Crisis as Opportunity

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Recently in the treatment room, I have found myself speaking quite a few times about a particular Chinese phrase: Wei Ji (危机). The first character Wei (危) means “crisis” and the second character Ji (机) actually means “opportunity.” To me, this phrase teaches us that a crisis IS an opportunity. And in my experience, I have learned that when I am facing a crisis, that I am also being given a potential opportunity. But am I able to stay quiet enough to listen and seize that opportunity for my own personal growth?

I still remember vividly the first day as an acupuncture student, our teacher Bob Duggan, a mentor I hold near and dear to my heart, said this with a very convincing tone: “Your body is very wise. Your symptoms are your teachers.” With a background of degrees as a MD and PhD in the field of pharmacology, I immediately knew that was an accurate statement. However, applying that principle and becoming an astute observer in everyday life requires quite a bit of practice.  

Becoming the Observer

There was a period of time many years ago, I had low back pain. Before I was able to become an observer in myself on how that low back pain came and went, all I wanted to do was push it away. In my journey to learn to be a healer, I started to observe my own body and its symptoms with curiosity. Without becoming an observer, I might have ignored my body’s hints and clues as symptoms of some mild discomfort. But the symptom became louder and louder until the low back pain could not be ignored anymore. 

My old pattern would be, “Oh no, something is wrong! Let me go to an expert who can fix it for me.” On my journey of learning to be a good observer, I decided to give my pain some space and not rush to judgment of it being bad. One day I was driving when all of a sudden, I noticed that the back pain disappeared. I immediately asked myself, “What did I do in the car during this time?” The answer was: I drank some water. “What happened yesterday when the back pain started and then disappeared?” I drank some water!  There was a clear connection of drinking water and disappearing low back pain. So the next time I had low back pain, I drank some water. 

I learned, in that particular instance, that my low back pain was my reminder of drinking water. Now this was a very particular case during a particular time frame. Later on, a back pain could be a reminder of adjusting the body posture, to stop striving too much, to go to bed on time, etc. Not all cases are as simple as this one. We are still required to be in tune with our body and to be a good observer in order to know what our bodies are telling us. 

However, from this real life example I first handedly experienced that we could learn from our body’s symptoms rather than seeing it as a threat or as something we need to fight against. A minor crisis became my opportunity to observe how I could serve my body better. 

Listening Even More

One day, I asked my other very well respected mentor Dianne Connelly, “How do you stay in trusting when life doesn’t go the way you want it to be, or to put it bluntly, when life sucks?” Diane answered my question with the most soft poetic tone, “I would ask this question: where are you leading me now, my love?” For Dianne, any of life’s showing-ups are life’s gifts of a lover trying to lead the way. If we’re still enough, patient enough, we could feel, hear or see that path, that way.  

This is my practice nowadays: whenever I observe myself in resistance to something, anything, I would put myself in a body posture as if I am excited. Then I would ask the question: what is the opportunity here? If the answer doesn’t come quickly, I become very still, patient, observant and curiously waiting, trusting that an answer will be here before the situation has to be solved.  I have grown as a practitioner and as a human being staying in this practice. I hope it is useful for you too.