Bonnie Koenig, LAc

Every now and then I learn something on Facebook. Not from the articles posted there or from the information someone posts but from the way people act.

What I’ve noticed is a growing trend among people who don’t want to engage in discussion but just spout their views. If anyone disagrees these people do a couple of things. They might start an argument and get very hostile. I’m slightly more comfortable with this overt engagement. They are willing to discuss. I’m not saying that hostility is okay but sometimes what comes across in the written word as hostile may not be hostile when someone is sitting around in a group talking. There is no body language to diffuse something. Things get out of control. I’m an admin on three different groups with three very different focuses and you see this now and again. Someone says something that is triggering to the other person and then suddenly things escalate.

The other way people shut down discussion is by blocking another person. Even if that person was not saying anything particularly offensive. Sometimes you get emails about why someone can’t find a thread they were participating in and you realize that person starting the thread blocked them. And if you go back, you see that they might have been putting forth their own views but the other person didn’t want to engage. Even if those views were not stated in a hostile or confrontational manner (no matter how hard I look). And that makes me sad for the world.

We are so divided on so many things. And here people go starting to shut down any sort of meaningful discussion on topics that really don’t need to be divisive. For all that we are supposed to be so enlightened and looking to ourselves for the issue, what I see on Facebook is that people are acting on those triggers and immediately laying blame to others and refusing to hear other sides to a discussion. That’s a problem for me. That’s a big problem because the discussions on Facebook are not life and death. They don’t mean the end of our world. But if we can’t discuss small things online without deciding that we don’t want to hear a voice that speaks differently than ours, how will we ever discuss the big things?

This isn’t a true review. I don’t do animal acupuncture as I’m fortunate to have an amazing veterinarian who works with my cats. She’s well versed in a number of alternative modalities and we primarily use homeopathics with my cats, which I find work wonders.

However, there are many practitioners who want to work on pets. I worked in a veterinary hospital for a long time and I still suffer a certain level of PTSD after that experience. In a pinch I would work on my own cats but no one else’s.

Becca Seitz has a broad background in studying healthcare. She has background working with shelters, forcing to confront animals in intensely stressful situations. She was the person who first talked about compassion fatigue in shelter workers, which led to a series of articles I published on my cat blog. And now she has written a very thorough book called Small Animal Acupuncture Point Locations.

Becca is also involved with teaching a class on animal acupuncture. I highly recommend the course for any practitioner interested in treating pets. If you can’t make the class, then purchase the book. If you ever hope to treat pets, this is a must read.

I finally got Websites for Acupuncturists edited and formatted for publication. It’s available on Amazon in both ebook and print.

I wrote this book to address many of the questions I’m seeing in social media. This is less a how to book and more a should you book. It offers some explanations about what you get with a general easy set up site (like Weebly and SquareSpace), what you get in a profession specific managed site (like AcuPerfect Websites and QiSites) and what you have to do to do it yourself.

I think a lot of people start out trying to do it themselves without having any idea of the options or what it means to be on a managed site and what their options are. I’ve kept the price low and offered as much information as I can to help people determine whether they have the time or the interest in creating their own website. Things are getting so much less expensive that there are many more affordable options out there than there were even a few years ago.

I’m on the other side of the generation gap. I’m 51. It’s not my age that made me stand up and realize that, it was a number of little things. It was realizing that sometimes people were saying things on Facebook that made no sense and I had to ask why. It was having to explain why I said I liked being able to get software more cheaply and easily for a PC than a Mac.

For those too young to remember, back in the 1990s, when real computer nerds like me had Macs, you actually had to go to a store to purchase software or get on a catalog mailing list. Most available software was for PCs and most stores had only an aisle or two  for Mac software. In addition, what software there was typically cost 20 to 30% more than comparable PC software (even if it was by the same manufacturer).  Yes, things have changed.

But what really made me realize I was on the other side looking back, was a young woman stood up at Comic Con. She stood up and talked about how she couldn’t believe anyone thought Nichelle Nichols was a feminist on Star Trek. She was, after all a glorified secretary. Now, point of fact, Lt. Uhura was a glorified phone operator (look it up) and not a glorified secretary. More importantly, she was on the bridge, offering information (if not an opinion) to the captain of the ship. She was not just the wife or mother of someone. She was a strong, unmarried (so we believe) female who had a career and, in 1966 when the show premiered, that was huge.  While I am pleased to say we have come far enough that this has to be explained, I am saddened that those  strides in equality are being forgotten.

