Podcast appearances and mentions of jeffrey yuen

This conversation between Jim Duffy and Ann Cecil-Sterman delves into profound insights on healing, acupuncture, and the essence of being a healer in the modern world. Ann shares her journey in classical Chinese medicine, mentored by Jeffrey Yuen, and discusses the ethos of healing beyond technical proficiency towards becoming thinkers and connectors with a deep understanding of the ancient and energetic principles of acupuncture. The discussion covers topics such as the importance of humility, the transformative power of treating without judgment, cultivating one's spirit as a healer, and understanding the interconnected nature of our wellbeing. Ann also introduces her work at the Classical Medicine Academy, aimed at fostering a deeper connection and understanding of classical acupuncture practices among practitioners. The conversation highlights the potential of acupuncture to elicit healing by focusing on underlying conditions and the energetic balance within the body, fundamentally advocating for a wisdom-driven approach to health and healing in the 21st century.00:00 Introduction and  Minor Technical Difficulties00:45 The Importance of Thinking in Healing01:34 Exploring Wisdom in Modern Medical Sciences03:11 Introducing the Guest: Ann Cecil-Sterman03:18 Anne's Journey and Her Work in Acupuncture04:50 The Art of Pulse Diagnosis and Classical Medicine Academy05:48 The Wisdom Perspective of Healing05:58 The Unique Teacher-Student Relationship in Healing10:16 The Concept of 'Transmission' in Healing12:39 The Role of Intuition and Trust in Healing15:30 The Impact of Healing on the Healer17:51 Understanding the Channels in Acupuncture21:43 The Role of Blood and Fluids in Healing28:44 The Importance of Understanding Patient's Narratives42:56 Understanding Emotions and Their Impact on Health45:00 The Role of Emotions in Disease Development45:15 The Power of Questions and the Search for Answers46:18 The Significance of Tears and Emotional Release47:39 The Journey of Healing and Transformation48:30 The Role of the Practitioner in the Healing Process49:16 Understanding Healing Crises51:13 The Importance of Trust in the Patient-Practitioner Relationship52:15 The Impact of Beliefs on Health and Healing52:57 Exploring the Purpose and Power of Meditation54:43 The Role of Empathy and Connection in Healing55:07 Understanding the Spirit in Healing57:24 The Importance of Humility in the Healing Process01:07:40 The Power of Pulse Diagnosis in Healing01:13:14 The Role of Self-Cultivation in Healing01:15:31 Exploring New Approaches to Healing01:19:36 The Future of Healing and Medicine

Toby began studying East Asian medicine in 1997 with Sunim Doam, a Korean monk trained in the Saam tradition. In 2016, he completed a PhD in Classical Chinese Medicine under the guidance of 88th generation Daoist priest Jeffrey Yuen. Toby just published his first book this April, "An Introduction to Chinese Medicine: A Patient's Guide to Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition, & More". It offers a concise overview of the landscape and therapeutic potential of traditional East Asian medicine.    Jiling and Toby discuss Chinese herbal medicine, nourishing life (yang sheng 養生) East Asian medicine seasonal considerations for diet and exercise, yin-yang, and more!  Visit Toby Daly at FlourishMedicine.com and ChineseNutritionApp.com  Jiling Lin is a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac) and herbalist in Ventura, CA. Visit Jiling at JilingLin.com, Instagram @LinJiling, and Facebook @JilingLAc. Get her free Nourishing Life (養生) template, Five Phases (五行) outline, or sign up for her newsletter here.    Join our community! Subscribe to the Mountain Rose Herbs newsletter Subscribe to Mountain Rose Herbs on YouTube Follow on Instagram Like on Facebook Follow on Pinterest Read the Mountain Rose Herbs blog Follow on TikTok Strengthening the bonds between people and plants for a healthier world. Mountain Rose Herbs www.mountainroseherbs.com

In todays episode of Heavenly Qi, Clare talks with Sean Tuten a renowned TCM practitioner who has taught Acupuncture and Chinese Herbalism throughout the U.S., Europe, and Australia since 2004. They talk about the joy of healing others, helping people open up to their potential, the importance of connection and deep dive into Jeffrey Yuen and Ann Cecil-Sterman's work on the luos and their role in the healing process.To learn more about Sean and find out about his upcoming Australian class visit www.acupuncturementorship.comhttps://www.seantuten.com/

See Part 1 Here: https://youtu.be/WbDDJ8b7PmESee Part 2 Here: https://youtu.be/TY9TL5BVbeI

See Part 1 Here: https://youtu.be/WbDDJ8b7PmESee Part 3 Here Next Week: https://youtu.be/W5EOiw2LA6o

See the Second Part Here Next Week: https://youtu.be/TY9TL5BVbeI

Watch Part 1 Here: https://youtu.be/VcSkm3LDVw4COOL STUFF I MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:Erwin Schrödinger's "What is Life?" — https://amzn.to/3vyRi1yJ. Mark & Elizabeth J. Barna's "A Christian Ending: A Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition" — https://amzn.to/3MJtuOAAs the Boomer population of America ages, questions about death & dying have come to the forefront of our cultural experience. From books like Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal" to L.S. Dugdale's "The Lost Art of Dying" to Mark & Elizabeth Barna's "A Christian Ending: A Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition," people are trying to reclaim the sacred and die peacefully and beautifully, often in the safety of their own homes. Join Dr. James Mohebali, a doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and an Orthodox Christian, as he speaks at the newly formed Holy Cross Orthodox Church Burial Society, the former parish of Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green and Frederica Mathewes-Green, in Baltimore, MD. He guides them through asking the deeper questions about death, dying, and end-of-life medical care, using the paradigm of Chinese Medicine, yin yang, the five elements, so that they can make their medical decisions with autonomy, and with rooting in their deep faith. On the way, Dr. James talks about the foundations of biomedicine in Charles Darwin, the survival of the fittest, evolution, and an alternative possibility in Erwin Schrodinger, the famous quantum physicist responsible for Schrodinger's cat, Other speakers include Fr. John Behr, former dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, and John Heers, founder of First Things Foundation and host of "Why are We Talking About Rabbits?" podcast.

