It Starts with a Label

Taoism states the problem is the label. Labels define things and give meaning on how to interact with them. Labels come from life experiences. We call a table a “table” and know from experience we can put things on a table, eat at a table, and walk around a table.

The label defines the limits of that thing. It defines what it is and what it isn’t. A label reduces a table to an object that we place in a room and place things on.

The life of table seems rather oppressive.

To think, at one time it was a great oak standing in the forest stretching towards the sky opening its branches to the birds, squirrels, insects, bears and raccoons. Now it stands as only a small piece of its old self, trapped in a room with nothing to do except wait for someone to put a plate on it.

The Making of “Cheng Xin”

The great oak is what Taoist philosophers called “Pu”. Pu is an uncarved block of wood with endless potential.

The table is called “Cheng Xin”, the carved blocked of wood.

It is who we carve ourselves into after we’ve gained experience and accumulated knowledge. We use feedback from our experiences to carve out what is not acceptable. When we have attained “Cheng Xin,” we stop responding from our authentic voice and spend our time working to be “free from fault in the eyes of others” which is people pleasing.

How People-Pleasing Shrinks Your Authentic Self

The great oak spreads its leaves in summer and drops them in fall. The man comes by in summer and enjoys the shade and all the grass underneath the tree. But in fall he grumbles and complains about all the leaves on the ground. “Look at how much work it takes to rake up these leaves,” he says. “My, this tree is such a bother”.

If you are the great oak, who should you be? Isn’t that the question we run into so many times. Everything is great when our behavior supports others. But, what happens when it becomes a bother or inconvenient for another? What happens when we take time to take care of ourselves or be ourselves? It was great when we were this, but not when we were that.

Sometimes we try and make what is identified as “inconvenient” or “annoying” smaller. We unconsciously change that thing called “annoying” to take up less space.

So, the great oak says to itself, “The only way I can drop fewer leaves is by making fewer leaves.” Each year the great oak makes fewer leaves and drops fewer leaves. But the man still grumbles that he has all these leaves to rake and the tree doesn’t give as much shade as it use to and now the grass doesn’t grow as lush because the mulch from the leaves has become so much less. Maybe this tree should be chopped down. Maybe the man should make it into a table so it will be useful.

And one day we find ourselves a table in the middle of the room waiting for someone to notice us and place a plate on us.

Why You Feel Disconnected From Yourself

It gets confusing. You know you feel unhappy and somewhere in the back of your mind you know there was a time of peace and self-acceptance. Although you can no longer remember that person, you can feel them inside of you.

Sometimes so much stuff has been stacked on top of you, you feel like the weight of it is going to make you buckle and break. No one askes you if you want to hold “this” or “that” anymore because you are a table and that is your responsibility. That is what you were made for.

How Do I Get Out of the Story?

The thing about becoming a table is that it doesn’t happen by accident.

An oak doesn’t wake up one day and decide it would rather spend the rest of its life holding someone else’s dishes. It takes cutting. It takes carving. It takes sanding and shaping. It takes years of being told what is useful and what is not useful. Slowly, piece by piece, everything that does not fit is carved away.

In much the same way, very few of us wake up one morning and decide our needs are less important than everyone else’s. Somewhere along the way we learned that our value came from being useful. We learned that being dependable was praised. Being accommodating was praised. Being easy to live with was praised.

We learned to hide the parts of ourselves that were inconvenient and display the parts that made life easier for others.

How Relationships Organize Around the People-Pleaser

The table is not a failure of the oak. The table is evidence of the carving.

The hard part is realizing that many of the people around us have become quite comfortable with the table. Not because they are bad people. Not because they are trying to hurt us. Most of the time they aren’t even aware of it. The table simply works.

The table never asks whether it is tired. It never asks whether it wants to carry the weight. It simply does what it was shaped to do.

Over time entire relationships can begin to organize themselves around the table. There may be genuine love in those relationships. There may be kindness and good intentions. But the structure of the relationship often depends on the table remaining a table.