There are always things that could have been done better but in 1966, the producers were taking a chance on her. And that’s something that shouldn’t ever be forgotten. I am only informed because I lived it. I am the older generation who took certain things for granted that young people have never heard of. I struggle with things others much younger than I am don’t understand.

I grew up on records and cassette tapes. I dialed phones with a rotary dial and it was great to get a touch tone phone. I worked at places with phones with extra long cords so that you could walk farther from the base (and all the potential tripping and jumping that required).  I typed on a typewriter. I wrote my first stories on typewriters. I submitted typewritten stories only to be horrified when I found a typo when the editor sent it back. Once it was in the title.

I knew how to manage PC DOS as well as MS DOS, but DCL was the command language I was most familiar with. My contemporaries learned Fortran and Cobal, LISP and C. I know Pascal and Basic. I have since learned C#, PHP and of course HTML and CSS. I have used  Amigas (first multiprocessing machine), Macs and now PCs. According to Huffington Post I should be able to program my DVR or my TIVO to record a show, but I no longer know how to do that. I don’t watch much television  and I let my husband program those systems. There is just so much to re-learn.

I still hand install WordPress because I feel more secure that way, although I am often questioned. I don’t sign up for things that I don’t want to. I am suspicious of online software that requires I pay monthly, particularly when it is accounting software.  I am told that nothing is secure by young people. And I remind them I lock my doors too even though that’s perhaps not completely secure.  There are things I learned. While nothing is secure, I don’t know why I shouldn’t lock my doors, why I shouldn’t question who wants my credit info and make choices deliberately.

The worst thing? It’s having the discussion with a twenty year old online and only after you try to explain something obvious do they say something that makes you realize how young they are. Chances are, by the time they are my age, there will be constant images and you’ll no longer hide behind a faceless avatar offering you fake age. Of course the old folks will hate having to show off their older faces and have people know they are elders though. At least I hope so. Because right now, I can show off my cat’s face on my avatar and no one needs to know what I look like this morning.

I blog as my cat which means I’m in a lot of groups with other women who blog about cats or as their cats. Recently a retailer has had a “Crazy Cat Lady” contest and many of them hate this term and are taking offense. Considering one of them gets to appear in a photo as “the” crazy cat lady, while she stands in a room full of cats (she’s actually at a shelter), I can understand her distress. In the discussions, I started to see some parallels between the concept of the “witch” and the concept of the “Crazy Cat Lady.”

Witches are taking back that term. While there are still Halloween witches with warts on their noses and narrow black hats, we also know that there are lot of women (and men) who practice a nature religion called Wicca and are witches. The term is still often used pejoratively, but there are enclaves where this is an acceptable term and those who practice Wicca tend to know that the “witch” in Halloween terms is really just a cartoon.

For those who don’t take back the term witch, they have chosen the term, “Wise Woman” or “Wise One” to self identify with. The original witch was a wise one who offered healing and aid to those in need.

Today, we don’t have many wise women in shacks selling herbs (to say we have none discounts some wonderful acupuncturists and herbalists I know, although they do not really live in shacks!). Instead, we have compassionate, wise women. And some of these compassionate wise women take care of cats. The mythical Crazy Cat Lady has a lot in common with the witch, both in how it came to be a pejorative term and who she represents. Let’s look at the stereotypical Crazy Cat Lady.

Our mythical Crazy Cat Lady is usually found living alone with a lot of cats. Her hair is either still in curlers or she hasn’t bothered to comb it. If she has bothered to comb it, perhaps the cats have attacked it because it’s a mess. She’s probably in a bathrobe or something equally unflattering.  She’s typically over forty.

We are told that this woman takes to her cats because she can’t find a man to marry her. After finding all these cats, she carelessly lets herself go because as we all know, not having a man is the worst thing that could happen and if you’ve given up, why take care of your appearance? And really what else is there but a cat?

