There are many gifts that come about during this season. Some are more obvious than others, like the stocking stuffer's and cookies and Starbuck's giftcards and the like. Others are more subtle, but in many ways more rewarding and profound.

For the month of December, and for the last year at Four Pillars Acupuncture my patients have given me many gifts, in the form of new insights about certain diseases. Most importantly I have been given the gift of insight into the patient process, whereby a person comes to me with extreme pain and suffering, and over a matter of weeks, leaves with little to no pain. The insight I have into this process is that many people are in a way defined by this pain and suffering. Their identity is slowly replaced over time with the identity of the person who is in constant pain, or who has to take 10 or more prescribed pharmaceuticals. They go from being a person who has an illness to an ill person, where the illness is now the predominant part of their identity.

I have found that there is at times in this patient process an unspoken bit of confusion and loss as their pain is diminished, even amongst the elation and satisfaction of its absence. And I hypothesize this is because people no longer know how to act or be when not acting in relation to their disease process.

And so, while I am happy to continue to help people lead lives with less pain and more function, to return this gift of insight in the new year, I will bring to the fore of my consciousness an intention as a healer to help people redefine themselves in the wake of the resolution of their pain, not to exist as John Doe minus their pain, or even as John Doe before the pain. But as a new person, who has emerged from adversity, and is now an entirely new person with new possibilities and power.

Here's to a Healthy and Happy Holiday and New Year,

Michael Padilla, L.Ac.