Helpful hints for the novice five element acupuncturist: 5: Eyes: The windows of the soul

I am very aware of how few people, in this age of social media, appear now to be looking each other in the eye as much as I do.  I don’t have a smart phone, and rarely even use my old-fashioned mobile, so I look around me all the time I am outside, both when I’m walking around and when I’m sitting in my favourite café watching the world go by, as I like to do.

 But looking into the screen of your phones as people constantly now do means that you may be losing one of the important skills we five element acupuncturists have to develop, that of learning from our eye-to-eye contact with our fellow human beings.  For the eyes, as we have often been told, are the windows of the soul, and it is on our patients’ souls that our attention should be focused.  It is only at this deepest level of our patients’ being that we can assess the true nature of their needs.  The soul does not lie, nor do the windows which open on to them, if we learn to look through these windows with our unblinkered gaze.

 

So when you are with others, put aside your smart phone, look up and catch the glances of those you are with.  You will learn more about the nature of human interactions, and thus the nature of the elements you are trying to diagnose, than any book-learning can ever teach you.