The witch was just an ugly woman who took her shack in the woods living with nature and giving out herbs to try and eek out a living. Surely if she had been nicer or more pleasing to look at, she would have married and had children and be spared living with that ugly wart on her chin and wearing that very unbecoming hat.

The real witches, of course, came in all sizes and shapes. They made choices. They were wise women who understood the healing properties of plants and made the choice to utilize their knowledge for the good of the local people. Some were married. Others weren’t. Some were older but there were younger women who were learning this.

The Crazy Cat Lady might have made choices too. Let’s look at what the cat symbolizes in our culture: feminine independence. Yes, that’s right, the most common thing that cats symbolize is independence, especially feminine independence. If we look at the Crazy Cat Lady like that, perhaps she made a conscious choice not to get married and loves her independence, working at things she wants to work at, rather than what society says she should. Perhaps she is dressed down in her bathrobe or sweats because she has more important pursuits than how she looks. It could be her symbolic way of telling society that she doesn’t care what it thinks of her.

The Crazy Cat Lady is the modern version of the woman who doesn’t set her sights on marrying someone. She does not live her life as a second class citizen. She is taking the world in her hands, embracing her independence (via the cats) and going her own way. She is not going to be told what to do.

Like the Wise Woman, the Crazy Cat Lady can claim another term for her own. How about Compassionate One? Beyond the symbolism of the cats being independent, the woman is caring for something that can return nothing to her. Instead of working her way up in (dare I say it?) this dog eat dog culture of more, she uses her talents to care for those that can offer little back when it comes to material wealth and success. Instead, she takes her successes as saving lives and making the lives of as many of those she comes in contact with, better.

This sort of compassion and love is placed on the feminine side of the scale. As patriarchy took over, men were always competing to see who can be the best. This self aggrandizing pursuit is patriarchy at its worst. The Crazy Cat Lady is the matriarchy at its best. Is there any wonder that the woman who cares for cats is the Crazy Cat Lady? In a society that values competition, caring for another is crazy.

When we hear Crazy Cat Lady, let’s own her positive aspects and remember that the pejorative is merely the latest attempt at a patriarchal society that is floundering about trying to find it’s strength and power again, to negate feminine. While that doesn’t mean embracing the term, it means honoring what the Crazy Cat Lady stands for and proudly standing up to remind them that she, like each of us, is “The Compassionate One” and let her take her rightful place beside the witch/Wise Woman and other powerful feminine archetypes.

Last year I had a list of things I wanted to do and I think I did fairly well in terms of meeting my goals.

1. I wanted to write at least 5 books this year.  Check.  I actually managed seven new rough drafts
2. I want to indie publish 4 books. Check. I did one under Bonnie Koenig, EAMP for potential acupuncture patients, three full length books under Bonnie Elizabeth and published one short story. I also finished a short story that was accepted into an anthology.
3. I want to take at least one class from Dean Wesley Smith. Check. I actually took three classes. Totally worthwhile!
4. Changing this site to an editing site. Check. I have a bit of a question on this as I seem to have lost the vision for that.
5. I want to do more editing. No. I was so busy writing that I wasn’t that interested. I didn’t market. I guess that means that with the above, I wasn’t that interested.
6. Working out a writing coaching program. Not even close
7. Taking four of six virtual retreats with Mark at Heart of Business. Check. I think I did five!

So what are my goals for next year? I think I want to do more writing but also offering myself time to work with what I’ve done. I also need to market at little more. Clearly I’m more interested in writing than in editing and I’m okay with that.

So for 2014 my goals are:

1. I want to indie publish 3 books. Lower than last year but I want to make sure I stay on top of quality and perhaps spend time creating systems that will let me feel good about working faster in future years.
2. I want to take at least four out of six virtual retreats with Mark at Heart of Business. I find this very important to me
3. I want to take some more classes with Dean Wesley Smith. I already have two of them picked out and I expect this will be an easy goal to make.
4. I want to join at least one writing organization.
5. I want to write more short stories and I want to submit at least four of them to magazines (plural) I have no goals about getting them published. I just want the experience of getting them out there
6. I want to deconstruct a book in a particular genre and write one in that genre
7. I want to write at least five more books.
8. I want to change the look of my publishing site.

