Crying at the Acupuncture Clinic

Acupuncture points on the foot. Kind of cool! Photo by Maksim Goncharenok at pexels.com.

And it’s not because the needles hurt, because they didn’t. Really!

I had an acupuncture appointment this week at a local acupuncture clinic. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try for some time.

It wasn’t my first acupuncture treatment ever. My first session was about 24 years ago when I was pregnant with my first baby. I was getting past my due date, and nothing appeared to be happening, so the chiropractor I worked for gifted me a session in hopes that it would speed things along. Hard to say if it worked. Eventually, thankfully, our daughter was born. But it was a long, painful labor process that encompassed not one, not two, but three nursing shift changes. I was admitted early in the morning one day and she was born the next day around 2:00 am. On the other hand, the entire process might have been worse if I hadn’t had that acupuncture session. Maybe it would have taken another entire day before she was born!

My second acupuncture treatment was a few years ago at a clinic that sounded great, but that ended up leaving me disappointed because they initially told me that they took my insurance, but actually, sorry, no, in the end, they didn’t. The practitioner who did my treatment was covered at his other office, but not where I went. So that was a lot of money for an initial consultation, and I wasn’t able to continue working with him.

My session this week was different. It was something. To my (sort of) surprise, because I was hopeful but also a little skeptical, something happened.

As the doctor put the first needles in, I started crying.

Not because it was painful, because it wasn’t. Really! There was something happening, though, something emotional in me that wanted to release. Let’s just say this was unexpected. The doctor commented, “It happens all the time,” and told me not to worry. She handed me tissues; I was careful to grab them with the hand that didn’t have needles in it.

It’s a community clinic with recliners spaced a comfortable distance apart. There were other folks in the treatment room, one woman snoring  daintily. I was encouraged to stay for as long as I wanted, which was different from the last place I went to, where I was ushered in, treated, billed, and escorted out in a relatively short time. At this clinic, if you need to leave at a certain time, they will come and get you. But otherwise, if you don’t have to be anywhere? They encourage you to stay as long as you like. Some people stay for hours. They don’t take insurance, but they have a sliding fee scale, so you pay what you can.

I was a little anxious about this. I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be, but did I really want to stay for an indefinite time period? What if I lost all track of time? Before my treatment, as the doctor was explaining the process, I suggested that I probably didn’t want to stay for more than an hour. I mean, that would be plenty of time, right?

She gently suggested that I should relax and see what happens, that I didn’t need to limit myself.

To my surprise, I was there for an hour and a half.

Here is what I know for sure: I was ravenously hungry after the session, even though I had eaten a good breakfast that morning.

I was also very, very tired, and a little loggy headed. It wasn’t like being drunk exactly, but it left me in a fuzzy sort of head space that lasted for a few hours.

Dr. Google says that all of these responses are common. They might also be indicators that something is shifting (maybe healing?) inside me.

I’m not sure what it meant that tears sprang up when those first needles were placed. It made me remember a time decades ago when my sister and I visited the Utah College of Massage Therapy in Salt Lake City, the school I was wanting to attend to become a massage therapist. I had given up teaching and had a bug in my brain that massage therapy might be a good next step for me. So my sister and I took a road trip, drove across Nevada and Utah, found a cheap hotel, and went to the school for an interview with an admissions counselor. They included a complimentary massage at the student clinic as part of their information session. I cried during that massage. I remember the student practitioner asking me if I felt safe. I did. In the years since, I’ve had clients who cried on the massage table when I’m working with them. I think those tears are gifts.

So tears during acupuncture might be a gift, too. Our bodies are strange and wonderful and work in mysterious ways. Western medicine has wisdom for sure, but the Eastern paradigm has been around a lot longer. We’ve been talking about embodiment in my centering prayer circle these last months, about coming to a place where we move through the world not just with our  big brainy heads, but also with awareness of our hearts and bodies. I’ve been looking for ways to be kinder to this body that is my home on this planet. So I can go to my doctor for a checkup and get a mammogram. And I can go to the community acupuncture clinic and talk with a professional who has different ways of looking at the body and different tools for helping.  Both-And.

I made a follow up appointment, and I’ll make sure that I don’t have to work after the next one, so I can stay as long as I want. Maybe this time, I’ll even fall asleep. I won’t even worry if I snore a little. Because it was a place where it felt safe to be myself and to just show up as I am. Places like that are rare and special. Maybe even sacred.