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What you can expect...
Expect the unexpected. The awesome thing about East Asian Medicine is that it works on multiple dimensions, which translates into healing on multiple levels, often in unexpected ways. In my experience, real and lasting healing is often a nonlinear process that includes, but not limited to, the physical body.
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The knowledge of how acupuncture and traditional herbal medicine works is based on understanding the nuance and complexity of the natural world, and that the ecology of the human body mirrors the complexity of the environment and ecology of the planet. In other words, you can put five different plants in the same environment and some will thrive, and others will wither. You can make changes in the environmental conditions of those same plants and those changes will be beneficial for certain plants and not for others. In people, this is seen in the way that that a single health solution doesn't work for everyone, and sometimes what works well for one person and is beneficial, can worsen a problem, or create additional problems for another. East Asian Medicine emphasizes the importance of creating a treatment strategy that is tailored to the individual and integrates an understanding these nuances. Thus, the diagnosis and treatment strategy for a problem with sleep can differ greatly depending on the particular individual coming in with that problem.
In contrast to western medicine, eastern medicine also acknowledges that there are aspects of reality that may not be measurable, but are valid nonetheless. It embraces our collective human experience and relates to understanding how our subjective experience, emotions, energy, and consciousness can affect the physical body and health as much as the things that we already know are important, like diet and lifestyle. East Asian Medicine is also different in that it adopts a long-term strategy in the promotion of health and prevention of disease. Thus, the metrics that I look at when I evaluate progress for my patients are based not only on a reduction of symptoms, but also on big-picture changes in vitality, resiliency, and overall wellness. I'm always working toward regeneration, as well as remediation.
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As far as the difference in seeing me personally versus other practitioners, you'll find that I spend more time talking to my patients compared to most other medical practitioners. I don't believe that you can really understand another person and how to support them without spending time with them. I also believe that acupuncture works best when you can be seen often, so I will often intermix longer interpersonal visits with shorter visits that are just for acupuncture. This way you have the benefit of having personal time and attention while still being able to be seen on a consistent basis in order to get the cumulative therapeutic effect of regular acupuncture treatment. You'll also find that my educational background is diverse and that I'm a bit of a polymath, so sometimes you'll find me explaining something from the perspective of biochemistry or human physiology, and at other times, from the perspective of understanding the aspects of our shared human experience that are more interpersonal or subjective. I'm a bit of a linestrider in this way, as I have a lot of education in academia and science, but have also have had life experiences that have informed the perspective that science cannot explain everything, that there are multivariate and complex relationships that make research science limited in the answers that it can provide. There are still many mysteries in the world that make it worth it to invite curiosity and continually seek to maintain an open mind.
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My story
My own healing journey was anything but straightforward. Learning to discern what is useful and true took me years... and years. I spent a lot of time frustrated, wasted a lot of time and money, and explored just about every healing modality out there. But on the upside, I learned a lot.
I've spent the better part of the past decade learning and integrating knowledge from traditional and progressive paradigms to do the same for others. Along the way, I experienced a spontaneous and extremely difficult spiritual awakening that was incredibly difficult to navigate on my own. My awakening invited experiences that imbued me with unshakable faith that there is something greater out there that loves and takes care of us, and that health challenges often serve the purpose of providing us with information about what's not working in our lives, or arise in order to help facilitate personal evolution and growth.
Although my journey began with a genuine love for science, in my own experience, real and lasting healing came when I learned to let the process unfold, instead of trying to control or fix everything. I learned that my physical body, inner view, emotional health, and spiritual being are inter-relational and inseparable, and that affecting one dimension of healing, affects everything else. In my own journey, I found that most of my physical symptoms resolved through the process of healing wounds held on non-physical levels. The themes of my own inner healing work have revolved around learning to embrace my own eccentricities and "bad parts," processing the layers of acquired trauma and emotional content from the past by feeling my feelings rather than suppressing them, and slowly resolving the energetic blocks standing in the way of my physical vitality and ability to feel in the flow with my own life. Your journey may look similar or very different from mine. Some people find that their process works differently, in that the resolution of physical symptoms results in an improvement in their mental-emotional state. Since everything is interconnected, there are multiple possibilities for how the healing process can unfold.
Education and Certifications
I am a licensed acupuncturist with the Oregon Medical Board and am board certified with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). I have a Doctorate of Acupuncture with a specialization in Chinese Herbal Medicine (DAcCHM) and a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine (MSOM) from the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM) in Portland, Oregon. In graduate school, I studied absolutely everything I could about East-Asian Medicine, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, qigong (氣工), Chinese history and philosophy, and also learned to translate classical Chinese, which greatly informs my scholarly work with East Asian Medicine today.
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My undergraduate coursework culminated to a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). I graduated with honors and completed my pre-medical coursework in preparation to become a naturopathic physician. I spent three years in medical school for naturopathic medicine, which helped to further refine my anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, understanding of western diagnosis and pathologies, basic pharmacology, and knowledge about western herbs, supplements, homeopathy, and nutrition. After my third year, I fell in love with East Asian Medicine, which I was studying on the side as a dual masters program, and switched gears to devote myself fully to that path. In practice, you'll find that I put all of my years of studies and diverse educational background to good use in being able to tailor strategies to each individual patient and their unique needs, as well as to work with an integrative, open-minded approach with other doctors and healers.
East Asian Medicine Scholar
In addition to the practice of East Asian Medicine, I am also a scholar specializing in bridging the wisdom from early Chinese philosophical and medical works with embodied experience and modern practice. My work seeks to integrate insights obtained directly from human experience with the scholarly study of early medicine, anthropology, archeology, character etymology, and philosophy. In doing this, I hope to bring more clarity to concepts that have historically been mistranslated or misunderstood over the course of time in order to revive the timeless universal wisdom that is held within early Chinese characters and writings.
I am especially interested in understanding how atypical experiences of reality allowed people to gain an advanced understanding of energetic anatomy, including the network of meridians and qi æ°£ itself. In school I found out that the meridians of the body, were not a superstitious relic of the past, but that both qi and the meridians are things that can be directly experienced. The work on my doctoral dissertation and translation of early Chinese works, further solidified this perspective from an academic point of view. Thus, I believe that East Asian Medicine was originally based on what we would consider quantum theory today, or the understanding that energy can and does inform matter, and that's what makes it wonderfully unique. Working on non-physical levels, including the vital energy that the Chinese referred to as "qi" æ°£, helps promote changes on both subtle and physical levels, which engenders truly holistic healing.
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My scholarly work and translations can be found at UniversalQi.org. My doctoral thesis, Embodied Universe, can be found at academia.edu.