Why Reclaiming Your Authentic Voice Feels Disruptive

Which is why becoming an oak again can feel so disruptive.

When the table stops carrying everything, the weight does not disappear. It simply becomes visible. Suddenly someone else has to remember the birthday. Someone else has to manage the conflict. Someone else has to sit with the uncomfortable feelings. Someone else has to carry what the table had quietly carried for years.

The disturbance is not always caused by people wishing the oak harm. Sometimes it is caused by people realizing how much of their own comfort rested on the oak pretending to be furniture.

Step One: Witness Your Conditioning Without Judgment

Before the oak can become an oak again, it must first see the carving.

This sounds obvious, but most of us have lived as the table for so long that we have forgotten there was ever anything else. We look at the shape we have become and call it our personality.

• “I’ve always been the responsible one.”
• “I’ve always been the strong one.”
• “I’ve always been the caregiver.”
• “I’ve always put others first.”

We rarely stop to ask where those stories came from. We don’t notice the moment we learned that being loved meant being useful. We don’t notice when we began apologizing for taking up space. We don’t notice when dropping our leaves started feeling selfish. We don’t notice the quiet fear that if we stop carrying everything, people may stop needing us.

Instead, we simply call these things who we are. But these are not the oak. These are the carvings. These are the stories that were written into the wood.

And that is why the first step is not changing anything. It is witnessing. Not judging. Not fixing. Not blaming. Just witnessing.

Seeing the places where we learned that our worth depended on not being inconvenient. Seeing the places where we took responsibility for everyone else’s comfort. Seeing the places where we confused being needed with being loved.

An oak cannot reclaim what it cannot see. Only when we begin to notice the carving can we remember that beneath the table, the oak was never truly gone.

How Can I Witness When I Don’t Even Know What’s Wrong?

It sounds so easy, “witness”. But how can you witness when you don’t even know what is wrong. The answer is locked in your emotions. Every time you feel hurt, pressured, overwhelmed, unheard, invalidated, betrayed… that is the key. It is a key to your truth and reclaiming your voice.
Here is an exercise you can use when your emotions warn you something is amiss.

1. Stop. Don’t speak. Don’t argue. Don’t try to win. Just stop.
2. Breathe. Feel your body. The story is in your head. Your body is here. Come back to the body.
3. Name the story. “This is the story that I’m not being seen.” “This is the story that I’m not supported.” “This is the story from my family.” Naming it separates you from it.
4. Ask: What’s actually happening right now? Not the interpretation. The facts. The person in front of you. The words they said. The tone. The room. Reality.
5. See the other person as a person. Not a character in your story. A human being, also locked in their own story, also struggling for recognition, also reacting from old wounds.
6. Give yourself the recognition you’re seeking. Right now. In this moment. You are enough. You were enough then. You are enough now. Nothing the other person says or doesn’t say changes that.
7. Then respond, not react. From the gap. From the witness. From the reality of the situation, not the story about it.

Sound difficult? Especially the last step? If this scares you, your feelings are valid. It scares me. And sometimes being inside of the situation makes this all fuzzy and confusing. Most of the time I’m pretty excited I got to step three. Lately, I’ve found I’ve been able to get to step 5. I’ve been pretty proud of that because step 5 is tough when I’m feeling the pain of what these carvings have left behind.

How Classical Taoist Acupuncture Supports Your Authentic Voice

If you’ve recognized yourself in the story of the oak and the table, know that this isn’t simply a philosophical idea. Within the Taoist tradition, it is understood that every experience leaves an imprint. The stories we tell ourselves, the roles we adopt, and the parts of ourselves we hide don’t exist only in the mind. They shape the way we move through the world and the way the body carries stress, pressure, grief, resentment, and overwhelm.

Classical Taoist Chinese Medicine was developed as a way of supporting the whole person through this process of returning to balance. It offers a space where what has been ignored can be acknowledged, where what has become burdened can be supported, and where the authentic self beneath the conditioning can begin to emerge again.

You do not have to force your way back to the oak. Sometimes the first step is simply creating the conditions that allow the oak to remember itself.