People often like to confide in me. As an acupuncturist, I take a health history and hear about a person’s job, partner, kids, diet and the other factors affecting their symptoms.
And as a realtor, I ask when someone wants to buy or sell, and then we quickly segue to other real-life factors.
Changes abound. Even beyond a pandemic, some degree of change is inevitable. It’s how we weather change that can create, worsen or reduce our symptoms.
Real estate isn’t a hands-on job like acupuncture, but the two fields do overlap. When people lose their center, they gain a sense of urgency. If you don’t like where you live, or you’re in physical or emotional pain, your activities of daily living can become quite challenging.
Yes, you can have an abrupt “aha!” and decide you will no longer maintain this house or lingering back pain. But more commonly, you may suffer on simmer and take some time to boil.
I have had patients who don’t want acupuncture, and I have had customers who aren’t yet ready to sell their homes. Both have included me in their life searches. Since I enjoy bouncing around ideas – much to the horror of my terse, constantly texting teens – I often ask people what they seek. Do they want acupuncture needles? No. In 15 years as an acupuncturist, I have never had a patient wanting to be impaled. It makes no difference if a patient has multiple piercings or an extensive history of blood work; they aren’t seeking needles as much as treatments for a condition.
Countless conditions impair the quality of life: stress and insomnia, addictions and pain management, surgical scars. I have treated these situations. Yet in order to provide optimal, efficient and effective care, I need to engage the patients in their own healing processes. Do they support their wellness through their choices in nutrition, rest, work-life balance, relationships, digital footprint and financial choices, just to name a few?
If not, are they willing to change?
Change is rarely easy, but again, it is the only true constant.
I find that a person’s healing is dependent on their adaptability, and improvements are not limited to a patient’s chief complaint. Many years ago, I had a cancer patient who was wheelchair-bound and on oxygen during the treatment. Grudgingly, she finally agreed that she would stop smoking.
She still passed away within several months. No modality, including acupuncture, could reverse her trajectory. However, she made a connection between her actions and the consequences. No one is ever asymptomatic. However, we can all aspire to gain insight and healing.
In a similar vein, my real estate customers don’t just ask about renovation loans or about a property’s price relative to the neighborhood. They want my professional advice on how a property relates to their lifestyles, relationships and life goals.
While property can be an extension of wellness, no price tag or backyard replaces the need for consistent, proactive self-care. Someone selling their home still needs to plan where to live next. A group of individuals with a personal, emotional or historical attachment to a property may struggle to empty, update and sell it off cleanly and easily. As with the acupuncture scenario above, the condition is larger than the house.
Turning 50 has given me a new set of filters. Suddenly, I hear about bereavement and retirement as often as births and job announcements. I feel a huge sense of gratitude for anything that is going well, pleasant or kind.
“Welcome to the club,” chuckled a new acupuncture patient. She had headaches from coping with the past six months. Yet in truth, her headaches were just the latest fruit borne from a long tapestry of stressors. I used acupuncture needles to weave the themes together and reduce her chief complaint, but no needles could render her life seamless.
Symptoms interrupt time, the ultimate luxury, and therefore help us understand our existence. She said so herself, it was time to prioritize her own needs.
And so I asked a realty customer recently, what did he really need? Was it the ZIP Code for the schools, the potential income if he renovated, or the pleasure in expanding his empire?
He answered without hesitation: a wife. In order to bring the right kind of person into his life, he needed a certain kind of home in which she could live.
Now, that was some insight.
An acupuncturist, Trina Lion is also a licensed realtor at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty.
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