It’s easy to think there is one way to take the pulse, and natural to fall back on the habits that formed early on in our learning to attend to this vital aspect of diagnosis and prognosis.
Pulse is something our teachers help us to orient toward, but it is our experience and patients who help to understand and learn to trust what we feel.
In this episode we have a research scientist’s eye view of the pulse. And how outward beauty is an expression of inward strength and balance.
Show Highlights
- How Martha got involved with Chinese Medicine
- Reading a pulse
- Trusting what you feel
- The differences in pulse between physical and emotional blocks
- Respectfully noting what is in the pulse
- Common issues that show up in the pulse
- Techniques for reading a pulse
- Mei Zen facial acupuncture
- Aging gracefully is not simply about external beauty
- Derma rolling
- Over-treatment can cause problems for the patient and it muddies the clinical picture for the practitioner
- Gua Sha and the tools Martha uses
Don’t get stuck using the same points over and over again. Open your mind to using different points during each treatment.
Martha Lucas, L.Ac, PhD
I started out my career in medicine in the world of hospital research. I have a Ph.D. in Research Psychology and my specialty was studying the effect of what the patient thought the cause of the heart disease was and how that affected the effectiveness of rehab. Although I had great respect for the surgeons with whom I worked, I felt that there was something else operating than just a “machine” the body) and thus began my foray into the world of energy medicine. I started with Reiki, then Axiatonal Alignment, Colorpuncture, and finally TCM school.
When I realized that you can feel the connections between the organ systems and emotions through pulse diagnosis I was hooked on TCM!
So that’s what I do: follow the pulses. My system is called Pulse Diagnosis and Biofeedback and it’s like playing music. I learned the theory (TCM), I found my instrument (my fingers), and how I change the energies in my patients’ bodies is the music that I’m playing. And better than that, their body’s response to the needles is the music. Every patient is different every day and I have to think about each individual when I choose point combinations. Creating balance in each patient is like I have a research project in front of me each time and that’s what keeps my love of Chinese medicine alive. I have to think about point functions, channel pathways, combinations, emotional functions …… and get to put all of that together in an effective treatment.
Links and Resources
Visit Martha online at LucasTeachings.com and at MeiZenSkinCare.com
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