Karen Adams Acupuncture

to all who served

Remember: if there were no healing power within us,
nothing could be healed.

In terms of bang for your donation: $10 gets 2 people acupuncture. You can give once, or you can make a monthly pledge. That's what I do.

Update on Maui Fire Relief What you need to know     Dear Diana, It’s been three weeks since the devastating fire in West Maui. Thank you to all of you who have donated resources to help bring stress and pain reduction tr

Open to all. Acupuncturists Without Borders has been working with Ukrainian refugees and military. Sign up to catch up. FREE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH - Join us for a live update: How acupuncture is supporting people affected by the war in Ukraine AWB is helping bring relief to injured Ukrainian soldiers, civilians, and refugees     Oksana Dovbnia, volunteer acupuncturist at the Lisova Polyana Rehab Center in Kyiv where she treats over 40

https://wapo.st/3OFfaZM

Men’s groups are embracing an alternative conception of American masculinity American men are lonely, disconnected and angry — a crisis experts say is driven by “cowboy” masculinity. Can organizations like the Journeymen help?

Consider that you may be drawn to a person, thing or situation because you see in them something you need to discover in yourself.

Yup. I've added it to my bug spray - if a mosquito *happens* to get through, I barely get an itch. (Mostly none get through)

Have you tried Evil Bone Water yet? It's one of our FAVORITE herbal treatments.

We had a patient come in for her usual appointment last week, she had weepy sores that she thought were bug bites (turns out it was Poison Ivy 😖 ouch!). She brought home a bottle of and told us that it worked better at providing relief than other recommended treatments like Calamine or Cortisone - giving longer itch relief! Evil Bone Water wins again! 🙌

We love Evil Bone Water for all sorts of summer ailments - great for not just bug bites (and a natural bug repellant!) but also skin conditions, infections, and other bone or muscle injuries; and is safe for kiddos as well!

Need a bottle? Give us a call: 410-263-0411

Have I told you lately how tremendously well you're doing these days? Well you are! Please carry my admiration and love into your day.

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'Let them be right if that's what they need.' In my new and expanding awareness, plus my desire to stay as centered as I can, I'm trying to let them be right. That is really, really hard, and works much more easily one on one, face to face than it does with 'them'.
Pro tip: look for one small thing you both can agree on. It seems like both of us are so happy to find a graceful way to get out of a contentious conversation.

It's been my observation that much of the seeming solutions we turn to when we are distressed consume us to the point where we almost completely identify ourselves as one narrow thing: an addict. A victim. The one with chronic... anything, really. Once we do that, we can be stuck for years with that as our identity, no matter how hard we try to 'heal'. I find that almost unbearably sad. When we 'become' our tragedy or dis-ease, we have so completely narrowed our focus on that distress that we forget that we are infinitely more: a child, a parent, a partner, shy, outgoing, smart, a lover of beauty and courage. Free.

I use this myself for all kinds of stuff, and use it on my patients. very good for injured, fragile skin as well as just about any 'hot' (currently trying it on inflamed black fly and mosquito bites) skin thing. and look who else likes it!

I just think this is funny - and a particularly apt way to start my day. Good morning, my dears!

So much this. And not just for your kids, but for you friends and family, too. My default setting when someone starts telling me something that's bothering them is to start thinking of all the things they could try to fix it. (You probably want me to do that if you're coming to me for acupuncture.)
Otherwise... how presumptuous of me, to think you must not have thought of all the things you could do. Coming up with stuff in most cases is just to make me feel like I'm doing something, which makes me feel better.
Sometimes you just want me to listen, maybe give you a hug.
(Please bear with me, it's not my default setting. You have my permission to tell me to just listen.)

You must have seen the memes that say 'sprinkle that s**t everywhere', and I charge you to do that today. Go forth and do the simple things like this. It will be fun - and I really mean that. Because being kind in the small, easy ways just feels good to everyone.

Gentleness is everything, especially when we direct it toward ourselves. How many times have you gotten irritated or even angry with yourself because you can't stop thinking about something - aka worrying? Don't resist those thoughts, just ease up a bit. Laugh at yourself gently. You're just not paying as close attention to what you're thinking as you could, that's all. Just change the subject - and lightly stay aware, check in occasionally, because it's the unconscious thought patterns that get us into trouble. Let them go.

Gentleness is everything, especially when we direct it toward ourselves. How many times have you gotten irritated or even angry with yourself because you can't stop thinking about something - aka worrying? Don't resist those thoughts, just ease up a bit. Laugh at yourself gently. You're just not paying as close attention to what you're thinking as you could, that's all. Just change the subject - and stay aware, check in occasionally, because it's the unconscious thought patterns that get us into trouble.

I realize that much of what I write (or say in the treatment room) can be seen as 'advice'. In fact, the most common comment on my elementary report cards was 'she's too bossy', due, no doubt, to me trying to tell my classmates what to do about just about everything. I took those teacher comments very much to heart, and for the first few years of my practice I *never* gave advice to patients.
Now I say stuff all the time, but here's the difference. I am completely not attached to what I say. You can use it or not, and I can promise you that I forget about it as soon as we walk out of the room.
I am very much aware that you have your own destiny, and I have no idea whether you are doing exactly what you need to be doing to fulfill that destiny.
What I say is an offering, out of respect for you and what your are going through. If you like it, great. It's also great if you think I'm full of s**t, because being annoyed with what I've said means you will continue to think about it and another option will occur to you.

They call it the placebo effect, when we take a sugar pill and still get better. I call it doing what we already know how to do. It's just sometimes we need a nudge, or maybe an assist.

And while this is a shameless plug for acupuncture, there are *lots* of tools available to us: meditation, reiki, homeopathy, dietary changes, yoga, prayer... you get the picture.

BTW, if you pick something and it doesn't seem to work, that's not something to stress about. In fact it's ok because healing is a process, a flow, a way of living to be your best self. Feeling frustrated (or frightened) because it seems like nothing works - *that* gets in the way. Allow. Allow your life to unfold.

Put another way: just breathe.