Chasing the Wind

Chasing the Wind

Hello everyone, and welcome. This is my introductory teaching for Change Matters Healing—and a look at why I chose this name.

I’ll start with a simple truth I learned from my teacher, Dr. Jeffrey Yuen:

“People don’t change unless the pain is greater than the change.”
“There are no incurable diseases, only incurable people.”

Over time I’ve come to understand what he means:
for healing to happen, we have to be willing to change.

If our health truly matters, then change matters—and healing begins the moment we stop resisting it.

Why We Resist Change

There are many reasons we hesitate:

• It may not feel financially possible.
• There may be children, partners, or family depending on us.
• We may not know what to change or how to change.
• Old stories arise: “I’m not capable enough, educated enough, young enough, old enough…”

The mind creates an endless list until we throw up our hands and just keep going—doing what is expected, fulfilling obligations—while some deeper part of us quietly longs for a catalyst.

Very often, that catalyst arrives as illness.

Illness, in this medicine, is not just something “bad” happening to you. It is also an invitation:
a signal that something in your life, your energy, or your spirit is asking to move.

Change and Wind in Classical Chinese Medicine

In Classical Chinese Medicine, change is often spoken of as wind.

Wind is movement, unpredictability, and transformation. When we resist wind, we brace. We tighten. That resistance creates stress and stagnation in the body, mind, and spirit.

There is an old phrase:

“Wind is the spearhead of a thousand diseases.”

Wind acts as a vehicle. It can drive cold, heat, or dampness into the body, pushing past our defenses if our wei qi (defensive qi) is not strong enough.

Wei qi circulates on the surface—in the skin, fascia, and sinew channels. These channels protect us from external influences. When we encounter wind and cold, a sneeze or a light sweat might be the body’s first attempt to push it back out.

If the wei qi is strong, the pathogen is expelled and we move on.
If the wei qi is weak—because of overwork, emotional strain, poor sleep, or other stressors—the wind can penetrate more deeply, and the story continues.

Wei Qi, Kidney Yang, and the Body’s Wisdom

Wei qi is an expression of Kidney Yang qi—our deep metabolic fire.

This defensive qi not only opens and closes the pores, it also influences the smooth muscles of the body:

• The walls of the stomach and intestines
• The bladder and uterus
• Blood vessels and lymphatics
• The respiratory, urinary, and reproductive systems

If Kidney Yang is insufficient, wei qi will also be weak. At that point, a pathogen can sink to the level of the blood, and the body has to make larger, more costly moves to protect the organs.

The body’s wisdom is remarkable.
Sometimes it diverts the pathogen through the Divergent Channels, or, if there is a strong emotional component, stores it in the Luo Channels.

Divergent Channels: Holding Things in Latency

The Divergent Channels are like side roads. Their job is to pull difficult influences away from the internal organs and hold them in latency—often in the joints and major articulations.

When this happens, symptoms may fade. Life “goes back to normal.” We feel mostly fine, maybe a little stiff, a little off—but nothing that seems serious enough to change for.

Then, months or years later, another pathogen or life stress arrives. The system is challenged again. If our reserves are low, the body can no longer hold everything in latency, and symptoms return—sometimes the same as before, sometimes completely new.

Once again, we are standing in front of an invitation to change.

Luo Channels: Where the Emotions Live

Many people say all disease has emotional roots. I would add:
true healing has to include the spirit.

The Luo Channels are created throughout our lives to store unresolved emotional experience—grief, anger, fear, shame, betrayal, heartbreak. They hold what we haven’t yet been able to digest.

When the Luo are full, there are often visible signs along their pathways—varicosities, spider veins, discolorations, nodules, changes in the skin. These are not just cosmetic details; they are stories written on the body.

Full Luo vessels, recurring symptoms, and old emotional loops are all saying the same thing:

“Something here is asking to move.
Will you meet it now, or store it again?”

Another invitation to change.

The Eight Extraordinary Channels: Where Your Story Is Written

All of these movements—pathogens, emotions, life events, choices—are born, financed, and recorded within the Eight Extraordinary Channels.

You can think of them as the deep architecture of your life:

• Where your ancestral patterns live
• Where your Jing (essence), Qi, and Shen (spirit) are woven together
• Where your particular curriculum for this life is stored

From here, your unique way of becoming ill—and your unique way of healing—unfolds.

Through pulse reading, tongue diagnosis, palpation, questioning, and listening, a skilled clinician can trace this story. We look for the root of deficiency or stagnation, support the body’s natural healing, and, when needed, help re-establish latency until your system has enough resources to fully clear what it’s ready to clear.

Fear, Courage, and the Breath

So where does fear fit into all of this?

In my experience, our greatest fear is not wind, or pathogens, or even death. Our greatest fear is our own truth.

The difference between fear and courage is often just one breath.

Our defensive wei qi is governed by the Lungs, and sourced from the Kidneys. When we strengthen Lung and Kidney qi, we are not only enhancing immunity; we are strengthening the will to face what we have been avoiding.

As we nourish the breath and tend the Gate of Life, we build the internal resources needed to walk through fear instead of circling around it for years.

Why “Change Matters Healing”

All of this is why I chose the name Change Matters Healing.

• Change is built into the fabric of this medicine.
• Change is carried by the wind.
• Wind, when resisted, becomes the spearhead of disease.
• When welcomed, it becomes the movement that carries us toward healing.

If you want to heal and live with less disease, change is inevitable. It can also be deeply creative and even exciting. Sometimes all that’s required is a safe space, clear intention, and a willingness to let the channels of the body and spirit move again.

The more we fight change, the deeper and more entangled our diseases tend to become.
When we align with change, we discover new space—inside and out.

There is a classical teaching I return to often:

“If the spirit is at peace, the heart is in harmony.
When the heart is in harmony, the body is whole.
If the spirit becomes agitated, the heart wavers.
When the heart wavers, the body becomes injured.
If one seeks to heal the physical body, therefore, one needs to regulate the spirit first.”

Creating Space for Possibility

Out of the Void of Nothing come the ten thousand possibilities.

The more inner space we have, the more possibilities we have in life—more room to respond differently, to choose differently, to heal differently.

My work is to help create that space:
in the channels, in the breath, in the mind, and in the heart—
so you can see the possibilities that have been waiting all along.

Thank you for taking the time to read this teaching.

If you’re not local and want support, explore Remote Healing Sessions. If you have questions, Contact me.