bali for nine months. It was during the dot-com boom, and what I learned there about beauty, resilience, and the fragility of livelihood has stayed with me ever since. This week, I want to tell you that story — and what Chinese medicine has to say about protecting the softest part of yourself.
↓ In today’s email:
- This week’s inspiration: A building in Bali and the thing that guards your heart
- Latest blog post: The Rocky Road to Hormone Balance
- What I’m listening to: Arsenio Hall on Fresh Air
This Week’s Inspiration: A Building in Bali and the Thing That Guards Your Heart
When I was 24, I had the gift of living in Bali for nine months. It was during the dot-com boom, and I worked for a company that helped local artists sell their work online. Now, this seems like the most basic thing on the planet, but at the time, it was revolutionary.
The artists in Bali had a problem. When tourists came, they could sell all manner of exquisitely created things: carved chess sets made of teak, masks of the Garuda or Sita from the Ramayana story, beautiful silver work. Also miniature paintings — truly amazing, just 2″ x 2″ but with a whole world inside.
But sometimes the tourists didn’t come. Maybe because of an economic recession. Maybe because there had been a bombing in a nightclub only years before. Maybe because of tsunamis. Whatever the reason, the downstream effect was disastrous, because the artists needed to keep food on the table. In this case, probably nasi goreng — one of my favorite dishes.
The company I worked for had a goal of changing all of that. It was set up in small towns all over the world to get local artisans to put their work on the internet. They named their price, and we marked it up to cover our costs. It was a pretty amazing job. Maybe only second from being a cocktail waitress at Bryant Park in the 90s, or — honestly — an acupuncturist in Newport in the 2020s. 😉
Fast forward. Ten years ago, I wanted my husband and my children to see a little bit of this life I’d lived, and so we packed up to see my wonderful Balinese friend Komang and his family.
On that trip, something really stuck with me. Passing by a truly ugly, brutalist building — incongruous with the Balinese countryside — I said to Komang, “What is that building?” He replied, “That is an insane asylum. Mostly filled with people who work in Indonesian politics.”
There was a long, resounding pause. Because it made sense. Back then, in the United States, we had just had a major election that left everyone I knew feeling like we had lost our minds.
How politics in the world around us affects our hearts, minds, and sanity seems to be the most talked about theme in my practice this week. To what extent should we open ourselves up to the wounds of the world? To what extent do we let it permeate our being and our psyche?
I don’t have definitive answers. However, looking to the philosophy of Chinese medicine that goes back 2,000 years, there might be something to say, and it goes like this:
The energetic system in our body that protects our heart is called the pericardium. In Chinese medicine, this is an organ but it’s also a channel that runs through the body. Acupuncture needles can be placed into points on this channel to influence this organ. To what extent this pericardium opens itself to let things come directly into our heart varies from person to person. The pericardium — such a thing actually exists physiologically in our body — is the thing that keeps the heart safe.
In this case, we’re talking about the emotional heart, the energetic heart. But it has a lot to do with the physical beating thing in your chest that makes the blood flow. It is the place we feel pain. In Chinese medicine, it is also the place where part of the soul resides. That part of the soul is called the Shen, and when the Shen is disturbed, our heart is disturbed and our mind is disturbed. And that reminds me of that ugly little building in Bali — we can become, indeed, mentally disturbed.
All of us are wired differently. Some of us have to know every little thing and big thing, every atrocity that happens — and I know if my grandmother were alive, she would know and be aware. Some people dip into the news, look around, survey the headlines, craning their necks laterally to the horizon, seeing that things are still not good, and dip back into the depths. For full disclosure, there are people like me who are not ill-informed but possibly uninformed. As I tell myself: the healing work I do couldn’t happen if I were angry all the time at what transpires.
So I’ll ask you: How are you handling the world? How is this knowing affecting your body — whether it’s your tight neck and shoulders, or maybe your digestion, or lack of digestion? How are you sleeping, or are you waking up between 1:00 and 3:00 AM?
How are you caring for the soft part of yourself that needs to feel safe in this world? Perhaps it’s with gatherings with friends, with enjoying the sun and the flowers. Perhaps it’s bodywork with your acupuncturist.
Let me know how you are faring and how you are digesting this world at large.
Latest Blog Post
The Rocky Road to Hormone Balance — Even for Someone Who Should Know
I wrote something very personal this week. As a member of The Menopause Society who has now seen five doctors trying to figure out the right hormone delivery — patches, compounded creams, the works — I decided to be honest about just how confusing this road has been. I talk about the patch that brought my spark back (and the plastic problem that came with it), the $210 compounded hormones insurance won’t touch, and the three Chinese herbal formulas I cook up in my kitchen that stink like dreck but absolutely get the job done.
What I’m Listening To
Arsenio Hall on Fresh Air
Beautiful and erudite. I loved this interview with Arsenio Hall — he’s promoting his new book, but there is so much thoughtful conversation on a multitude of topics that strike deeply, particularly midway through the show. So give it a chance, give it a listen. Enjoy.
Take good care of that heart of yours — it’s doing important work.
Dr. Catherine