Category: Theory

Qi-Gong & Taoism Theory

Breast Cancer for Family & Friends, Opportunities for Surviving the Journey

With October here, I’ve been thinking about my sister more and more. I’ve been thinking about the last few years of her life and her breast cancer. Even now, I remember how much effort it took for me to be present and supportive. 

In life, all your insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams tend to get caught up in the insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams of people around you. It makes life messy. But, somewhere in between the messy can be beautiful mornings and stunning views.

Here are some opportunities to be more present for the person you love so the two of you can have more beautiful mornings and stunning views.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE PRESENT

“The world is ruled by letting things take their course.

It cannot be ruled by interfering.”

                                                       -Chapter 48 Dao De Jing

I have been practicing Taoism for the last decade, and I still don’t know what it means and am confused when asked to explain it. Yet, it was this practice that helped me be present with my sister. My target was to work at removing my insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams from our interactions so that we were walking only her insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams. Here are some of my learnings.

Fear Becomes Your Companion

“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”

                           -Chapter 48 Dao De Jing

The pursuit of the Dao is the constant practice of letting go of desires. Buddhism calls it letting go of attachments. Mindfulness calls it being present in the now. 

The Heshang Gong Commentary on the Dao De Jing finds inside this line desire. 

“When desires are completely removed, Virtue and Dao join together. Then there is nothing which is not taken care of, nothing which is not managed.”

Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., wrote a beautiful little book, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.” Any caregiving journey always has this little niggling thought buried deep down inside of fear. Even dwelling on the fear for an instant can threaten to consume you. Yet, not acknowledging fear means all your fixed ways of thinking, beliefs, and expectations will seep into your interactions with others, sometimes as advice and sometimes consuming them.

The most important lesson I learned from Susan Jeffers’s book was the root of fear is believing you will not be able to handle it. But you can handle it. Turn around and look at your life. You’ve handled everything up until now with 100% success.  

So, lean into this 100%, and remember the Dao De Jing, “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” Use it as a guiding principle to help explore your loved one’s desires and do nothing when you want to pitch your advice.

It’s not going to be easy because, throughout the journey, you will have thoughts that will conflict with theirs. I would tell myself, “This is their life, not mine.” My sister was already overwhelmed by her diagnosis. If I could lay down my desires, I would not become one more thing to flood her. 

My sister had stage 4 breast cancer metastasized to the bone, brain, lung, and liver. She had been in a drug trial and receiving Neupogen shots three times a week. The shot helps push the bone marrow to create more white blood cells. One shot a month is a lot. Three a week is stunning. Yet, her body refused to respond.

She was removed from the study and completely cut off from the Neupogen shots. These shots had stripped the resources in her bone marrow to make blood cells, she had nothing. Usually, getting a person off a drug has a tapering down period like prednisone and Zoloft, but not Neupogen. 

Her body quit working, and the cancer was unopposed. She was exhausted. Breathing was a chore. Yet, she wasn’t willing to give up. Probably out of love and respect for my sister, her doctor pulled one last type of chemotherapy out of the vault of chemos that could impact liver cancer. 

I couldn’t help myself and shared my unsolicited advice, “Please don’t do this.” 

I knew there was no survival, but I also knew she wanted to make her daughter’s graduation three months away, and I was 100% sure this treatment would be fatal, quickly. 

But, my sister wanted to do this. She felt it was her only hope, and maybe she was right. Still, this was a bitter pill to swallow as I accepted her decision. I never mentioned the treatment again, and two weeks later, she crashed. And “crashed” means precisely what it sounds like. In another two weeks, my sister would be gone.

I wasn’t able to refrain from sharing my advice 100% of the time. But, I was strong enough to put down my advice whenever my sister expressed her desire to go in a different direction. 

Fear, the hidden emotion that can make you rigid and unsupportive. You can handle it. They can handle it. There is no correct answer. Find a way to support theirs, and maybe the answer is within the Tao and doing nothing, “…there is nothing which is not taken care of, nothing which is not managed.”