Watch Part 2 Here Next Week: https://youtu.be/dxz1fesg5MACOOL STUFF I MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:Schrödinger's "What is Life?" — https://amzn.to/3vyRi1yJ. Mark & Elizabeth J. Barna's "A Christian Ending: A Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition" — https://amzn.to/3MJtuOAAs the Boomer population of America ages, questions about death and dying have come to the forefront of our cultural experience. From books like Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal" to L.S. Dugdale's "The Lost Art of Dying" to Mark & Elizabeth Barna's "A Christian Ending: A Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition," people are trying to reclaim the sacred and die peacefully and beautifully, often in the safety of their own homes. Join Dr. James Mohebali, a doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and an Orthodox Christian, as he speaks at the newly formed Holy Cross Orthodox Church Burial Society, the former parish of Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green and Frederica Mathewes-Green, in Baltimore, MD. He guides them through asking the deeper questions about death, dying, and end-of-life medical care, using the paradigm of Chinese Medicine, yin yang, the five elements, so that they can make their medical decisions with autonomy, and with rooting in their deep faith. Other speakers include Fr. John Behr, former dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, and John Heers, founder of First Things Foundation and host of "Why are We Talking About Rabbits?" podcast.

Matthew Sweigart is the primary instructor and director of the HeartMind Shiatsu Professional Training.  Supervising all levels of HeartMind Shiatsu Training in Theory, Practice and Clinical Supervision. He began his own training in 1985, founding Ohashiatsu® Chicago in 1988, where he taught and practiced with the Ohashi Institute curriculum for 18 years. In addition to Ohashiatsu®, Matthew has studied with many Qi masters and shaman over the years, including Li Junfeng, Roger Jahnke, Jeffrey Yuen, Paul Pitchford, Sun Bear, Alberto Villoldo and Brandt Secunde. Since moving to Northern California in 2000, he has developed the HeartMind Shiatsu curriculum, blending Ohashiatsu, Zen Shiatsu, Qigong, Classical Chinese Medicine and Shamanic Wisdom.  Matthew is the author of Pathways of Qi, Touching Ki, HeartMind Meridian Qigong, Elemental Meditations, Harmonizing Heaven & Earth DVD and its Companion Manual, and the HeartMind Shiatsu Meridian Gestures and Functions Chart. He is the proud father of two awesome young men. In this episode, Matthew and Dawson discuss: * How Matthew's early experiences as a gymnast and singer set him up for a career in bodywork * The history of Shiatsu. Shi = finger, atsu = pressure * Balancing the 6 channels of yin and 6 of yang * The correct amount of finger pressure to apply * Reading the body's energy * Can you do Shiatsu on yourself? * Qi Gong (means “life energy cultivation”) lowers cortisol and boosts dopamine * Manifestation story: “I need a break” Matthew can be reached at: https://www.heartmindhealingarts.com/ Dawson can be reached at: http://dawsongift.com/ #eft #eftuniverse #mindtomatter #blissbrain #energy #shiatsu #bodywork 

DR. JAMES' TOP 3 LIVER RECIPES:Liver Stir Fry with Chinese Chives — https://bit.ly/3KYCNsUChopped Liver (Dr. James' Wife's Favorite!) — https://bit.ly/36CYno4Liver Ragu — https://bit.ly/3u8L0Us

John Heers does international aid. John throws great parties. Both can help you heal from your trauma, depression, and isolation.

