Editor’s Note: Part 1 of this three-part article ran as a digital exclusive in the January 2026 issue.
An anxious part of the self can be very persistent. It is a self-contained story with a pattern of somatic repercussions based on beliefs and coping strategies from life experiences that often start in childhood. With a child’s mind we try to make sense of seemingly (and actual) life-threatening experiences, and we create beliefs about the world and ourselves. We then develop coping and self-protective strategies that become a habitual way we respond to similar events even into adulthood.
Patterns of anxiety are very predictable and present with the same sequence of events each time. The same kind of thoughts will trigger the same kind of emotions and lead to the same kind of behavior.
The good news is that since anxiety presents with a repeatable pattern, we can start to recognize it as such and begin to question its validity in the moment. The bad news is that it becomes a part of our identity and seems like an undeniable truth and self-fulfilling prophecy, because we experience and interpret life events through this lens.
In the following case study, I outline three “heartmind” [discussed in part 1] techniques that preceded acupuncture and took about 20 minutes:
Old and New Picture
My patient came in saying she was feeling anxious and wanted to get more insight into a familiar relationship pattern she’d like to change for the better. She said that when she is in a confrontation with her partner, she often feels defensive and sharp in her responses. This in turn leads to anxiety about the longevity of the relationship.
To help her begin mindful inner study and help me see where her body was reflecting the stress, I asked her to turn her awareness inward and notice how her body responded when she remembered and felt the defensive part of herself. After a moment of self-reflection, she said she felt it in her solar plexus as a tightness.
To get more details I asked her to stay with that tightness a little longer and slowly exaggerate it on purpose to see how her muscles were contracting. As she did, she made a motion with her hands that started under her ribs on the sides of her body at about LV 13 and moved toward the centerline in front, where she clenched her fist. “It feels like it starts here and moves towards the center and gets very tight,” she said.
Now that we had a hand gesture, I asked her to slowly repeat the motion and stay with her experience again to see if anything else emerged. She said she felt fearful and panicky. When you focus on somatic sensations, movements, and gestures several times with slow and mindful self-awareness, more information about body sensations, feeling states, and memories often becomes available.
In my previous article about panic attacks, we explored a gesture that led to the emergence of a wise part of the self. Here, exploration took us deeper into the present defensive stance, but as you will see, it eventually led to transformational unfolding.
I said, “So, you’re discovering that during confrontations with your partner, you feel fearful and panicky on the inside, and it manifests as tightness in your diaphragm and solar plexus area and defensiveness and sharp retorts.” She agreed.
I asked her to repeat the motion again slowly and mindfully, and notice anything else that arose in her consciousness. After reflecting internally, she told me a remarkable story.
She said she has a picture, which was taken by her parents when she was 5 years old, of her older sister holding their new baby sister while she stood beside them. She told her parents she wanted to hold the baby, too, but they said she was too little and couldn’t do it.
For her, the picture was a living testament to the inner sense that her desires didn’t count as much as her older sister’s did. This left her with a deflated feeling that dropped her chest and shoulders forward.
Then she said that within the past 20 years, she was looking through a box of unorganized photos in the attic, and discovered another picture, taken at the same time as the first one, that showed her holding the baby and her older sister standing beside them. “My parents did let me hold the baby, and all those years I had remembered it incorrectly!”
Her amazement in finding the second picture was obvious – and yet for all her growing years she held to the belief that what she wanted didn’t count. However, the discovery of the new information did not eliminate the pattern. Even in her current adult relationships, the defensiveness and sharp retorts cover this inner place that feels insecure and unsure her feelings and wishes will be considered.
Anchoring a New Pattern
To support and anchor a new pattern in the brain, body, and limbic system, I asked her to hold the second picture in her mind’s eye and see how her body responded.
“It feels softer and more open, like a smile shining out from my solar plexus,” she said. (Note that the smile and the tightness emanate from the same place in the body. It is common that a new and healing realization appears in the same place where the hurt was felt.)
I asked her to stay with the softer, more open and smiling place in her solar plexus and let more of her body respond to it. There was a cascade of muscles that softened as her nervous system relaxed. When she was fully in that experience, I asked her to sense if this inner state had a message for her. “I have a special place,” she said.
I then repeated those words to her and asked her to listen to them mindfully so she could hear it from the outside and let it sink further into her bodymind. As a result, she relaxed even more.
To have the two parts communicate, I then asked her to feel and imagine her smiling solar plexus shine up into the collapsed place in her chest with her healing message, “I have a special place” and see how her chest responded. As she did that, she said her chest felt soft and peaceful. She had a smile on her face.
This kind of realization fills an inner deficiency in a precise way by communicating what it longs to hear. The old pattern will want to surface, but with practice the new one can be put into place.
To support a new integration, I asked her to consciously stay in the felt sense of softness and peacefulness in her chest and imagine she is talking with her partner from that inner stance while trying to resolve a conflict. What changes did she notice?
She said, “I notice that when I relax, my words come out more softly and not so abruptly. I can listen to him better and not just be waiting to speak.”
Reinforcement With Acupuncture
I told her we could go to the table and reinforce the smile and relaxed feeling with some acupuncture. I wanted to open communication between the solar plexus and chest. In the solar plexus I used CV 14 and K 21 on either side where she felt the fist-like tightness, and Lv 13 and 14 bilaterally where the tight pattern began. Distal points were Lv 3 and K 3.
In her chest I used CV 17 with P 6 and Sp 4 to address the pericardium and open the penetrating channel. I also put needles in GB 20 bilaterally to influence the brain and neck, as well as GV 20.
Author’s Note: This case illustrates an approach to communication between parts that integrate soma and psyche with mindful self-awareness in a style that comes from the Hakomi method of somatic psychology. I have specialized in using this approach and blending it with the metaphor and methods of classical Chinese medicine to deepen healing transformation. I call this method “heartmind acupuncture.” To learn more, read part 1 of this article and my bio, which includes a link to additional resources.
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| Digital Exclusive
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