Honesty & Breast Cancer

“Following Dao…requires that we shed acquired habits and presumptions. In doing so we remove our fixed ways of seeing things and allow for open perception – for circumstances to arrive and leave without emotion or intellect automatically labeling experience.”

                          -The Heshang Gong Commentary on Lao Zi’s Dao De Jing

Honesty shows respect for another person. It shows that you acknowledge their life and respect their independence. You realize they can make informed decisions on their life and health, and they deserve to be able to make those decisions.

And then there is breast cancer, an overwhelming personal experience. 

Withholding information or only sharing information that fits your desires is not honest. They have breast cancer. Why would you think they couldn’t handle the truth?

There are only one of two outcomes with sharing half-truths or no truth at all. Either they will know you are sharing half-truths and feel betrayed. Or, they believe you and find out later you were not being honest and feel betrayed.

In the Tao, betrayal is the emotion that closes off the heart, breaks down trust, and destroys your relationship, sometimes in subtle ways that you’ll never know.

You are not responsible for other people’s half-truths, only your own. So, if you hear someone’s half-truth, it isn’t your responsibility to correct them. But, if your loved one asks you, you are responsible for answering without bias.

In the last two weeks of my sister’s life, her systems were failing. I was moving her around in a wheelchair because her body would no longer follow her desires. I was feeling frustrated with the lack of information shared with my sister. 

We were driving around the world. You probably know what I mean. We were driving around the world we had shared, places we had been, events we had shared. 

The afternoon sun beat through the windshield. My sister had flipped down the visor and was looking at her eyes. The whites had turned bright yellow over the last day or so. 

“Kimmy, why are my eyes so yellow?” There was an innocence to the question that could have come from a young child wondering why the sky was so blue. 

The question hit me like a hammer. I felt my body go rigid behind the steering wheel as my eyes suddenly locked on the road ahead of me. I knew I had to tell her what it was, but I also knew this would be the first time my sister heard she was dying. 

“It’s jaundice.”

I couldn’t say anything else. Trying to explain it away or say anything to diminish the significance of jaundice at this point in her diagnosis would have been a half-truth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her body go rigid as she finally understood what was happening.

Without bias thing gets difficult. What is better, to know or not know? Is it your responsibility to make that decision for the person? Fear…you can handle it. They can handle it. Your relationship can’t handle a betrayal. 

Being Present and Aware

“…this is because things sometimes diminish themselves and then benefit.”

                                                                     -Chapter 42 Tao De Jing

I knew I was walking the last of our days together, and it felt like I was trying to drink a glass of water and couldn’t get enough. I was trying to drink enough water to get me through the rest of my life without her.  

We had spent three years working things out, remembering, trying to make sense of everything. My sister left me with a lot to think about. Even today, I sit and wonder about some of the twists and turns our lives took. 

It’s Fall outside. It reminds me of the Fall afternoons in San Diego when we would be up in the foothills riding horses. The smell of the ocean still permeating the air even that far away. I can feel the riding boots, the jodhpurs, the reins in my hand, and my sister nearby. There was peace in those moments.

Throughout this journey, I reserved myself for myself and my sister. This was part of the path of the Tao to cultivate yourself through behavior. I abstained from getting too involved with those close to my sister to avoid their desires.  

I worked at abstaining from my desires and wants to open my mind to her desires and wants. 

Nothing is ever perfect. Yet, in the end, I gained great benefit. I had many more beautiful mornings and stunning views. I was able to avoid the regret that comes with a life unfinished. My sister and I were able to finish our life together. 

Today, I miss her, but I am not in the world of regret and missed opportunities. The memories I remember the most and the memories that are the most beautiful were when I was there for her, pushing her wheelchair, hearing her hurts, understanding her needs.

