Hello everyone, welcome to Fall, bye bye crazy summer fun months. It’s back to school for my family and back to routine…with a little more self-care. What about you? What does your self-care look like? What do you do in your life to spark joy? Who do you surround yourself with? Fall is Lungs & Large Intestine season- the Metal Element (Metal is more linear and routinized). So it makes sense that we are adding more routine and more discipline into our lives. The sun makes it easier to be happy, so with less sun we could insert some more joyful activities to keep balanced. The emotion of the Fall is sadness and/or loneliness. I sometimes feel homesick this time of year. Keeping my lungs open and my digestion smooth will be one of my goals for the next few months. I go for more walks and stretch out my arms while breathing and doing circles; movement with breath. This slows me down and brings me in the moment. I have started taking some probiotics and some immune teas and formulas, getting some acupuncture and massage, and going to bed earlier. I am sure all of you have some tricks that you do this time of year too.
This Fall I have some exciting events and courses lined up. I just finished taking an acupuncture course on Luo-Collateral channels in the body. These are channels in the body that connect the yin and yang paired organs. When we get overwhelmed these Luo-Collaterals have the potential to hold things at bay for later, creating a latency in the body until we are more capable to deal with certain stresses. Our bodies and channels have a super wisdom to deal with life. At some point we want to be able to slow down and take stock of how we are doing and make sense of things in our lives. If this doesn’t happen, our bodies are constantly overwhelmed, and life feels stressful. Acupuncture can help the body offload some of this stored emotion/tension. In the course I was taking, we even saw how the body creates extra blood vessels to store this stress or latency. Wow!
Over the summer, I was co-teaching Yoga at the Salt Spring Centre. This sparked a fire in me to start teaching here in Victoria. I’m going to start teaching a group of Montessori teachers weekly classes, and then we’ll see ( I know some of you have been wondering… I’ll keep you posted when I start to branch out). I’ve also been asked to be the key note speaker at a Montessori Conference on The Tao of Montessori. Two things very close to my heart. There are so many opportunities in life, we just need to grab them, even though we are terrified!
I’m flying to Portland next month for a two day workshop with Kiiko Matsumoto. Her specialities lie in teaching the Classics, and combining their wisdom with Modern Medicine. She will be focusing on systemic detoxification of our most common pharmaceuticals, and how they affect our kidney function. We’ll be discussing other topics such as bone strength and long term health goals (longevity). Chinese Medicine is all about longevity and happy life!
Looking forward to hearing what you have been up to. Some of you I haven’t seen in a while. Drop me a note via email or make an appointment. I’m in the clinic Mon, Wed, Fri, Thursday is my overflow day. Please remember you can text/email me to make a booking, especially if you don’t find a spot that’s convenient for you. I can put you on a waitlist for that day.
Here’s my email gigivincentine@hotmail.com
cell# 250.882.0659
Blessings
Gigi Vincentine Dr. TCM