Asia Suler is a writer, teacher, medicine maker, and earth intuitive bringing forth, healing into the world and helping people connect to their intuition and the earth's guidance. She is also the creatress behind One Willow Apothecaries; An online heart-centered space for learning, healing, connection, and a virtual apothecary where you can order Asia's celestial flower essences and Elixirs. Both a seeker and sage, Asia keeps herself connected to the wisdom of the earth, living and working from the lush green Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina, also the ancestral lands of the Cherokee. Her courses in herbalism, vaginal healing, medicine making, and business are available online, both through One Willow Apothecaries and as a core online teacher at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. Asia's gifts of healing come wrapped in compassion and goodness with an overarching understanding that we are all our own healers; We sometimes need just a little guidance tapping into our inner navigational system, and this is where she works. In this powerful conversation, Tahnee and Asia talk about the alchemy of healing through heartache/pain, learning to trust intuition, the healing power of Daoist stone medicine and the mineral world, healing through holistic herbalism, Asia's Pussy Portal online journey, and so much more spiritual, esoteric goodness.   "I think this is a natural part of being a human being that we are in this relationship, really, with the parent of the earth, this parent that actually never forsakes us and has always been there for us and is helping us to really step into that power because that power is what will change the tide of our culture and our world". - Asia Suler     Tahnee and Asia discuss:   Daoist stone medicine. Daoist poetry and animism. Communing with nature. Dealing with chronic pain. Asia's Pussy Portal course. Vulvodynia and chronic pain. How Asia works with stone energy. Remembering The Truth Of Feminine Energy. Opening your intuitive connection with plants. Our relationship with stones and the mineral world.     Who is Asia Suler? Asia Suler is a writer, teacher, and ecological philosopher who lives in the folds of the Blue Ridge mountains. She is the creator and concoctress of One Willow Apothecaries— an Appalachian-grown company that offers handcrafted herbal medicines and online education. Asia's work— which is a unique combination of herbalism, animism, Daoist stone medicine, ancestral healing, and earth-centered mysticism— is rooted in the belief that self-compassion is a force of ecological healing. Her forthcoming book of nature writing will be available through North Atlantic Books in 2022. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: The Pussy Portal Asia's Instagrtam Asia Suler YouTube One Willow Apothecaries What Is Your Earth Healing Archetype?   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:00) Hi, everybody. I'm Tawny from SuperFeast and I'm really, really honoured to interview Asia Suler today. She is located in North Carolina. That's right? On some beautiful Cherokee land. And she's a stunning writer, a beautiful herbalist. She teaches about earth medicine and mineral medicine, and she crafts these beautiful medicines, which I'm really excited to talk to her about. And she's the founder of One Willow Apothecaries. Some of you might follow her online. I know a lot of our team are really into Asia's work. So it's such a privilege to have you here today, Asia. Thank you for joining me.   Asia Suler: (00:36) Thank you so much for having me.   Tahnee: (00:38) Yeah. So exciting. And did I get that right? Are you in North Carolina?   Asia Suler: (00:43) Yes. You got that exactly right, yep. I'm in the mountains of Western North Carolina.   Tahnee: (00:48) One of the most stunning parts of the States from my understanding, yeah?   Asia Suler: (00:53) Yeah. Well, I think so. It's very, very beautiful old mountains here, some of the oldest mountains in the world.   Tahnee: (01:02) And could you give us a sense of the landscape? Is it big forests or kind of more planes? What are we thinking when we think of Carolina?   Asia Suler: (01:10) Yeah. So Western North Carolina, where I live, is the Appalachian mountains. So it's a Southern Appalachian. So you can think about basically this is a temperate rainforest here. So it's just lush green, lots of life, lots of trees, coves mountain tops, but it's very undulating landscape. It's like being in a grandmother's lap being here. So, yeah. That's kind of how the land feels here. And for a bit of a pop culture reference, if anybody watches Outlander, they end up here at some point, so that ...   Tahnee: (01:47) My best friend is obsessed with that show. She's going to be like, "Yes."   Asia Suler: (01:51) Yeah. I don't think they actually filmed it here, but they do end up here. And so just the soft mountainous, old growth kind of feel is a good description, I think.   Tahnee: (02:04) Are you born and raised in that part of the world or did you have a journey there?   Asia Suler: (02:10) Yeah, no. I moved here about 10 years ago. I grew up in Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. So I grew up in the suburbs between Philadelphia and New York city. And my family is all, both sides, from New York City and that city area. So, yeah. It was a pretty big change to move down here, but I felt very guided and at the time I was living in New York City and I just woke up one day and in my head, I thought I'm going to study herbalism. Now, at the time I think I thought I knew what that meant, but I actually had no idea. The bliss of the ignorant.   Tahnee: (02:57) The rest of your life.   Asia Suler: (02:57) Yeah. But I just knew it was the right path for me. I was passionate about plants and earth connection already. And so, yeah. I applied to a school here, which ended up being the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine and just fell in love with the school and the place and just never really looked back. This became home.   Tahnee: (03:17) And full circle, you teach for that school now don't you?   Asia Suler: (03:22) I do. Yeah.   Tahnee: (03:23) Yeah. It's so beautiful. Must be nice to maintain that connection to the community.   