Qi-Gong & Taoism Theory

Daoist Thoughts on If the Big Bang Theory Is Wrong

You know, it’s always bothered me…the big bang theory. Because I practice Chinese Medicine and Daoism, it has been my Daoist thoughts on Big Bang Theory that have bothered me. Suddenly, out of nothingness, there was this massive explosion, and everything came to be.

The explosion was not the first part that bothered me. The part that was bugging me is the ever-expanding Universe. The Universe isn’t retracting or receding, ever. It has always been expanding. From its inception, it has only grown. That is what has bothered me.

Why would this bother me? Well, because of the rules of Yin/Yang theory. The founding principle of Yin/Yang theory is you have to have both yin and yang for life to exist. The theory has yin as expanding and yang as contracting. Yin tends to soften and become more pliable. Yang tends to harden and become more material.

Some real-life examples of how both yin and yang are needed would be breathing. Breathing is a yin and yang exercise where the exhale is more yin, and the inhale is more yang. In order to survive, you need both. The minute you have one without the other, you’re dead. So, without both inhalation and exhalation, life does not exist.

Another one is the sun and the moon. The daylight is more yang allowing plants to gain nutrition and grow. The moonlight is more yin allowing plants to rest and release the excess heat of the day. Without the two, the earth would either heat up and burn up or cool down and turn into a frozen rock. You need the two for life to exist.

That is the part of the big bang theory that has been bothering me. Right now, it appears there aren’t two: expanding and contracting. Instead, there is only one: expanding.

That has had me burning out some brain cells thinking and meditating about this. A couple of things finally came to me. Let’s talk a little more about Daoism and the theory.

Everything comes from the Dao. And Dao is perfect nothingness. I can’t even fathom that because I can’t fathom the concept of nothingness. Even in my limited ability to think, when I think of nothingness, nothingness has boundaries. I can’t fathom stepping into the absolute vacuum-sealed solitude of nothingness and that it is boundless. At a minimum, my tiny brain always has boundaries around nothingness.

The Dao is one, and out of the one, two is created. And with the two, you have life. The two are yin and yang, the polar opposites that allow life to flourish like your breath and like day and night. I have an episode on Yin on Yang theory on my Youtube channel called: The Power of Yin & Yang, Pt. 1 – the Creation of Life. It goes into this in more detail.

Both the expansion of yin and the contraction of yang are necessary to have life according to Yin/Yang theory. That is what has bothered me about the Universe. It has only been expanding. Since the Big Bang, the Universe has only been expanding.

Everything I’ve learned about the Big Bang theory is that it was a great explosion. It was this huge explosion that came from nothingness. Everything was created from that explosion. It’s the terminology, explosion. An explosion is a violent tearing apart or blowing something apart. An explosion is a yin event. It is an expansion.

That would mean, from the start, the Universe has only been a Yin event. If everything has been a yin event, then life could not exist. Yet, in Yin/Yang theory, each expansion must be paired with a contraction if you want life.

That made me think about the Dao, nothingness, and space.

The Big Bang had to be the contraction. Instead of an explosion outward, it was a huge, enormous, massive contraction inwards. It wasn’t created in violence. It was created in silence. Like a colossal breath inwards, all of the nothingness was pulled inwards with intention, and that contraction made nothingness so small, it suddenly appeared. It was almost like a blip on the radar. One minute it isn’t there, and the next minute it is.

If the Big Bang was a contraction, that made the expanding nature of the Universe more plausible.

If everything is about balance in Daoism, maybe nothingness is balance. Or maybe nothingness is like the absolute farthest reach of yin, like a day hitting its darkest point at midnight, and after midnight yang begins to grow. Or maybe, the Big Bang is like yang reaching its farthest point during the day, at noon, and begins to release its hold on the earth, and yin begins to grow inside the daylight.

But for now, the Universe is moving with Yin energetics. The more something expands, the more space comes between particles. From chemistry, you can start to fathom how small things can be. At some point and time, can things expand enough to become nothingness once again? That seems like the only logical ending of constant expansion…nothingness.