So there I am. I am also thinking I’ll probably do a little more photography for acupuncturists. I’m finding that although I don’t make much I do get a little money in pretty regularly selling acupuncture products on Zazzle. It’s not a living wage but it is steady and I want to increase that hope. We’ll see.

What are your goals?

I was reading this article called 11 Things I wish Every Parent Knew. While some of the things in the list are applicable only for parents, when it comes to the healthcare tips, many of them are true for adults without children as well as parents.

Let’s look at some of these great comments, “Good medicine asks what is the symptom trying to accomplish? rather than simply suppressing it. ” As acupuncturists we ought to know this. But often, we get caught up with our patients in believing that any uncomfortable symptom should be made to go away.

The most important quote is this, ” These days I practice what I call “preparatory medicine” rather than preventive medicine, so that getting sick is not seen as a failure. Being healthy does not mean never getting sick. Life is a journey of ups and downs and the growing child lives in a constant state of flux. A resilient immune system is one that learns how to get sick and get better. Living too clean a life robs us of the information necessary to be fully prepared to recover. ”

How many of us are running around trying to avoid anything that might not optimize our health? This is a wonderful reminder that we can’t do it, nor should we. After all we have this beautiful immune system that when nurtured works very hard to take care of us. Being sick is not a failure.

I’m going to share this secret. Although for the last fifteen or so years, since going to acupuncture school, I’ve been reading about how good for me vegetables are, I still don’t get all enraptured by them. I eat them. They are, after all, good for me. I just don’t love them. I don’t get excited about them. In fact, I eat them first so that I can get to the good stuff after they’re gone.

Now, don’t go tell me that I should just give them a chance. I’m 50 for heaven’s sake and I’ve been working on the vegie thing for the last 15 years. I still don’t love them. I eat them. That’s as good as it gets. And I do my best to eat healthy, not that that’s always easy considering the conflicting evidence.

Sorry vegetarian friends, I eat meat. I do so because the year or so I was vegetarian and the six months of that time I was vegan were the worst months of my life. I felt worse than I had in ages and I pretty much disliked everything I ate, except of course for the fact that I allowed myself Skippy peanut butter. Yeah. I ate the bad stuff. I had to have something I actually liked. And my blood work reflected this. It was about as bad as it’s ever been.

Now I don’t just eat any meat. I work to source my meat. My husband and I eat a quarter of a cow from a local farmer who raises them sustainably and pretty happily on his land. I also look for pastured chickens. I get my eggs from said chickens as well, in the summer. However, I continue to buy eggs in the winter, because I like eggs.  I still eat out and I’ve often felt guilt about that.

I avoid chemicals as much as I can. I read labels. I don’t eat a lot of things I might like because they are “bad.” And then, of course, it’s not just health. It’s political. I mean my favorite organic yogurt maker was giving money to defeat GMO labeling in California.

And I sat there and cried because it’s getting so hard to purchase food that’s good for me and is also good for the world. Even Chipotle was off limits for awhile because they weren’t supporting farm workers. Fortunately, they changed their stance so I could feel good about a salad (no wheat so no burritos) when I went there. Some days I feel like the woman who started eating only kale.

Except instead of going that route, and living on kale, I found Health At Any Size. No more would I count carbs or chose lower calorie foods. I was helped in this when I was thinking I ate plenty and normally and my naturopath looked at me and said, “You need to eat more. You aren’t even eating 1500 calories most days.” And my jaw dropped. But I was gaining weight and I felt like I was eating like a pig. No longer. I actually did have to eat.

So I ate more. I paid less attention to the bad foods. I read good blogs about internal food choices rather than external food choices. This means that I don’t avoid ice cream because the manufacturers are bad. I don’t avoid it because it’s not organic. I don’t avoid it because it’s cold, greasy and fatty and thus damp producing and creating even further spleen xi deficiency. I eat it anyway. The kind my husband likes because no matter what I tell him, he likes ice cream. And he doesn’t care about organic. Especially with ice cream because to him, what’s the point. And yes, it ups my caloric intake. And yes, if I want to eat it every night for a week, I can. Except I learned that I don’t feel as well the next morning.

