Navigating Fall: Acupuncture Insights on Grief and Letting Go

Fall is the time to get rid of that

which no longer serves you

While many people think of acupuncture as primarily treating physical problems, it’s quite useful for healing emotional aspects as well.

Fall is the season for the Lungs & Large Intestine meridians, which has the emotion of sadness. Given this, fall is an important season to process grief. When you hold on to past grief it weakens your Lungs, which in turn diminishes their capacity to protect you from external invasion (i.e. catching a cold).

This is a prime example of how emotional strain can cause physical issues and vice versa.

Basically grief can cause us to have physical symptoms such as frequent colds, chronic coughing, constipation and asthma flare ups. Whereas weakened Lungs can contribute to depression, feelings of alienation and the inability to let go of things (or people - such as that ex you just can’t quit).

Taking the time to pause, identify what you're feeling and letting go of that which no longer serves you can help restore balance.

One simple way to do this is to declutter. Think about it, an overabundance of things can cause undue stress

• Garages that can’t fit cars because they’re loaded with things

• Closets cluttered with clothing that we “should” be able to fit into

• Inherited items we don’t want, but feel bad getting rid

These can all cause stress.

And just like the trees shedding their leaves that they won’t need in winter, we too can employ the same strategy by getting rid of that which no longer serves us.

PS. You don’t have to figure this out all on your own. If you’re struggling, reach out to me. I can help you.