At the end of that expansion, will there be another massive contraction as the Universe recreates itself in a never-ending cycle of yin and yang?

Theory Treatment Tidbits

How to Fix Chronic Back Pain and How You Relate to the World

The thing I like about Chinese Medicine is it can help you reconnect with yourself. And if you’re on the path of personal self-realization, it can help you find your way there. It does that through the Ancient theory of Chinese Medicine and the hidden meaning surrounding the channels and organs. In this article, you’ll find the spiritual essence to fix chronic back pain.

When it comes to chronic back pain, it all starts with one of the twelve channels or meridians in Chinese Medicine. The bladder channel is the longest channel in Chinese Medicine. It starts at the eye and travels upwards over the head, down the back of the neck, down the back, down the back of the legs, along the outside side of the ankle, all the way to the little toe.

Fix Chronic Back Pain

This is the bladder channel. This channel isn’t a line that splits your body in half. No, the channel has two separate channels, one on each side of the spine and then straight down the legs. So, the channel is not in the bone, but in the muscle that supports the bone. The muscle that allows the bones to move, the muscle that keeps us moving forward. That muscle.

You know, a long time ago, I learned how to test to see if back pain was in the muscles or in the bone. Most of the time, like 95% of the time, the pain was in the muscles. If the patient could relax the muscles, the pain would go away.

So, you spend time with the acupuncturist, the masseuse, the chiropractor, the physical therapist. All of this to get relief from back pain, but it would always come back. And, you would go to your Western doctor, and the doctor would say something like, “Yes, you’re getting older, that happens.” Most of the time, you never think to question any of this.

Well, this got me thinking because in Chinese Medicine, they say the only way you can release disease is by letting go of the energetic bond you have to the dis-ease. And in Chinese Medicine, they believe everything is a clue to your life puzzle.

And for chronic back pain, the clue is the bladder channel. This is the channel that travels along the sides of the spine and down the center of the legs to end at the little toe of the foot.

The bladder channel is the first line of defense from the outside world. Weakness in this channel can be the reason for catching colds, or experiencing allergies. The bladder channel is full of that magical essence called Wei Qi which protects the body from things that could harm it. To learn about ways to build up your Wei Qi check out my Youtube Playlist, “Simple Techniquest to Keep Your Immune System Strong.”

There are some great episodes like “Five Foods You can use to Help Combat the Flu,” or “How to Beat the Allergy Season with These Five Supplements.” Every episode in the playlist builds Wei Qi.

But if it isn’t something as physical as pollen or viruses, how can you identify the energetic things the bladder channel helps safeguard? I think one of the best examples could be stress.

Think about what you think when under stress. First, stress is commonly about your interactions with others. Somebody does something that you feel is threatening or impacting you in an unfavorable way.

Let’s say something happens at work that puts your job in jeopardy. You might think the stress is the fear of not providing for yourself or your family. That is part of the stress and to learn more about that aspect of stress, the episode on, “ Liver Qi Stagnation & Foods that Help,” may help. But, the cause of the stress was whatever happened at work. Whatever happened at work is what you will spend time thinking about correcting, mitigating, avoiding, accepting… That original interaction started with another person where you had a knee-jerk response.

This knee-jerk response is the bladder channel protecting you from external influences. Only this time, it is not pollen or mold. It’s protecting your self-worth, self-identity, yourself from a perceived threat. As you get older, and usually anything past 5 or 6, you’re already practicing this response to a situation, the reaction has become so familiar that you no longer even think about it. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to a situation. It’s that initial response that is wrapped up in a lot emotion. It’s that response that you would like to change. It’s that response or that situation you would like support from a friend, a spouse, or a professional.

And when you’re in that zone, that knee-jerk reaction zone, it’s great to identify what the emotion is that you are feeling whether its fear, the need to defend yourself, being at fault, not feeling good enough, whatever it is. Those feelings lock you into a pattern of responses, and it’s those feelings that define how you defend yourself from the world. And that is the bladder channel. Or, that is what the bladder channel supports, your defense against the outside world.

