Four years ago today I married the love of my life. Every morning I get to wake up beside him and experience that same level of awe that someone so bright and vibrant could fall in love with me. When I use the word “bright,” I am not speaking about his intelligence. Even though he is the child of two Harvard-educated doctors, whenever anyone hears the word “bright” used about my husband they immediately think of the sunny-like nature that emanates from him. He is an extreme optimist who is known for his inexhaustible joy, his nearly arm-breaking bear hugs and his propensity to squeal frequently with delight. He is also known for his very rugged constitution.
I always give his parents credit for raising four boys with the very useful abilities to sleep in a war-zone and/or digest a car tire if need be. They all have brilliant constitutions, with my husband strongly at the front of the pack. He can work the hardest, the longest and with the biggest smile of anyone I have ever met.
Now imagine being married to that. I exemplify a more feline nature. My all time favorite activities include napping in the sun, eating luxurious meals and sipping tea. It is precisely this paradox that has helped me clarify over the years what it is exactly I want to do with my life.
I don’t want to “do” acupuncture or “do” yoga. Those are tools and they are good ones. What I want to “do” is teach people how to find their natural rhythms and then strengthen them to make each person arrive at their highest level of well-being. For years I thought I had to be like my husband in order to be strong—a rugged constitution was the best constitution. Nowadays I see that our individual constitutions make us uniquely qualified for certain types of work and certain roles in relationships.
Marrying into my husband’s family put me into “the princess and the pea” role. Before them I thought I had a very normal understanding of comfort and ease, but now I understand that I am a highly sensitive person with a very clear and articulate sense of comfort. Really, I am obsessed with ease, mobility and fluidity. I teach comfort and awareness of sensation for a living.
90% of what I treat, maybe 100% of what I treat can be lived with on a daily basis. I will own that. I am not an emergency room practitioner. You can have 21 day cycles, brutally painful menstrual cramps, sleep 30 minutes a night and experience no flexion of the spine and exist in the world for years. In fact, a large portion of Americans experience everything that I treat on a daily basis and don’t think there is an alternative to their discomfort.
Society has lost itself so much over the years that most people don’t know how to tell if they are in pain or comfort. People can’t tell me if they are bloated, tired or even if they are hungry or thirsty. This disconnect of body and mind is so alarming that I have decided to dedicate my working life to the pursuit of comfort and wellness. Health is not a privilege of the wealthy and the retired. You can have a full time job, raise a family, tend to your garden, have a hobby, visit your in-laws and still stay connected to your thinking mind and your physical body.
In fact, I believe that if you do connect mind and body that everything in your life will improve. A healthy body and mind become a vessel for the work we were put here to achieve.
Falling in love helped me reunite my body and mind eleven years ago. Every day is another opportunity to challenge myself to embrace my sensitivities, honor my rhythms and fight fiercely for other people to learn how to regain awareness of their bodies.