Has Your Progress Stalled Out? Try This Trick.

23 Oct Has Your Progress Stalled Out? Try This Trick.

Posted at 16:48h in Inspiration, Natural Health by Ramona Tortorilla

LouAnn suffers from painful arthritis and persistent fatigue.

LouAnn’s been coming to see me for a year, but around 6 months ago, her progress started to level off. When this happens, sometimes it’s because the client is tired of taking herbs and constantly having to monitor their health habits and practices.

Getting healthy when you’ve been struggling with chronic illness can be a chore. It’s like a full-time job with no vacation.

But LouAnn takes her personal health seriously. She never takes a day off from the herbal and lifestyle plan we put together.

Definitely not a quitter.

No one to blame
But something happened. She stopped improving. For a month or two, whenever she visited me, we’d try to sort out why no changes were happening.

“Did you stop taking your herbs?” No.

“Has your life been extra stressful lately?” No, not particularly.

“Are you still exercising?” Yep, still at it.

Do you ever feel like just when you have a grasp on something, you have to return to the basics and re-learn what you thought you knew?

It was so tempting to take her lack of progress personally.

Digging deep for answers
Instead of blaming and quitting, or seeing another practitioner, LouAnn talked about her stalled progress and asked if I had anything else in my bag of tricks. She wanted me to go deeper, talk to my colleagues for ideas, do some research.

Rather than guessing based on what I already knew, I questioned what information was missing. Then I leaned into the complexity of her health history. Outside our regular appointments, I had hours of extra work to do.

I set her file aside and in my down time, I dug deep into my herbal resources – professional books, textbooks, practitioner guides and Chinese Medicine philosophy – for answers.

It paid off.

Studying clients like LouAnn, with complicated health histories and unusual symptom patterns, has made me question my assumptions. And in the end, it’s rearranged what I understand about ALL of my clients.

I’m glad my practice is attracting clients with more complex concerns.

Otherwise, my clinical skills might get a little stale.

I might start to think I know everything.

~~~

Today, I’m back to blogging just long enough to tell you that I’m still here.

I’ve just been a little quiet lately. Questioning my assumptions.

Sharpening my herbalist skills. Coming up with a new plan for LouAnn.

Thanks for hanging in there with me…