Stress and Fatigue – Medford Acupuncture & Herbal Clinic

Built to Last

Written by Ann Zimmerman on May 14, 2024. Posted in Spirituality, Stress and Fatigue, Zimmerman Articles.

by Clark Zimmerman, LAc.

One of my best friends from college used to have a Volkswagen bus. He would spend hours tinkering with his engine in the driveway of the house we rented with some friends. He wasn’t an expert mechanic, but he found great joy in figuring things out. It was a sort of puzzle that led to a lot of satisfaction when he got his van working just right. There were a lot of amateur mechanics in the neighborhood who liked to tinker on weekends. Most of the cars were older, simpler rides. They were quite different from the complex, computer centered vehicles of today. They were made to be worked on by regular folks, who had a little training and a willingness to fumble through the process. As technology has advanced, it has become more difficult to work on cars. Gone are the days when most vehicles were serviceable without a lot of expensive diagnostic machines and specialized parts. While the vehicles of today can offer more comfort and bells and whistles, I feel that we have lost something as we have made the move away from the automotive simplicity of the past.

In a way, it is similar to the idea of planned obsolescence. This is the idea that things are purposely built to break or age quickly out of their usefulness. Companies use planned obsolescence as a way to ensure that customers are required to purchase new items sooner. If a product wears out more quickly, customers need to replace items more often, generating more business and profits. The corporations and their shareholders benefit, while the consumers and the environment pay the cost. It can feel so frustrating when you want to fix something that has broken, only to find that no one makes replacement parts. I experienced this last month when I tried to replace a lightbulb in an outdoor light at my office. I was looking for a way to open the fixture, but was confused to find that there was no way in. It turns out, the fixture itself is disposable. When the LED light inside burns out, you must replace the entire plastic fixture.

This approach seems to be spilling into our collective beliefs about many things. While we used to value consistency and serviceability, we now increasingly have become a society that builds things to be disposable. We use things for a while and then replace them with the newest model. This is true with cars and appliances, as well as with relationships and work. It used to be more common to stay in the same community for much of life, to maintain lasting friendships, to stay with a job for many years, and to nurture lasting marriages or partnerships. All of these have become less common over time. Just as it is increasingly common for people to throw away things when they no longer work the way that they would like, we have grown more accustomed to casting off relationships when things become challenging. When we place less value on the longevity of things, we tend to also see less value in working the process to maintain and improve our connections with other people. The truth is, many parts of this human experience take a lot of work. We want things to feel easy and remarkable; to be in a perpetual honeymoon stage. One thing that is certain in life is that things need tending to. They go awry and need mending. The more we believe otherwise, the more likely we are to toss things out, or turn away when we are met with resistance or challenge.

My friend eventually got rid of his old VW. He grew tired of spending his days off searching for parts that were increasingly harder to find. He replaced it with a used truck that he kept for a few hundred thousand more miles. To this day, he continues to value things that are built to last. I suppose that is why we are still friends after all of these years.

Cracks in the Earth

Written by Ann Zimmerman on October 28, 2021. Posted in Chinese Medicine, Spirituality, Stress and Fatigue, Uncategorized.

by Clark Zimmerman, LAc.

Years ago while traveling in Tibet, I was amazed by the dryness of the climate. Though the mountains were covered with snow, and the rivers were raging torrents, the ground was largely a dusty wasteland. There were sporadic fields, where the people grew barley, but much of the land reminded me of stories I had heard about the great dustbowl from the 1930’s. Growing up in the Midwest, I was a stranger to dry air. The humidity was so dense that it seems to saturate the skin and soak the spaces inside your bones. There was a general heaviness in the summer air that felt oppressive at times.

When life dries out, things begin to harden. Leaves and stems become brittle; the ground mimics concrete. In my 17 years in southern Oregon, I have begun to grow accustomed to the cyclical drying out of the land in summer. What winter and spring have given, summer takes away. Things grow in the summer, but there is a sense that everything is living on borrowed time. As the season progresses, the ground loses its give and hardens into a protective shell. This has a way of locking in the moisture that the ground still holds, but it comes at a cost. Not only does the hardness in the soil keep some of the water in, it also prevents water from soaking into the ground when a big rain comes. If you look at the ground when the first big storm comes in the late summer or early fall, you are likely to see a lot of the water running off into the creeks and rivers, instead of down into the earth. It usually takes a bit of consistent precipitation to loosen up the ground so it can receive the water.