Asia Suler: (03:28) Yeah, definitely. It's a great school and they have amazing programmes. Yeah. I just feel so lucky that they're here and that I got to get my education with them because they're stellar.   Tahnee: (03:41) And so tell me, you were in New York. What were you doing there? Obviously you weren't into herbalism at that point. So did you have another career or another path before?   Asia Suler: (03:51) Yeah. So I had a couple jobs while I was living there. It was after I graduated from college. So I was kind of just figuring things out. My first job out of college there was as a plant technician, which means I took care of people's office plants. So all day long, I ranged around Manhattan with a watering can and a duffel bag full of plant supplies and would take care of hundreds of plants a day, like Rockefeller Centre and down in the Financial District. So, yeah. I went all over the place taking care of plants and I just was looking for any job I could find that would be interacting with plants or nature in the city. And that's what I found. And so I did that for a while until just basically the grind of commuting into Manhattan and having probably upwards of 300 30 second conversations a day with every ... I love talking to the plants, but the socialising with the people part got hard, especially for an introvert like me. So I ended up leaving that job and becoming a dog Walker.   Tahnee: (05:04) How cute.   Asia Suler: (05:04) It was actually one of my favourite jobs I've ever had. I loved it so much. I did freelance writing on the side but my main job was as a dog Walker and it was just such a beautiful time to daydream and just walk around my neighbourhood, where I lived in Brooklyn, so it was a lot quieter there. And, yeah. That was really a time where I seeded a lot of the dreams that I ended up following. So I like to share that because I think a lot of times everyone has big dreams for their life and I truly believe that those dreams are possible. And sometimes those jobs that we would never expect are the things that actually ended up really giving our spirit something that they need, whether it's time or space or financial support that we then can really use as a springboard into taking that next step in our life.   Tahnee: (05:57) I mean, that dreaming for you was that this life that you've built now, or were there stepping stones along the way for you? How did that manifest in your visioning?   Asia Suler: (06:07) Yeah. Every time I would dream into it I saw myself spinning in a meadow on a mountain top, that was my vision-   Tahnee: (06:16) Like Julie Christie.   Asia Suler: (06:16) ... of my life. Yeah. I didn't totally know what that meant, but at the time I had gotten my Reiki masters and so I was wanting to work with clients and I thought, "Well, I'm going to go to school for Western herbalism." So I will learn the things that I probably would have a hard time teaching myself, things like physiology and disease process and chemical constituents of plants. And then I'll open a practise and I'll start combining these things, Reiki and energy healing with herbalism in an informed way and work with people. I had really no idea that I would graduate from school and there would be a very strong directive from my intuition to start a products business.   Asia Suler: (07:05) And I was very resistant to it at first. I was like, "I don't want to have a products business." I had worked for a lot of brick and mortars growing up. So I saw just the challenge of selling physical items-   Tahnee: (07:20) Yeah. Retail business.   Asia Suler: (07:20) ... and replenishing stock. Yeah. It's hard. And so I was really reluctant to do it, but the message just would not go away. So, yeah. Finally I did it. I launched One Willow Apothecaries and that, again, it was like that next step that helped reveal what had been waiting for me. So I don't think I could have conceived of the life that I'm living now. I didn't really have a template for it then, but I think that I started that business, that products business, and then people started asking me to teach. And I thought, "Okay, well, why not?" I'll give this a try and found that actually I loved it and that it flowed really naturally from me. And it was a passion I didn't even know that I had. And so while my intention was this open a healing practise, I did do that, but eventually where it took me was really more into this realm of being a teacher and a speaker and a guide.   Asia Suler: (08:17) And I just would never have been able to conceive of that before. At one point I thought, "Oh, maybe I'll become a professor." Maybe one day I'll go back to school and get my PhD or whatever and I'll become a professor. I just didn't have a template for what that would look like to teach and not be teaching in, for example, the school system in elementary school or middle school or even college or university, but what would it be like to teach outside of that? I just didn't know. And so I really now have come to learn to trust those intuitive hits that, say, "Go there, do this thing, try this." Because even if it seems like it's not fully in alignment with where you think you were wanting to go or what you thought your next step was, it opens you up, taking that last little walk on a vista to see this new part of the path open up for you. So I'm excited to keep walking and see what is around the bend.   Tahnee: (09:24) [crosstalk 00:09:24].   Asia Suler: (09:24) Yeah. Because I think our journeys are always unfolding.   Tahnee: (09:28) And even on that point of, I guess, you seem to have such a master of the internet as a platform for sharing and teaching. And I think that wasn't even a reality 15 years ago. None of us could imagine being an internet [inaudible 00:09:44], to be here talking to you via Zoom. I couldn't have conceived of that, that long ago. So I think it's this sense of trusting that it's so much bigger than even what our tiny little consciousness can conceive in the moment. But I also noticed one of your favourite books is Buhner's Secret Teaching of Plants. And we've had him on the podcast before. My husband and I are very big fans of his and I guess I'm feeling into that connection to the sort of awakening he speaks about around the heart space and learning to interact with everything is kind of sentient. And then how that cultivates a sense of trust and, I guess, purposing and guidance coming from this awareness of how interconnected everything is. Is that something would you say that's helped influence this trust and faith you have an intuition or is it just through living or is there anything in particular you can point to?   