Treating the ‘root & the branch’

What does it mean to treat the ‘root and branch’ in Chinese Medicine?

"Life is like a tree and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy" - Deepak Chopra

In Chinese medicine we look at both the branch and the root of disease! This is what makes this medicine so wonderful and why I became so passionate about its ability to heal!

The branch encompasses the symptoms and the root refers to the underlying factors or cause of those symptoms! And so while a lot of times, in other modern medicine practices, the symptoms alone are treated, in Chinese medicine we dig deeper, investigate a little further! We try and get to the bottom of why your symptoms may be occurring in the first place and treat the imbalance!

We determine the root cause by reading your constitution, taking your pulse, looking at your tongue, observing things like your appearance and the way you walk and talk and breathe, palpating your abdomen, points and the channels, muscle testing, talking emotions and asking a heck of a load of questions! Things that seem unrelated or random to you are gold to me, and provide me so much information about you!

Emotions also play a huge role in our health and well being. More than we give them credit for! And so a symptom that may seem unrelated can be resolved when the emotion has been shifted! Emotion is energy in motion after all and nothing changes if nothing changes!

It is truly amazing what we can find out and how quickly things can shift when we are focusing on the right things and using the correct tools!