Love in the Fall

By Clara Park, RAc

Watching the leaves fall from the trees, my body and mind are reminded of life’s impermanence. Perhaps that’s why today’s sadness feels especially deep, as if the season itself is echoing what’s within.  This morning, a dear friend shared the heartbreaking news that her husband had passed away, and in that moment, I felt the weight of sorrow and tenderness all at once.  The past few months have personally reminded me that all beginnings are intertwined with endings, and that life’s moments are both fleeting and precious.

In Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the emotion that most affects the lungs is sorrow. The lungs and the large intestine together embody the theme of letting go—of grief, old attachments, patterns, and what no longer serves us.  The transition from late summer to autumn often invites this release.  Yet letting go can be one of the hardest things to do, especially when what we hold carries the weight of love and loss.

I grew up in the emotionally suppressed family and society.  Whether it was from something as small as dropping a candy on the dirty ground to as big as being separated from my family in the middle of a crowd, my emotions were not always met with understanding or comfort.  Over time, I learned not to tend to my own emotions just like my parents and many parents before them.

The turning point came when my son was born.  Often, I felt angry at myself for not knowing how to be with him.  Oh, how I hated myself for not knowing!  With time and support, I discovered that beneath the anger lived deep sorrow.  And beneath that sorrow were vulnerable memories and experiences I hadn’t known how to process - moments my body had quietly carried for years.  Gradually, I learned to hold space for myself, to sit with the pain, embody it, and allow the energy of it to move through me.

Each time I allow any emotional energy to move through me, I am reminded of how wise the body is - how it holds, protects, and releases in its own time.  Our bodies instinctively protect what feels too vulnerable.  When we haven’t been able to process what was difficult or overwhelming in the past, the body holds onto those experiences until it feels safe enough to let go.  As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps the Score, our physical being carries the imprints of what our minds couldn’t yet understand.

Speaking of our physical being, since the beginning of September, I have been experiencing uneven pelvis and shoulders, with incredible tension along the right side of my body.  It felt as if that side was twisting and tightening in resistance.  Two days ago, I gave myself an acupuncture session to help the energy that was stuck deep within begin to move outward.  That treatment softened something in me.  I believe that if I hadn’t given myself that session, meeting sorrow so fully today might have been harder.  I might have been holding myself together instead of allowing myself to soften.

This is why I chose to become a trauma-informed acupuncturist.  Acupuncture played and still plays a profound role in my own healing.  It helped release energetic stagnation so I could move with greater ease through discomfort, transitions, and both physical and emotional pain.  Trauma-informed acupuncture can support the body’s natural process of release by calming the nervous system and creating a sense of internal safety.  From that place, the body no longer needs to resist; it can begin to let go.

Returning to the sorrow today, I allowed it to rise fully within me.  As I did, I realized that the news of my friend’s husband’s passing was also a mirror, reminding me of what I was still holding onto: the regret and fear of letting go, not only my own but also the lingering imprints of my ancestors’ experiences of parting with loved ones.  I connected with the energy of sorrow within my body and let it run its natural course of rise and fall.  Tears came.  In the end, what I felt was an incredible sense of gratitude for my loved ones, for my friend’s husband, and for the love that connects us all.  Through that gratitude, all I could feel was love - the kind that exists beyond words.  When Chinese medicine speaks of the body’s innate healing power, I feel it points to this same place within us - the place of love and gratitude that has always been there, waiting to be remembered. 

This season of fall, a time of letting go and release, invites us to return to the love and gratitude that already lives within us.  This is where healing begins, where the body, mind, and spirit remember their natural rhythm.  Trauma-informed acupuncture can help open this path, guiding you to safely release what has been held and allowing the energy of love and gratitude to flow freely and bringing you back to your own innate sense of balance, peace, and wholeness.