With the ongoing drought in the west, I have noticed that the ground doesn’t just harden in the summer anymore, it has increasingly begun to crack. It more closely resembles a desert than the forest floor that I am used to in western Oregon. There is a sadness that I notice when I think of how much things are drying out, but I am also reminded of one of life’s truths: When things are pushed to a breaking point, new opportunities arise. The cracks in the soil allow the healing waters to more easily enter the soil, so not as much runs to the streams. I witnessed this during the rain we had last week. The soil had become so dry that it had broken open….it was ready to receive.

It reminds me of how the past couple of years have broken most of us open. We keep bending, withstanding, until we tend to harden up to minimize any further pain. Yet, life has continued to push us even farther. Most of us feel that we have been pushed beyond our limits. The hardness of our shells has begun to crack, just as the dry ground beneath our feet has opened. This splitting apart has created more space to receive life’s grace.

“The wound is where the light enters you.”

–Rumi

The poet Rumi knew this truth. That often we must completely crack open to heal. We must truly fall apart to know authentic wholeness. As I continue to do my healing work in the community, I am struck by the immensity of the suffering that have all endured the past couple of years. I am also in awe of how that suffering can lead to profound change and acceptance. People are still struggling, but new shoots of growth and understanding are sprouting. We are coming back to find what is really important, what truly matters. All we have to do is be willing to let life continue to crack us open and to have the faith that it is leading us somewhere better than we can imagine. Then the light will enter our lives and illuminate our souls; the rain will nourish and soften our weary bodies.

Be well.

Morning Practices

Written by Ann Zimmerman on May 20, 2021. Posted in General Health, Mental and Emotional Health, Spirituality, Stress and Fatigue, Zimmerman Articles.

by Ann Zimmerman, LAc.

How we start the day makes a huge impact in how we experience life. My ideal morning starts early, rising at 5:30 to meditate. I wake before the rest of my family to have “me time”. Time to rise slowly from the peace of sleep. Admittedly, I typically wake a little cranky, still wanting more sleep and to remain in the freedom of the night, without the responsibilities I hold by day. I have a 7 year old daughter, 2 dogs (1 of them an energetic puppy), multiple jobs, property to take care of, and all the chores/duties of an adult in American culture. Still I wake early to tend to me and have been for 25 years. My higher self knows that when I tend to my needs at the beginning of the day, I am able to bring my best self into the world. I often compare it to tuning an instrument before playing it. We know that the wisdom traditions around the world recognize the early morning as the most conducive for meditative endeavors. A wise qigong teacher of mine once shared that morning practices are more beneficial than sleep (a hard truth when the alarm goes off). There is a tangible shift in the tendency for martyrdom when personal needs are met before serving others.

After morning meditation, I drink tea while reading or writing, it’s my contemplation time. I use this time to indulge in the books that I do not have the bandwidth for after a long day or to write about my feelings in my journal. Having grown up in a Midwestern family that did not talk about their feelings, I learned early on that my journal was a place to explore my emotions and to uncover the messages they were communicating. This brings me to about 7am when my daughter wakes up. Next is one of my favorite times of the morning….snuggling. Typically she opens her bedroom door and loudly says, Mommy! I grab a blanket, greet her with enthusiasm and we snuggle in our breakfast nook. This is a precious time and fleeting, so I make it a high priority to indulge in the cuteness of holding her and smelling her hair as she mumbles into her awake time. At some point, the morning BM calls and it’s time to get my daughter breakfast. This gives way to my stretching practice and morning exercise. These days I alternate between a home video workout for 20 minutes and jogging with the dogs. Then on to breakfast and the business of the day. I share my routine as one example of how a morning can go. After 16+ years of listening in the clinic, I am well aware that not everyone is a morning person or seeking such an elaborate routine.

However, I can say with conviction, that the manner in which someone awakes into their day matters. We are all familiar with the groggy wake up, shuffle to the coffee pot, and rush out the door version. This is a very common routine for many people and the thought of deviating from it seems radically impossible. The mere suggestion of creating more time for oneself in the morning is often met with resistance and a long list of reasons why this is absolutely not possible. I have come to challenge this in others. Really, there is no way you can make your life more easeful before your day starts? Sometimes a good place to start is by giving yourself an extra 20 minutes to just sit with your coffee or tea and stare out the window or meander around the garden. If doing morning dishes or chores brings you peace, then do it with ease and consider it your morning routine. One important recommendation is to avoid taking in the news and media until you are ready for the “doing” part of your day. Having the mindfulness before bed to put your phone/device on airplane mode and leaving it off until you consciously are ready to engage with the outside world is a huge relief and an often overlooked CHOICE you have.

This inquiry here is to honestly evaluate how you start your day. Do you start out rushing and in resistance? What can you shift to allow for more ease? Morning routines are an easy, free, and powerful way to enhance your health and state of wellbeing. I wish this gift for you.