As a musician growing up, I learned very well how to listen to subtle nuances in sound, tone, and rhythm. I learned this skill as a necessity to be able to discern the notation of distinct instruments that were part of a larger composition. In order to learn my instrument, I had to listen to music on a daily basis, including my own practice sessions and performances, to find very subtle nuances of harmony, rhythm, and structure.

I use this same approach when I listen to you -- looking for the subtle nuances, harmonies, and rhythms that are at play within the larger composition of your life. I hear and interpret your symptoms against the harmonic backdrop of your lifestyle, emotional challenges, dietary habits, sleep patterns, etc... to paint for you a complete picture that can provide a deeper understanding of your holistic diagnosis.

Next, I look for one or two key areas that we can adjust that will unlock the door to your next level of positive change. This is a profound difference from many in the healthcare field in that I am not looking to rearrange your life from top to bottom. Often, there are some very simple, easy changes that can be made in one or two key areas that will ripple out positive waves into other aspects of your life.

As an example, let me tell you about one of my early fertility patients. At the young age of 40, she came to the clinic after more than a year of trying to conceive. She had been told by her doctor that her chances of pregnancy were slim, and that intrauterine insemination was probably her only chance at getting pregnant. She decided at that point, upon the referral of a friend, to come see me for treatment.

She was very slightly overweight, and she complained of low energy, poor sleep, and feeling tired in the afternoon. All of these are signs of Qi deficiency, or a lack of Vital Energy, in Chinese Medicine. Rather than try to make 10 changes around diet and lifestyle to attack the problem from too many angles, I suggested, and she resolved, that she would: 1. Take a multivitamin + B Complex daily; 2. Not eat after 6PM and if she had to eat after 6PM she would eat only vegetables. With these two simple changes, coupled with her herbal therapy and regular Acupuncture treatments, she started sleeping much better, which gave her more energy. She started losing weight and in 4 weeks had lost 13 pounds. And, within 8 weeks of that initial visit, she was pregnant.

In many ways the subconscious mind is like a machine. It runs almost entirely on habit, and is more interested in what is familiar than in what is beneficial. This is why change is so difficult. We all come to points where we consciously know that we must change something in ourselves in order to make progress towards a goal, whether medical, financial, spiritual, or in any other area. Yet, making this change is often difficult, and it is mostly because our subconscious mind would rather stick with what it's already doing. In fact, that is all the subconscious mind knows -- repetitive patterns. This doesn't make the subconscious our enemy -- in fact, it is a great friend in that it allows us to do automatic things like typing or driving where we learn a skill and are able to execute it rapidly without conscious thought. Yet, this same proclivity for pattern and repetitive execution can sometimes become self-destructive, as in the case of addictions, poor dietary habits, habitual emotional reactions, poor posture and/or improper breathing.

It is with this in mind that I look at change as a gradual gentle process that we do one step at a time. It is a lot like learning a musical instrument. Nobody can just sit down and play a Mozart piano concerto without years of gradual practice and improvement, and in a healing process we need to take baby steps initially to reduce the shock to the subconscious, making it easier for our "automated" mind to accept the new information.