You might imagine that you are not that different from day to day, that your body looks relatively the same, that your wants and needs remain familiar most of the time. But I think if you attend closely, you will find that there are many subtle and not-so-subtle changes that lend specific detail and depth to your day if you listen. They are not all problems. Most of them, in fact, are more a form of delight than a problem.
The beauty and power of our own perception, our personal take on the world is a gift we cannot refuse or return. So often, we diminish our own knowing, short-circuit our own perception, because it doesn’t fit with either our expectations or our cultural norms. Worse yet, we jump on the “patent” remedies because we feel desperate, bereft, abandoned and we just want it to stop now.
We have, in our world, defaulted to the patent medicine, rather than the personalized one. We want to go to the drugstore, or the health food store in my case, and reach for what we hope is the simple, easy solution to whatever problem happens to be forefront on that day. We can’t hold that against ourselves. And yet, this doesn’t always work. In fact, I’d guess that it only works 50% of the time. How could it be otherwise when we are each so different every day?
What, I often wonder, compels me to want tea one day, coffee the next and well, cocoa every day? I don’t often indulge in coffee or tea, since they disturb my sleep (yes, even if I drink them in the morning, a topic for another post), but I do indulge my passion for chocolate. No sugar, no milk, just cocoa, salt, water and fat. But I vary the salt and never measure the fat. I listen when I open the can with the various salts; alderwood smoked? hickory smoked, black lava salt, himalayan salt, celtic salt, bacon-smoked salt (!). Which salt suits the day? How do I know, you ask? I listen. I listen internally to some unspecified sound, some internal inclination. Strangely, each day it is marvelous, perfect.
So, how can we be personal and yet global? How can we actually capitalize on this very human situation that we are all unique, all different? How can we utilize the beautiful medicines our earth provides in such a way that both our own and their uniqueness is preserved? For me, the answer is to create prescriptions tailored to the moment and the individual. This is a basic of Chinese herbal medicine and I’d venture to say, it is what makes Chinese herbal medicine supremely powerful and potent. Where a remedy off the shelf may have a 50% success rate (that’s 50% failure, too!) a customized prescription likely will have a 75 to 95% success rate if done right.
I think we can make each moment of each day marvelously perfect in this way. And each “prescription” we make for ourselves can be perfect. No matter whether we are choosing which food, which type of exercise, what clothes or which medicine, we can apply “the power of the personal” to the process. We can find the fulcrum of the moment in our bodies and minds and check in. The rub might come when we know only that what we have is not what we need. Then we might have to reach out, to a friend, a healthcare provider, a meditation instructor or to a tree, to find a mirror, a sounding board, a dancing companion who can help us to find some new perspective, some new piece of information that will transform our confusion into the wisdom it is.
[for more on customizing, individualizing essential oil formulas, check out The Nectar of Plants: Essential Oils and Chinese Medicine and EOS-An Essential Oil Study Group, both places where we explore making and using custom essential oil formulas from Chinese Medicine perspective]