Training takes years

As the years go by, you’ve been able to practice your reaction so much that the response becomes more rigid, more inflexible. Especially when the response becomes a knee-jerk reaction, it is pretty rigid, right? A knee-jerk reaction is what an athlete is striving for. Instead of thinking about your action, your body just automatically moves without your conscious thought. But, to get to that point took years of training and practice. So much practice that even in a little situation that’s a little unique, the body still responds precisely and instantaneously.

The training that delivers instantaneous action is considered skill and talent in the physical body of an athlete. But, in an individual’s energetic and emotional body, it is viewed as a sign of clumsiness, inexperience, ignorance, and even incompetence.

Now, over time, what you practice in your energetic channel will manifest on the physical body. Even though one of the roles of the bladder channel is to eliminate waste, when you have too much waste, the channel starts to get littered with it, and slowly the litter wins. The rigidness reacting to situations and the inability to see a position in a different light will begin to litter the bladder channel and bring that type of rigidness to the neck and back muscles.

And stress has a role in the neck and shoulders. Yet, if you dig into your stress, and target what set this whole thing in motion, you may find your knee-jerk response to the world instead.

And that energetic response, which hasn’t changed, is why the tightness comes back into the back muscles after getting a great acupuncture treatment or great massage or great whatever. It comes back because you are still doing everything you needed to do to create it in the first place.

So, what can you do about this because you are trying to address your energetic body. Energy medicine like acupuncture, herbal therapy, reiki, pranic healing, gurus, etc address this level. But let’s say that is not what you want to do. You want to do some work on your own. Well then, the best medicine I’ve found is the forgiveness meditation from Grandmaster Choa Kuk Sui. You can find the meditation on the internet. Grandmaster Choa Kuk Sui has many practitioners. So, you will find different people who will show you how to complete this meditation. It only takes a few minutes, and to get the best results do it every day. It took practice to get here. It will take practice to leave here.

Good-luck on your most amazing adventure. And if you want to look at how to address the physical symptoms of pain, check out the episode, “Honest Review 3 Great Supplements that Really Work on Back Pain“

Theory Treatment Tidbits

“I’m Not Done,” Tucker 21

I have this handsome orange kitty named Tucker. He’s 21 years old. You know, in Chinese Medicine, they talk about the Fall of your life where you get to reap the rewards of the life you lived. I was watching Tucker the other day, sleeping in the window. He was passed out and very content. This was his life, and he was finally letting himself enjoy the Fall of his life.

I bring this up because it hasn’t been easy getting to 21. Tucker has cashed in on his nine lives. It started when he was 18 years old, and he started losing weight. Then he refused to eat, became constipated, and I just thought everything was done. As humans, we hear this from our doctor’s enough, “Oh, you’re getting older. These things happen.”

I have clients who refuse to go to their doctor because their doctor will tell them. “Oh, you know, you get knee pain when you’re older. Don’t be so active.” “You’re getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Yes, that is what happens when you get older.”

You know, in Chinese Medicine, these are not normal signs of aging. Because I’m talking about Tucker, if you want to get more input on how Chinese Medicine sees aging, check out my blog:

What is Vitality and Why Normal Signs of Aging are not Normal

Anyways, that was what I was telling Tucker. Then my husband told me I had to do something because Tucker’s constipation was so bad. O.k., it’s always a little tricky figuring out what to do with animals because they don’t talk to you. They just look uncomfortable.

I looked at everything and thought about IBS and constipation and was able to pull something out of Chinese Medicine. The neat thing about animals is they respond so much faster than we do. It’s like they have these bodies that lack all the toxicity we are carrying around.

Sure enough, within one day, he responded and was feeling better. This meant that since I was treating him for IBS, he was sensitive to his food. I spent the next month testing out different foods to see which ones he could eat. Over the last couple of years, every once in a while, something would happen, and Tucker would look like he would pass, and my husband would ask me to do something, and I would.

