Teena: Hot Flash and Medical Damage

I sat next to Teena at an emotional support meeting, an event where people get together to support others as they share their stories of emerging trauma, struggles with addiction, or realizations about childhood trauma or use of shamanic plant remedies. Before the event began, she mentioned that her hands and feet were always cold. I felt her hand and found it was cold and clammy. So was her arm up to the shoulder. I had been studying chills and hot flash and thought she might benefit from the CHI Palm Heart Protocol which I had been testing. I also thought she might provide to be a good test case.

From the TCM perspective, (traditional Chinese medicine) she had low Wei Qi, the protective vitality that maintains our skin’s protection with maintaining strong immune function and keeping the pores closed to reduce loss of vital fluids.

As she shared her story I realized that hers was a story of real-world challenges, a struggle with family, with childhood trauma, and with a medical injection of 20 years ago which had led her through many surgeries in a battle against recurrent cancerous tumors that formed throughout her body. Over the last 20 years she has gone through cycles of resurgence and remission.

At the end of her emotional sharing her skin was hot and moist. She seemed, on top of all her other problems, to be suffering from menopausal hot flash. Her medical and psychological challenges seemed way above my pay grade. However, I offered to loan her a CHI Palm for a month to see if it would help with her cold and moist hands and feet and her flashes of heat, and maybe to help restore her overall vitality. She went home with a CHI Palm.

Three days later, as the Universe would have it, the only seat available when I arrived for the next circle was next to her. She had been using the CHI Palm and her feet, hands, and arms were warm and dry. A good sign. In her sharing, she was still angry but much more introspective and hopeful. She had cried a lot during her sharing 3 days earlier, but this time, remained composed. She also expressed appreciation for the support of the people sitting with her. It appeared that she was much more able to listen to herself as she spoke.

This suggested that she not only had enough vitality to control her loss of heat and fluids through her skin, but also had sufficient vitality to support a powerful emotional display. This seemed to me to be a big improvement in just three days.

However, she complained that she still had a lot of anxiety which The CHI Palm had not relieved. Three days earlier, I had recommended that she use the Acute setting over the heart to help combine the fire and water in her blood to control the hot flash and perspiration and to build vitality. Instead, she used the Deep Calm setting everywhere because it felt more calm and gentle to her.

Going forward from this second meeting, what might we expect? Her life has been full of childhood emotional trauma and punctuated with periods of cancer resurgence and periods of remission. It appeared that she had been largely responsible for the remissions by taking her health into her own hands, eating healthier and preparing her own herbal concoctions. It would seem that periods of low vitality may have led to loss of her determination, allowing her to slide into replaying old traumatic scenarios. Not only might she lose the conscious choices to rise above cancer, but also slide into low vitality allowing her immune system to collapse. This might allow for a resurgence of opportunistic infections.

As vitality is drained by any of the above there is soon no longer enough vitality to support all vital functions at once. Clammy skin and hot flashes might result and drain vitality further. The brain, suffering from low vitality or polluted nutrients, loses its analytical ability, it’s contact with the present moment, it’s determination, or its ability to make good decisions. When this happens, we might slip into such hazardous behaviors as binging on junk food, alcohol, or weed, further degrading our ability to make clear and effective choices and to navigate the present moment.

Loaning a CHI Palm to Teena for a month might give her a jump start toward a resilient homeostasis. However, so many people, when they feel better, put their tools and methods away. Then, when they again crash into hopelessness and dissociate from the present moment, they don’t even remember that they already have tools that work.

Navigating this hazardous world requires determination to pursue health and mental clarity continuously. It is especially hazardous because so many tell us, in so many ways, that we are not worthy of vitality, joy, and love.