Do you have faith in your body’s ability to heal itself?

After several years of visiting the Tao of Healing and TCM World Foundation and applying their teachings to my life, I can say that I do. It has been a wonderful and eye-opening experience!

Prior to this, I had been conditioned to think that the answer to maintaining good health was outside of me. My mom had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and my doctor now spoke to me as if it was only a matter of time before I experienced the same fate during my yearly exams. Her idea of “prevention” was suggesting I remove my breasts and ovaries and develop a relationship with a good oncologist. I was there because I wanted support in staying healthy and this advice felt misguided and foreign to me. I was ready to leave the world of western medicine behind, but where could I get support in being healthy in a system that honored me as a whole person? Where the focus was on maintaining good health rather than the fear of disease? Where I felt empowered and received the tools I needed to take care of my own health?

At the center, I found the support I needed. I have had direct experiences that have shown me that my health is truly in my hands.

I arrived to my first appointment with Dr. Lu at the TCM World Foundation with a list of questions and concerns that I thought he would have all of the answers for. I wanted him to tell me what I needed to do to avoid getting sick. That was my problem. I was focused on avoiding disease not creating my most healthy me. When Dr. Lu asked me, “What are you afraid of?” and said that “Wood that doesn’t bend breaks in the wind,” my mind thought, “What does that have to do with how I developed an ovarian cyst?” But my heart said, “This is the key.” He was offering me a key to the answers and it was up to me to ask the right questions and do the work. Could my fear and inflexibility in life be creating dis-ease in my body? Of course it could if I believed what science now says and TCM has been saying for thousands of years about mind, body and spirit being connected.

Convinced that this is was the place I had been looking for, I decided to take full advantage of what they offered and not miss any opportunities. I went to acupuncture, took the suggestions given to me and did the qigong movements recommended. Qi dancing? Sounds great. Dragon’s Way? Yes, perfect. Qigong for Women’s Health? I’m in. Each time I participated in a program, I learned something new that inspired me to move forward, toward health. At times it was simply something a participant said about their healing experience that inspired me and made me see things clearer.

Since then I have had direct experience in healing myself through changing my beliefs and integrating the teachings into my life. For example, while riding my bike recently I was hit by a taxi car door opening and thrown against a parked car. I didn’t feel hurt and rode off but later that night felt a sharp, throbbing pain in my hand, wrist and arm. I could find no comfortable position for relief. How could I apply what I had learned from the center to healing it? What message was my body giving me? What was the lesson in this experience for me? I focused on the stories of healing I had heard about at the center: How a friend healed his fractured ankle in less than a week and how my teacher healed her burn. After two days of applying all that I have learned over the years, the pain was gone.

With this and other direct experiences of healing myself has come wisdom and the restoration of faith that my health is in my hands. I will be forever grateful for all that I have learned from this wonderful and wise community and will continue to practice what I have learned for the rest of my life.

-Marcy Scott