The thing is, you can’t believe how stressful that is. I mean, I really feel obligated to fix Tucker. So, you know, I try something, and I obsess over it and micro-manage his responses and change things up based on what happened. It’s exhausting.

Well, last month his partner of 19 years, Monkey, finally called it quits. Monkey, another boy cat, was done. We wrapped him in a blanket and took him to the vet. Tucker followed us to the door as we left with his companion.

Monkey just laid with me. We stayed with Monkey, holding him and talking to him until he was long gone. Then we came home without Monkey. Tucker was at the door looking for Monkey. I think Tucker thought we would always be able to save them. But, you know that just isn’t real, and Tucker fell into a depression.

My husband and I were giving Tucker extra attention, and it was o.k., but losing Monkey seemed to have changed his desire to live. He slowed down on his eating. And then one day he didn’t eat. He was losing weight and looking haggard. My husband and I talked through this. I didn’t believe I could do anything this time because I couldn’t fix a broken heart.

The second day of not eating came and went. Memories of my mother stopping her eating came to mind. She decided she was done with life, and she stopped eating. I think I learned that, in the end, all the medicine in the world could help, but there is going to come a time when it will only be up to you to decide if you are going to live.

Tucker had made his decision, and my husband and I decided we could honor his wishes and take him to the vet. So, we bundled up the exhausted, emaciated companion of 21 years and headed to the car. I sat down in the car the closed the car door, swaddling Tucker in a soft blanket.

All of a sudden, Tucker woke up. This poor little cat who had been listless and lacking any interest in food woke up, started meowing and fighting to get out of the blanket. Clearly saying, “No.”

Back into the house, we went. I put him down, and he immediately demanded food and started eating. Afterward, he wandered back into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, found his favorite spot, laid down, and fell asleep, completely content.

Tucker decided he wasn’t done. Sure, he was 21, but he wasn’t throwing in the towel. The Fall of life can be the most rewarding and relaxing as you watch everything you’ve done in your life bloom. And that is where I found him that day passed out in front of the window basking in the sunlight, finally letting himself enjoy the life he has and has lived.

Qi-Gong & Taoism Theory

Judgment says more about the person than the situation

I was thinking about this today because my husband and I found a cute kitten hiding in our woodpile. My husband had noticed the little guy hanging around the house. He had tried to get close to the little guy, but the kitten was having none of it.

Well, the little guy, we’ll call him Smokie, was hungry enough to make it easy to catch him. He was really clean and well behaved, litter box trained with a good sense of boundaries. Whoever raised this kitten did it with love and respect and did a great job. A second similar kitten was found a few blocks from me.

I had wanted to post on our community chat to let the person know that this kitten and one other were safe and well taken care of and to thank them for doing such a great job of raising them. I hesitated because my community chat can be filled with judgment. I didn’t want to see my post overwhelmed with replies of what a jerk the person was and blah, blah, blah. Negativity overload!

So, I didn’t.

Many of you know, I lost my sister two days before her birthday in March of 2018. My mother passed a month later, in April of 2018. And, in June 2018, my horse passed. I was pretty shell-shocked.

Through this, I ran my business and saw clients. I had a new client who was a hairstylist. The only time she could get in was early morning – before my office hours. As a favor, I agreed to see her early.

Around the third appointment, I forgot I had booked her early. I woke up that morning and was overwhelmed with my grief of losing so much. I remember how sad I was. I was lost. I wanted to be alone.

I got ready for work thinking it was a typical day and trying to pull myself out of my funk. It is tough being in healthcare and giving to others when your tank is empty.

When I got to work, I heard the message on my answering machine. My client was upset. She was really upset. I immediately called her and tried to offer free products, taking care of her payments. She was having nothing to do with it. As far as she was concerned, I was unprofessional and had caused her significant injury. She was a very important person, and I had wasted her time(and let’s be real, many of us drop that attitude on others). I had the sneaking suspicion that judgment wasn’t going to be enough. She was going to want payback – vengeance.

