Improvement; aikido; shalom

My my, Things have been Happening.

I've shared much of my "I gotta go sleep now now NOW" experience of current days. Well, a recent visit to my herbalist has been just what was needed. He tracked it down to allergies & other random crap in my lungs (as well as a few other things, but mostly allergy/lung crud) and gave me a formula specific for those.

Instant. INSTANT. Improvement.

I'm not 100% "out of the weeds" yet ("weeds" is how chefs describe running into trouble in the kitchen, a politer way of expressing it than the French "dans le merde"), but things have definitely improved.

I'm sorry I can't share my miracle formula with the community, being that like all Chinese-medicine herbal formulas, it's for me, not for "people." Just because I need a dose of hoelen, in concert with eight other herbs, doesn't mean that you will. Or that anyone will. But dang, taking medicine that actually makes you better, and no side effects... Nice. Very, very, nice. And this formula doesn't even taste bad, which is usually all that passes for a "downside" for these formulas.

In about 1/2 an hour, another physical-therapy adventure. I don't know what's on the therapist's agenda for today, but I will put in a couple of requests; her suggestions for handling "collapse like an imploding building" falls, and once one is (for whatever reason) on the floor, how to get up. Compounding my neurological issues are simple "physical atrophy" issues, muscle weakness through disuse; which definitely needs addressing, and as the proliferation of gym memberships testifies, basic exercise can do amazing things. But my condition being "my" condition, I need to find "my" solution. It may have components of basic good-enough-for-any-and-everyone solutions, but there's gonna have to be customization to put whatever is required into the realm of "doable by me," since "doable on paper" doesn't really work for me, all the time.

Which thoughts recall some interesting adventures with one of my physical therapists. Very very nice person, unbelievably knowledgable, very capable and gentle. But, I think, we both have not just "accepting," but "trusting" to do, on each other's behalfs. I do know that she knows what she's doing, I do trust her to give good direction and good advice. What I need to "trust" is that indeed, she knows more than I do, and she may not explain things in a clear (to me) or friendly (to me) or nurturing (to me) way, but to trust her first, and have concerns about [whatever] after giving things an honest try. What from my point of view she needs to accept, and trust, is that my perception of my sensations is accurate. If I say "this isn't possible" I am not speaking in universal and unchanging terms, I mean that right now, here and now, [whatever] isn't possible, in the way she has requested. She understands and has communicated very well the idea that "The number one rule is, if it hurts, don't do it," and whether something hurts or doesn't is true for me and believed instantly. But "I can't," she doesn't always really hear. Perhaps if I preface such things by saying "Right now, here and now, I can't," maybe she won't click into one of her scripts, "If you believe you can't, then you can't, and if you believe you can, you can," which is very true but whenever we go down this road, I'm talking about perception, not belief; I perceive that here and now, I can't.

She has scripts. So do I. When we're in "script mode," we're not really listening to each other. I can't change her mode, but I can change mine, and I can work with, not against, her script.

An aikido practitioner once showed me an exercise involving changing your own position; he said that technique shows you how the first step in the encounter was to "see things from your opponent's point of view." And my own instruction in aikido, decades ago, began with this: your first job is to protect your opponent.

Something that patients and health-practitioners could both practice. To begin their interactions with shalom... as Gene Scott translated it, "Cessation of against-ness."

East meets West, indeed.