Asia Suler: (10:39) Yeah, absolutely. When I was in college, I developed a chronic pain condition called vulvodynia, which is basically chronic valvular pain. There's not really a medical explanation for it in the Western model. So I was diagnosed with this chronic pain condition and really I didn't have much of a recourse of what to do. And at some point I was told the only thing I could do was to get surgery to remove nerve endings from my vulva. And it was just one of those moments where you have a breakthrough voice come through and that voice said there's another way and you can find it. And so really what I started doing and how I took solace during that time was I started going outside, talking to the trees and communing with nature and sitting with the plants. And I was really lucky where I went to college, that there was a farm nearby with Woodlands and places to wander.   Asia Suler: (11:42) And that was where I felt seen. It was where I felt heard, it was where I experienced comfort. I think anytime people experience chronic pain, it's often invisible. A lot of times people don't see it. And especially chronic pain in that area of your body, it's sort of like a double whammy because you're really not supposed to talk about it. You're not supposed to talk about your vagina. You're not supposed to talk about anything having to do with your vulva. So, yeah. So to me, my primary caregiver and guide became the natural world mostly out of anguish and strife. But the amazing thing is I started bringing the heartache and the pain that I was experiencing to the earth. And I started hearing the plants speak back to me. And this was before I had started on my herbalism journey or if he had even gardened or anything like that before, but I could hear them and I could feel them.   Asia Suler: (12:44) It was like this dimension of the world that I always knew was there, but that I had closed down my perception of at a young age, just because of the culture that many of us grew up in where that was considered unintellectual, silly at times, and just in some ways antithetical to the culture that I was brought up in, which was very much this Northeastern, a bit sarcastic, highly intellectual way of viewing the world. And so, yeah. I started having these amazing experiences and then nature started guiding me. I started receiving dreams and messages about next steps to take. And so it was a very windy path that included things like realising I had undiagnosed food allergies and going to physical therapy and working with trauma and really releasing trauma that I had in my body from previous in my life. I realised that it was this multifaceted thing, ancestral healing, and it was through these different avenues that I did eventually heal something that I was told was unhealable. It took about five years.   Asia Suler: (14:02) And on the other side, it was like this trial by fire to really learn how to trust those intuitions that come in and how to trust the earth and that the earth has me and holds me and wants to help me. And so I think for a lot of people, there is something that happens, some sort of initiation. Sometimes it has to do with health, physical health, mental health, where it feels like everything is falling apart and what's really happening is you're being taken apart so you can be put back together again into a wholeness that you always knew was there, but perhaps hadn't fully accessed before. And I think for a lot of us who experience that, we end up here on a podcast like this and on journeys of healing like this. And we end up on that other side learning to trust more of what we received because we have found that there is guidance in the unseen and there is guidance within us. And oftentimes that guidance is more accurate than perhaps some of the well-meaning but misguided guidance that we've gotten from other systems that we're a part of.   Tahnee: (15:11) I mean, I want to bookmark about five things there because I want to go into more detail about your relationship with the living world, but I'm also really interested in when you work with others. And I mean, I've seen it in your teaching that there is this real, I guess, sense of deep connection to nature. And is that, for you, the key? If you were guiding someone or supporting someone on their healing journey, how much of it is your reading of them and how much of it is you encouraging them to go and find their own path to healing? I hope this is making sense, but trying to tease this out because I do healing and energy work sometimes, not so much in the last few years due to business demands, but it's something I often find is there's this, co-creation in that space with myself and the person, but really they're leading the unveiling, I suppose, of what they need and I'm just this vessel for, I guess, what they can't see for themselves. I hope this makes sense. So how would you encourage a client or a customer or someone you're dealing with to go and get into this space themselves, especially if you're not dealing with them face to face?   Asia Suler: (16:24) Yeah. I think my role, how I see my role, is that of the guide. That I come in for a period of time, whether it's through my teaching or my practise, which is also currently on pause for me, but I come in and I see them where they're at, but I also see what their spirit is asking them to step into. I think that's my favourite part about working with people is you can really see their divinity. You really feel just their deep beauty and talent and wisdom. And so my job is really just to reflect that back to them. And it's a great job. It's really wonderfully fulfilling to do that and to just like fall in love, basically, with every person that you work with, because you're just seeing like, "Oh my gosh, this person's amazingly special." And so I get to reflect that back to them and really that's oftentimes all people really need, is to keep having it reflected back to them and shown to them.   