The Power of Words: Why We Need Xinfa Cultivation in Medicine and Life

I came across a really lovely TED talk this week presented by a mother recounting two scenarios that reveal the power of words to help or harm the center of patients, and parents, in healthcare settings. Cultivating the heart, or xinfa, is removed from much of the practice of medicine, but with practice, words naturally arise from the heart of practitioners, not from the head:

“What you cannot obtain from a person’s words, there is no point looking for it in their Heart. What you cannot obtain from a person’s Heart, there is no point in looking for it in their Qi.”*

Two Conversations that Changed My Life, Tamara Taggert, TEDxSFU

Enjoy!

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*Quote from the philosopher Gaozi. Translated by Seidman and Janesch. Hunyuan Xinfa: The Lost Heart of Medicine. p 156.