Her husband had scheduled to come in that afternoon. I knew he wasn’t going to show up after the morning call with his wife. I expected her husband not to show nor call to cancel. For my small business, this is a big deal because the only thing I sell is my time. So, when a client books a slot, I can’t give it to another person. If they don’t show, I just lose that money and there is less money to pay overhead, employees, student loans, taxes and everything it takes to run a business.

My client’s vengeance would be that I deserved to have what she believed I had done to her – intentionally missed her appointment.

Well, that’s what happened. Her husband just didn’t show. I left her a message apologizing again. I never heard from her or her husband again.

I learned two things from that experience. First, that was the last time I made special arrangements for a client because if something went wrong, would we be grown enough to work through the problem?

The second was judgment says more about the person than the situation. She had made a judgment about what happened to her and acted on her judgment of the situation. You can either respond to situations based on your history or show a healthy curiosity about why I might have missed the appointment.

Even though the past no longer exists, it plays over and over in your head making you believe that every situation is the same situation from your past. It creates your playbook. That playbook judges what is happening and responds. I have a series on “Why does my Stomach Hurt?” which is starting production end of November 2020. It goes into this phenomenon from a Chinese Medical perspective.

Anyways, these types of playbooks create that kneejerk reaction to a situation and allow you to wonder, “Why does this always happen to me?” These kneejerk judgments and reactions that you can’t stop are an example of your past driving your future. My blog “Taking Back Your Power! How to Start Letting go of the Past and Moving On” talks to this. And when the story from your past is something that left you feeling hurt or powerless, the response is vengeance. You want to be able to tell the world you are no longer powerless.

Crazy, but I understood who she was because I grew up in a situation where I felt powerless and unsupported at times. Even today, experiences from my past lurk in my shadows.

The feeling of being powerless is the worse feeling. When confronted with a situation where I feel powerless, I feel that the need for vengeance.

How I use Taoism to Create the Life I Want Every Day

Chinese Medicine is all about balance and two sides of the same coin. Being powerless is also being vulnerable…the out of balance side of vulnerable. In Chinese Medicine, everything has a point of perfect balance. Vulnerability in perfect balance is love. Vulnerability out of balance is powerlessness. And, when someone has experienced the out of balance side of vulnerability for too long, the ability to experience unconditional love can be foreign along with compassion.

So, judgment says more about the person than the situation. Everyone will experience judgment differently. Not everyone gets to experience the situation I experienced, in Chinese Medicine you experience life based on the law of attraction. The world brings a mirror into your life every day. Each day is an opportunity to find another piece of yourself through your interactions with others. She was my opportunity to see myself. It could have happened at a less traumatic time in my life. But hey, life doesn’t wait for you. I have another blog post, “Learn to Remember What You Want in Life to Live a Happier Life” which starts to touch on how to change attraction.

Yet, I started this story about an abandoned kitten. I want to end with an abandoned kitten.

I had a friend back about thirty years ago when we were still teenagers. His cat had kittens, and they were the adorable mixed siamese kitties with fluffy hair. They were all buff with blue eyes. His parents told him they couldn’t keep all the kittens.

He wasn’t about to take them to a shelter because who knows what horror would happen to them there. He could have given them to a feral cat adoption group, but he couldn’t be sure who would get his kittens. He could advertise them, but who knows who was going to show up?

What did he do? He took his cute, clean, healthy, fluffy kittens and put pink bows around their neck. He got three picnic baskets and put a baby blanket in each basket. He put one kitten in each basket.

He picked people he saw in his communities that he thought were good people. These were people he didn’t know but would have liked to know and put the picnic basket with the kitten on their doorstep. His kittens ended up safe and well-loved.

Even back then, he was a great salesperson and understood presentation is half the battle. And judgment, you never know why someone does something or what it means unless you ask. Judgment is more about your past, your beliefs, and your value of yourself than the situation.