Asia Suler: (17:27) And that is the guidance that they need to tap into that inner navigational system, because everybody is their own healer. Everybody knows on a deeper level what they need. And so I'm really passionate about helping people connect to their intuition and to speak to the earth, to speak to their guides here on this planet and beyond, because I think what they receive for themselves is going to be dead on and what I receive might help them understand that message, but ultimately it's like we are all receivers and we are all channels for this wisdom that wants to flow through us for our wider selves. That's the term that I like to use. So, yeah. I very much see myself as this benevolent earth mirror and guide in my work. And it's a wonderful place to be.   Tahnee: (18:26) I really love that. Yeah. I teach yoga sometimes and having a child now it's like having all these little babies, especially at the end when everyone is vulnerable. I teach yin yoga too. So it's like slug yoga. Nobody moves for hours. But I watch them all the veils ... They're all the faces are clear and they come out and it's like this huge overwhelming sense of love. And I've seen a lot of transformation through people just being loved in that way. And it does remind me a lot of parenting. You have to just, no matter what, hold this open heart for your child and your partner and your family and your business. Yeah. I think it's a really nice place to give from, I suppose.   Tahnee: (19:09) I mean, I want to go back to what you were saying about this relationship with the natural world, because one thing that I guess I haven't had a lot of people speak about this. There's a guy called Elliot Cohen. I don't know if you know his work. I really love ... His book was one of those ones that I cried through. I was just like, "Yes." And he talks a bit about stone medicine and the relationship with the mineral kingdom. And I know that's something you're teaching and working with. And my first experience with ... I've always had a real connection to rocks and stones, but I actually on plant medicine one time had a proper three hour conversation with this grandfather rock. And I just remember it's one of the most visceral memories of my life that I can draw from and the wisdom and the like, "I've seen all this before," kind of vibe. The same is very comforting from that kingdom, I think, in terms of this like, "Don't take any of this too seriously. It's all just part of the unfolding." Is that how you've ended up? What sort of lessons or teachings have you drawn from that kingdom? How do you encompass that relationship?   Asia Suler: (20:27) I love that you said grandfather rock because all stones feel like grandmothers and grandfathers to me. We have a lot of really big, beautiful boulders where I live, including some big quartz boulders and just the wisdom and the peace that emanates from them, I mean, it's almost addictive. You're like, "I just love stones. I just want to be with them." They are some of the oldest beings on earth. They are really our great grandparents in a way in that stones and the minerals they're made up of are what feeds the green world, the world of the plant kingdom. And then we eat the plants. And so really indirectly, but our lives are dependent on stones and on the mineral world. And our relationship with stones as humans is very ancient.   Asia Suler: (21:23) The time that we've been out of the quote-unquote stone age is very short. For most of our experience as human beings, we have really been reliant upon stones. As tools, yes, in a very physical craftsmanship kind of way, but I think also as spiritual conduit. So there's a reason why in the neolithic era, as it's described, we built these amazing temples of stones, stone circles, and dolmans and standing stones, because we had carried with us through, at that point, over 100,000 years of working with stones, this knowledge that stones are these gatekeepers to deep earth wisdom, to other dimensions of experience and being. I mean, thinking about what stones have lived through, just the literal metamorphic journey of some stones, I mean, they have seen so many aeons and years of this earth flourish and die back, flourish and die back. So I think just being with stones, it gives you this long view and it reminds you of the eternal part of yourself.   Asia Suler: (22:36) And so part of my training is in Daoist stone medicine, which was brought to this country by Jeffrey Yuen, who's an 88th generation Daoist priest.   Tahnee: (22:46) I love him.   Asia Suler: (22:47) Yeah. He's amazing. And one of his teachings around the stones is that stones help us go to basically the deepest level of our being and the Daoist understanding, which is this Yuan level of our being. So this is the level of our being that is where our unconscious lives, it's where archetypes live. It's where our quote-unquote junk DNA lives, the realm of dreams. So literally stones have this ability from this Daoist perspective to take us into the absolute deepest layer of our being, to commune with this deep layer of ourselves, basically the part of ourselves that is still in touch with our soul and our soul's plan. And I have found that to be true with stones that they're interesting to work with as medicine in that I think sometimes their signature is very similar to how they are. It can be slow and it can be incremental, but once a change is made, it's set in stone. It is as permanent as stone itself. And so I've seen really amazing changes happen for myself and people I work with through working with the energy and the medicine that stones can bring.   Tahnee: (24:04) And how are you doing that in a practical sense? Is it through physically holding them or through infusing fluid with their energy or what's the kind of process with that?   Asia Suler: (24:17) I think the easiest way is to interact with them on the body. So holding them in meditation, having jewellery where the stone is actually touching your skin or doing meditations, or even acupressure work with having stones on particular parts of the body. It's the most accessible way to work with stones and I find it to be quite effective. I was trained in using elixirs. If you're new to using stone elixirs, then it's a really good idea to be super safe because a lot of stones have components to them that are just not safe for us to ingest. So a good place to start if you're interested in this is with any of the quartz crystals. So if it's an untreated quartz crystal like clear quartz, rose quartz, untreated citrine and smoky quartz, those are all really safe stones to start with.   