Illness and Pain - an Effective Teaching Tool

I'm not a big Luo practitioner. I do Longitudinal Luos when I find them, and they relate to the health issue a patient is concerned about. Back in school days, I found the Luos kind of overwhelming. I am embarrassed to say that I got my worst grade in my Daoist Master's area of specialty, the Luos Vessels. So when I graduated, I decided to focus on Divergent, Sinew and Eight Extra Meridians in my private practice, all of which I feel very competent to practice.

But then, for the past few weeks, I've been getting joint aches all over, which is not usual for me. When I had fibromyalgia, I had pain all over but it was in the connective tissue, not the joints. So I searched of Jeffrey Yuen class notes to try to determine what meridian system would be the best to resolve my problem. After a few hours spent reading through various class notes, I ended up doing a Longitudinal Luo tx for chronic digestive problems, beginning with ST-40, then the Yang Luo related to the signs & symptoms (for me, PC-6), finishing by harmonizing blood with SP-3, the Source point of the ST Luo's sister meridian. Sure enough, my joint aches of the past several weeks were gone within 5 minutes. Wow! This stuff truly works, even when you are just learning how to use it. It's really kind of thrilling to see something work so perfectly. It feels almost like I am seeing a miracle occur right before my very eyes. But of course, it isn't a miracle at all, it is the result of having access to a profound and effective system of medicine. With no side effects, no less!

I sometimes wonder whether those of us who have chosen healing as a profession perhaps get an illness or health issue as a way to teach us, a presentation of a challenge, a test case for us to solve. Every time I treat myself, the problem gets fixed, but even more important than that, I have opened the door to a whole new area of medical understanding. Illness forces me to go back to my notes to research what the possible treatments are (which meridian system is most suited for this particular situation?), and then I am always amazed to see the problem resolve, usually immediately.

Is this stuff the bomb or what? I can hardly believe my luck. I am so blessed to have found Chinese medicine, and Daoist medicine in particular. It is almost unbelievable at times.