Why we get caught in our heads, a teaching from my beloved teacher Dr. Tran Viet Dzung, and the three-point path from thought to action

We are in Late Summer, the season of the Earth element. And if there is one thing the Earth element governs, beyond digestion and grounding, it is thought.

In Chinese medicine, the Spleen (the Earth element organ) houses the Yi, which is our word for the intellect, the thinking mind, the part of us that chews on ideas the way the Spleen chews on food. So Late Summer is, in a very real sense, the season of the mind.  Overthinking. Ruminating. Turning the same thought over and over without ever moving forward.

You know the feeling. Your client knows it too. And this season, the season of transformation and change, is when it can peak.

So this is the perfect time to share a teaching I have carried with me for years, from one of the most important teachers I ever had.

The teacher who changed how I see everything

After I finished my Master's degree in Chinese medicine, I was lucky enough to study with a master acupuncture teacher named Dr. Tran Viet Dzung. In many ways, that is where my real training began.

Dr. Tran was brilliant, a Western-trained surgeon who went on to study the ancient texts of Chinese medicine and spent his life bridging the two. I feel genuinely honored to have been among the small handful of students who got to study with him for years. He shaped my understanding of this medicine at a level I am still unpacking to this day.

And on the subject of getting unstuck, he said something I have never forgotten:

"Think, or don't think. But if you think, you must take action." Very Yoda of him, dontcha think?

That one line is the key to everything I am about to show you.

Stuck isn't one thing. It's a progression.

Here is the reframe that changes how you treat this pattern forever.

When someone is stuck, we tend to treat it like one problem. One big lump of "I can't move forward." But Dr. Tran taught me that stuck is not one thing at all. It is a progression, and it stalls at different stages for different people.

First, the thought gets stuck. You cannot stop turning it over. You ruminate, you loop, you overthink. This is the Spleen, the Yi, the Earth element, our season. The thinking mind spinning without traction.

Then, even when the thinking is done, the decision won't come. You know your options. You might even know what you should do. And you still cannot choose. This is the Gallbladder, which in Chinese medicine is called the official of decision-making. We have all the information and still cannot make that decision.

And finally, even once the decision is made, the action stalls. You have decided, and you still do not move. This is the Kidney, which houses the Zhi, the will. Without Kidney energy, we have clarity and resolve and still cannot take the step.

Thought. Decision. Action. Three different movements, three different organs, three different points. When you start seeing "stuck" this way, you stop treating it as one vague problem and start meeting the person exactly where they are frozen.

A moment I will never forget

Let me tell you why the very first stage, stuck thought, is so close to my heart.

Years ago, before I ever worked with essential oils, I had a patient who was profoundly caught in her own mind. Obsessive, looping, emotional thoughts she could not move past, no matter how hard she tried. She was exhausted by her own head.

I needled a single point. SP1, at the corner of the big toe, the well point of the Spleen channel, where stuck thought first begins to move. And she burst into tears. Not sad tears or tears from pain (although this is a tender point and so glad I now have essential oils for it). The kind that come when something that has been frozen for a very long time finally breaks loose. It was one of the biggest emotional and physical breakthroughs I ever witnessed in my treatment room, from one small point at the tip of a toe.

I have never forgotten what that reinforced in me: the mind and the body are not separate, and sometimes the thing a person cannot think their way out of, they can be helped out of, one point at a time.

The trio: thought, decision, action

Here is the sequence Dr. Tran taught me, with the oil I reach for at each stage. You work it in order, because the whole point is to walk someone from where they are frozen all the way through to movement.

SP1 (Yinbai) + Cypress, to move stuck thought. SP1 is the well point of the Spleen channel, right at the medial corner of the big toenail. It is where stuck thinking begins to shift. This season I have been reaching for cypress here, because cypress is all about movement and flow. It gets what is congested and looping moving again, which is exactly what an overthinking mind needs: not more thinking, but flow.

GB40 (Qiuxu) + Grapefruit, to make the decision. GB40 is the source point of the Gallbladder, found in the hollow just in front of and below the outer ankle bone. As the official of decision-making, this is the point that helps a choice actually come. Pair it with grapefruit, for its bright, sharp, forward-moving, decisive quality.

KI3 (Taixi) + Black Spruce, to take action. KI3 is the source point of the Kidney, in the hollow between the inner ankle bone and the Achilles tendon. It strengthens the Zhi, the will, so a decision can become a step. Pair it with black spruce, the oil with the most affinity for the Kidney energy.

Here is the practice. One drop of each oil, warmed between your fingers, applied to each point in sequence, SP1, then GB40, then KI3. Apply the oil and hold each point with gentle contact, no pressing, just let it settle in before you move to the next. Both sides.

Thought moves. The decision comes. Action follows.

For your clients

The real gift of this teaching is not just the points. It is the lens.

The next time a client is "stuck," get curious about where. Are they still churning the thought and cannot stop (Spleen)? Have they thought it to death but cannot choose (Gallbladder)? Or have they decided and still cannot move (Kidney)? The same word, "stuck," points to three completely different places, and knowing which one changes everything about how you support them.

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for someone is simply to see their stuck more clearly. Not as one problem to solve, but as a progression to support, one stage, one point, one drop at a time.

And if you have been caught in your own head this season, start at the tip of your own big toe. Get the thought moving first. The decision and the action have a way of following once it does.

Go deeper inside Essential Oil Energetics

Teachings like this one, the why behind pairing a specific oil with a specific point, are exactly what I built Essential Oil Energetics around. It is the framework beneath all of it: not just that these pairings work, but why. If you want to understand the energetics the way Dr. Tran taught me to, this is where to begin.

Start with Essential Oil Energetics