I love the work I do. To me, being an acupuncturist is truly meaningful work. For people who choose to have me as a resource, I am many things. I can take pain away, move it around, resolve it, manage it. I can do the same with anger and grief and fear. Sometimes I can put sleep where before there was a racing mind. I am in constant contact with phenomena I cannot explain but I somehow understand. I have no rules to follow, no clock to punch, no board to satisfy.
Sometimes, though, I carry the heavy burden of the knowing. I know that the foal died with his head in a bucket. I know that someone's spiritual community abandoned her because she sought medical treatment for cancer. I know that someone's wife has left him and taken their children. I know that there is somebody who feels despair and loneliness because of the careless remark of his partner. I know that someone else can't sleep because his pain is so extreme. I know the helplessness of the mother who can't figure out why her child is so sick all the time. I know the deep raspy cough that won't go away. I know the incessant whine of tinnitus. I know that this marriage was without love for ten years and that one is full of fighting. I know about the debilitating headache, the screaming infant, the nagging worry about the lab results.
I know. I know. I know.
3 comments:
And you are a blessing to those whose lives you touch. What you know and do makes a difference in this world.
yes. we know. i know you know not to carry this burden of knowingness around with you all the time. i know you know to let their sorrows go, for it is not your job to carry their sorrows for them. i know you know. i still struggle with it, because i care about them so much. you too?
oh, and nicely written, my friend.
Word. Ditto. Same here.
All knowledge, painful and pleasurable, is right knowledge. Your knowing is a product of your healing. I'm glad you know because it means you have healed/are healing me.
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