This past month marked a number of anniversaries for me. My birthday is in January, as is the one year anniversary of my son’s time in hospital (see previous blog post). This year also marks 20 years as a licensed acupuncturist.
Prior to my time as an acupuncturist, I have had many vocations – carpenter, farmer, teacher, yoga teacher, body-worker – so it surprises me that I have been at this one for twenty years now. Reflecting back, I can still remember the day I first discovered community acupuncture. I was attending a workshop in Portland, Oregon on the subject. I remember feeling immediately that this was my calling – how I wanted to practice the medicine.
I came home from that gathering and immediately began work on the clinic space at Moss and May. Four months later we opened our doors and never looked back. Nearly two decades later, my kids are all grown, and Hemma has gone from a dream to a place that has touched so many lives. I can’t even comprehend how it all happened, or how fast the time has gone by.
As a new parent and business owner, I have felt grateful to have had such a clear purpose in life. Prior to that time, I often prayed that I would find such a clear calling. I’ve always had such a strong desire to serve in this lifetime – to have whatever gifts were given to me be fully utilized. Finding that calling as a parent and as a care provider has been a true gift.
Some people say that a business is like a child, that it goes through growth stages similar to a person – infancy, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, and so on. I feel that. Having my kids and my work entering young adulthood it’s dawning on me that I am moving into a new phase of my life.
I am fortunate to have a close relationship with my young adult kids, but they need me less and less, at least in the ways I was so accustomed to. Similarly, Hemma also doesn’t really need me in the way that it once did. I feel it too needing to grow into something more independent from me personally.
After so many years with such a clear purpose I have grown unaccustomed to the feeling of not being needed. That feeling is unfamiliar, and also a little scary. I feel both a reluctance to accept where I am at, and at the same time a curiosity about what it may bring. We rarely get to decide when life brings us some new challenge or opportunity, so it’s best to embrace it when it does.
A few things are starting to become clear, though. I still love working in the clinic as much as I did when I first started and I hope to be working there, providing acupuncture, for several more years. I also want to see the clinic, and community acupuncture, continue to grow long past my days as an acupuncturist. I have begun teaching more – mentoring new acupuncturists and sharing more about the benefits of the community acupuncture model. I have a vision of community clinics throughout the island and mainland.
Something else I know is that my spirit is ready for some new challenges – new growth.
I have a desire to be challenged in some new ways in order to continue growing myself. That growth involves developing some new ideas and offerings. For the past several years I have been dreaming about creating a form of group/peer counselling that could combine elements of counselling with the strength of being together in community. Community acupuncture has really shown me the value of healing together – sharing in our life struggles and triumphs.
So much of our healing these days is done in isolation from one another. Creating more ways to be together – to share in our common life struggles – is vital to healing ourselves and our communities. I believe we need to find more ways to engage with one another. With that in mind, in the next few months, I am planning to start some experimental peer counselling groups to provide another way for people to be together – to listen, hold space for, and heal. I am planning to post the details within the next month or two so stay tuned, and thank you all for your ongoing participation in community healing.