Asia Suler: (25:12) Another way to do it is to make an elixir where you basically put the stone inside a glass cup and you put that glass cup inside of a water bowl, so that the stones basically energy and electromagnetic energy can affect the water, which we know it does, without the stone actually touching it. So that's another safe way to make an elixir. I think elixirs are nice because it gives us that grounding ritual of interacting with the stone. And of course, in Daoist medicine elixirs and internal preparations are a really big part of how they like to interact with stones. It also got them into trouble in the past, just getting mercury poisoning or whatever. So they had to learn the hard way about using stones in certain ways. So, yeah. For I would say anyone who's listening, working with stones on your body or making the safe elixirs that I mentioned are a really good place to start.   Tahnee: (26:15) Yeah. I think I really like that idea of separating it out, but the frequency is still affecting it. That's how I was taught. So my teacher taught us a little bit about this, but you don't put it directly into your water. You have it around or nearby and let it spend time together. And I hope this is okay to ask, but I noticed when you said the energy, you were sort of like, "Oh." Is that something you find hard to talk about, the energy of something like a stone or is it just something that makes you kind of giggle? I guess I ask because for me, I find sometimes I have this quite academic brain and then I've also had these quite insane experiences that are completely beyond the realm of current science, I suppose. There's some fringe stuff that is articulating what I experienced, but it's not really mainstream. And, yeah. Sometimes I find myself just going, "How do I even explain this to people? How to even make this known?" Could you relate to that or was I completely misreading that?   Asia Suler: (27:25) Yeah. I definitely also have an academic brain and have had wild unexplainable experiences and I'm a lover of language, so I'm always wanting to find the description that captures an experience the best. And I think maybe the pause with energy was twofold. One, I sometimes think that that word is used so much that people start skimming over what that really means and start tuning it out when they hear someone talk about energy, like, "What does that even mean? What are you trying to describe with energy?" And then the other side of that is that I do see myself as a bridge builder, helping people who might come from that more like academic, rational background to feel safe enough to start bridging this world. I know for a long time I was really resistant to starting to do this type of work because I saw it as very ungrounded, so in some ways, unthought through and unintellectual, et cetera, as I mentioned before.   Asia Suler: (28:41) And so I'm always trying to be as specific as I can with my language to describe things, because I want people to have that bridge to walk over and to know that this is something I've thought about, that I really thought about how to articulate this and have researched what is the terminology that we can use to describe what we understand with our limited tools. And then beyond that, what is the poetry we can use to describe this rather than defaulting sometimes to these words that tend to lose their meaning over time. I still think energy's a really beautiful word. And frankly, for a lot of things, it's still the most accurate.   Tahnee: (29:23) Totally.   Asia Suler: (29:24) But I am always searching for just the right lexicon for things.   Tahnee: (29:30) Well, because one of the things about you is you're a stunning writer. You have this incredible gift with language and it was actually one of the first things I noticed about you is your way with prose. And there is a poetry to it and you do manage to capture. I guess that's something I admire, especially about your Instagram, is how you turn that platform into this conduit for wisdom and beauty, which isn't always. So I'd like to compliment you on that. And I wonder about your journey with writing. You said you were a freelance writer, so did you study something to do with that in college or was it just something you've always been passionate about? Or how did your journey with writing happen?   Asia Suler: (30:11) Yeah. Writing was really the heart of my journey for a long time. So I grew up writing poetry and in high school really dedicated myself to that. Started a poetry slam club and entered poetry contests. And it was really the centre of my life. And then when I went to college, I was an English major and specialised in poetry. And I always wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea how that would be possible. And again, I think as we mentioned before, and as you brought up, we didn't even know what would happen with the internet in the next 15 years of our life. So at that time, it was, and it still is very hard to get a publishing deal, et cetera, but it was just hard to get your writing out there to get people to read.   Asia Suler: (31:08) There were no alternative routes, it felt like. It seemed like the blog world was actually still quite small and this other world of going traditional publishing was really hard if you didn't have a name and you didn't have an expertise in a certain field or had a position at a university. And so I just didn't know how that would be possible. So when I moved to New York, I started doing freelance writing for different journals having to do with natural living and green beauty. And, yeah. So I kept my writing chops up in that way. And then I decided to start a blog. I was like, "I'm going to do this blog thing." And then I really realised through starting One Willow Apothecaries that so much of what spoke to people in my work was my writing, that the writing that accompanied different products and different offerings wasn't secondary to the healing that people were experiencing, it was a part of it. And so it's been really cool to just watch the world evolve and see how there's so many more avenues now for writers to express themselves and to have their writing reach who it's meant to reach. So, yeah. I am very excited actually to announce that my first book will be coming out next year.   