After a dish of ice cream in the evening, I find that getting up in the morning is more difficult. I want to sleep. I’m not hungry for breakfast. My head isn’t as clear and my daily tasks seem harder to get to. So now, when I want ice cream, I consider how I want to feel in the morning. Some days it’s worth it. Some days it’s not. I no longer feel deprived.

Gluten too. I never tested positive for celiac so I have that choice. However, most gluten containing products (not all) give me a headache. I continue to avoid gluten whenever I can because having a headache isn’t fun. I eat the gluten containing things that I can eat. Breaded fish doesn’t bother me. Some pastas don’t bother me. Fast food inevitably gives me a headache.

You know what else I found? I don’t really like soda. Now that I don’t care, I realized I don’t like soda. When it was “bad”, it was always a treat. Now I prefer certain types of iced tea that aren’t as over flavored  to soda. Or Kombucha. Those taste better to me. Even the sodas that just have sugar and no HFCS. I really don’t want soda at all. I used to love Dr. Pepper. I’m not so keen on it any more. I’m not even so keen on the good Root Beers. They’re too sweet and too fake. Just where my body is right now. I don’t drink them.

I still don’t much like vegetables, but now I have foods that I actually like. I find that I eat less and think less about the foods that might not be great for my body. I have better reasons for avoiding them than “they aren’t good for me”. I know exactly what they will do in the short term and I avoid them.

Will I die earlier because I’m eating ice cream? Who knows? My genetic history shows that all my immediate relatives on my father’s side (who I tend to take after) died suddenly and unexpectedly without any particular illness. I probably don’t have to worry too much about long suffering. So if I have some ice cream and die earlier of a heart attack, I probably won’t have time to regret it. Because when I had ice cream? I REALLY wanted it. Now I don’t have to deprive myself simply because someone else says it’s bad.

I was talking about compassion fatigue on a thread on Facebook. One acupuncturist talked about her desire to work with animal shelter volunteers about compassion fatigue. As I blog about pets on my other blog, I’m linking to the post where I’ve explored some initial thoughts about compassion fatigue.

Branding. You hear it all the time. What is it?

Branding is simply making sure that you and your business are is unique enough to be recognizable and singled out when in a group of similar businesses.

The most basic branding is a logo or a sign. In addition, signature colors or a unique aspect of your business or personality can be branding.

You may think that being an acupuncturist or a healthcare provider is your brand. It is, but it should be more, especially if you are promoting that brand online.

Recently on Facebook a number of practitioners started sharing their pages with each other. Each page grabs some of the same news items from other pages and then still more people share them. As people see these news items about acupuncture or natural health they become part of the acupuncture brand, not the individual practitioner’s brand.

One way to make a personal brand is instead of sharing generic health related information, share information of interest to your patients. This way, when they see something from you they pay attention. This also works in reverse. When they see something about acupuncture, your patients will probably think of you specifically.

What is of interest to your patients? Consider, who your patients are. They have a community. Local events that promote health and wellness are great things to share. If you work with runners, sharing any news or information about running, including timely information about marathons (both local and not so local), running shoes, gait or any other information that deals specifically with running. If you work with fertility, then any news about fertility and health will probably be devoured.

Who are you? One practitioner shares a lot about her dog on her Facebook page because her dog is a big part of her life. People know about her dog. The dog becomes part of her own brand. Connecting and re-sharing information from veterinarians and other acupuncturists who specialize in pet acupuncture could be another part of her brand that she shares which her patients. This means that what she shares is not only useful for their own health but their pet’s health as well.

What particular passions do you bring to the treatment room? That’s part of your brand.

If you’re good with photo editing or have someone in your office who is, when sharing photos give them a border or a watermark in the colors of your clinic to brand them as yours. Alternatively, you could place your clinic logo on the corner of your images so that they become unique to you. This is particularly true if you are sharing on Pinterest. For those who don’t know, Pinterest is a site where people share photos only with little or not text about the images.

Branding is who you are. Make it professional but also it make it you, whether that’s playful and fun loving, serious, bookish or edgy. Find your signature colors and passions. When sharing on social media sites use those themes through your page for the majority of your posts so that even if people don’t see your name or link on a similar image or post, they think of you. They may even share that link on your page for you because it fits.

Find It

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

More Information

• Acupuncture on Amazon
• My Acupuncture Cards
• Quantum Lifestyles