Nurturing and Discerning
Here is a guest post by Claudine Paille, who is an Imperial Tutor member and sent the following message to Leo Lok and myself, in response to our latest podcast episodes, “Eating for Old Age” for the public Pebble in the Cosmic Pond, and “Nurturing and Discerning” for the Imperial Tutorial. While it is quite personal, I want to share it (with her permission of course) because it will be interesting to see how Claudine’s response to Leo’s and my offering in the podcast in turn lands with the rest of you all. Plus I want to share this as an example of the wonderful thoughts and conversations that pop up after we release our podcasts. So here you are:
Nurturing and Discerning: I really enjoyed this podcast, like all the others. But this one is so perfect. I want to express here my gratitude for your work, your dedication for nourishing my Chinese Medicine passion. I am sure I am not the only one.
I loved the link you drew between Chinese Medicine and Buddhism. The sweet spot you mentioned between Leo and you Sabine throughout your discussions, which are done with great respect. I can feel that and believe me, I am very sensitive to this matter. I never felt any arrogance or patronizing from either of you.
It’’s amazing how your words on “retirement” meet mine. I am turning 67 this year and I still have the passion, not ready to retire in any way. I believe that, even if I am still learning this Medicine, I have a lot to give, maybe more with wisdom and experience. So you have more years to give, dear Sabine, stay with us please. Chinese Medicine needs you to keep it “authentic and alive.”
Where I live, Chinese Medicine is fading out for many reasons, in my opinio,n but this is another story.
Let’s go back to menstruation, the subject you end the podcast with. Great subject. And I know already, many won’t agree with me but hey, I have seen worse than that :)
Here, where I live, there is this “new thing” with hormones and menopause. A very popular TV star started some kind of documentary or TV show with many episodes where the main subject is “menopause and how it destroys women.” I won’t go into details because it is totally crazy. But many women relate to it and others now make “links” with it even if they are young. For example, I have had a few young patients, 30ish, telling me that “maybe I need hormones since I am often in a bad mood, and sometimes I want to divorce or quit my job…. .” So in their understanding, if a women is having a mood swing or “bad” ideas and mood, it is because of the hormonal imbalance and maybe they are entering pre-menopause? See where this is going?
So the TV star even argues with some doctors on air, if “they” don’t agree with this, that they are not helping women and bla bla bla. Lets stop there with this show.
I see a lot of sad things also with fertility drugs and such that are a total disaster for women, with so much pressure around it. Sometimes when witnessing them, I really ask myself how they make it through. woahhhh And lets make it clear, I am not judging women who go to a fertility clinic, that’s not the point here.
But like Leo said, we have to do our best and practice our medicine, listen to our patients, and try our best to limit the awful side effects. Maybe this is a good thing we know how to help in some way with that matter so as to keep our patients in a good place. Meanwhile, I see some of them starting to realize that maybe it’s not a good idea to relie only on HRT. I have been watching this “new thing” for a few years now, asking myself up until where and when this will go on. And I did not find anything on this matter within the Chinese Medicine community, until I read it in Z’ev Rosenberg’s book on this matter, yeahhhhh someone is talking about it. Thank you!
The beauty of this medicine is that I always encounter through my clinical practice the ability to see, feel, touch, ask and then know what is going on with our patients, even and mostly when they have gone to biomedical doctors and these have no answer about what they have. Well… that is the beauty of this Medicine, we don’t treat a sickness name, we treat a patient and whatever the imbalance is within them. So let’s go on with it and again, I have much gratitude for both of you, what a great team you make.
Claudine
If you now want to listen to Leo’s and my conversation on the topic of “Nurturing and Discerning,” I invite you to sign up for a $9 trial to my Imperial Tutor membership so that you can access that episode of the Imperial Tutorial. You will find the monthly episodes of “A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond” podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