Tahnee: (32:33) Yay. I was going to ask, because I saw you say in another interview, "I want to write a book." So I was like, "It has to be happening."   Asia Suler: (32:37) Yeah.   Tahnee: (32:37) Do you have a publish date?   Asia Suler: (32:38) I do. It'll be next June, June 2022. So it'll be a little ways away. The publishing world for you, it's amazing how just much time and energy goes into it. But, yeah. It's something I started working on, at this point, eight or nine years ago, started collecting pieces for not totally sure how they were going to fit together. And the book really took me on a journey to understand it and therefore understand myself and what it was I was bringing through in my writing, which the book centres on and what I think a lot of my writing has centred on in the past 10 years of my life, this concept of learning self-compassion through interacting with a sentient world and that the living world really wants us to see and recognise our goodness because it is through seeing ourselves and seeing our goodness and accepting our worthiness and our beauty that we access our gifts, the gifts that we're meant to bring to this planet.   Asia Suler: (33:42) So I really have experienced myself interacting with the living world through these affirmations of love and support and these reflections that I'm natural and what I'm going through is normal and natural as an earthling on this planet, that I've received so much from that. And I think this is a natural part of being a human being that we are in this relationship, really, with the parent of the earth, this parent that actually never forsakes us and has always been there for us and is helping us to really step into that power because that power is what will change the tide of our culture and our world. So anyways, that is what the book is about and that is what I've realised I've been writing towards in these past 10 years and been just so passionate about.   Asia Suler: (34:39) And I just feel so grateful that this childhood dream that I had of being a writer has now become a reality through just all the different avenues and tools that we have in this day and age.   Tahnee: (34:52) I love that sense that I just heard from that, that the earth is providing that mirror of your divinity that you were talking about providing. So there's this beautiful kind of ... Yeah. I guess your journey is now something you're able to offer others. I worked in publishing, so I know the suffering of authors and I also know the industry and I think it's such a, again, one of those things you can't see, but to do what you're doing and to then publish into the world that you've created for yourself, it's the best case scenario because, like you said, it's this culmination of your journey and then there's this tangible thing at the end that you're able to share and then you'll build on that. Yeah. It's really exciting. Can't wait to get a copy.   Tahnee: (35:41) So I wanted to talk a little bit about your writing still. There's an amazing post you did called Nice Girl, Kind Woman. I hope I got that right. Obviously you remember that piece I hope. And I, like probably many women, reading that was like, "Ooh, that's some powerful writing right there." And I guess I'm wondering if that theme is what your healing around your vulva and all of this kind of stuff? Is that the essence or the distillation of what that journey was for you, or is that a bit too simplistic? And could you tell us a little bit about what you were pointing to in that piece? Because I think it's a really important topic.   Asia Suler: (36:26) Yeah, sure. So the piece is called Nice Girls Versus Kind Women, and the piece is exploring the difference between the two and the reality that we're socialised in Western culture to be nice girls. So nice being something that someone decides for you. So you don't decide whether or not you're nice, that's dependent on how someone perceives you. Nice being someone who's agreeable and easy and accommodating. So that is in comparison and contrast to kind women. So a kind woman is kind because she's deciding to be kind. There's a sovereignty to it. You're deciding to be compassionate and loving. And sometimes that doesn't look so cosy. So goddesses can be kind. Goddesses aren't nice.   Tahnee: (37:24) They are not.   Asia Suler: (37:25) And I think this is important that we remember that the truth of what you might call feminine energy is, that it's not about being smoothed over and acquiescent and agreeable to all those you meet and flattering to all those you meet and putting people at ease, but it is in part about being kind. So it's a kindness, sometimes, to call people out on their BS. It's a kindness to stand up for yourself and for other people. And I think as an empath and a highly sensitive person, I've always been very aware of how other people felt. And because I was socialised as a woman, a lot of times that defaulted to me being a nice girl, really putting aside my own needs, my own thoughts and feelings, and literally experiences in order to make someone else comfortable. I think a lot of us have been trained to do that.   Asia Suler: (38:38) So the flip side of that would be, you can still be sensitive and empathic and deeply compassionate and caring and just be kind, starting with being kind to yourself. What would be the kindest thing to do right now at this moment? I have some stories in that blog. There was one story that happened after that blog that was just a really amazing distillation of this, which is that I was out hiking and came across this man. And I've never had a negative experience hiking here ever. But unfortunately this guy was really projecting a lot of violating creepy energy and started to make comments about myself and my body. And we were alone on this trail far away from other people. And I think in the past, I might've defaulted to being the nice girl. And I think it has been the case in the past that to be nice was to be safe. Our foremothers and in our matrilineal line, that's a code that's been embedded is I just need to keep myself safe right now and the best way to do that is to be nice.   Asia Suler: (39:56) But I really asked myself what would I do if I was being kind, not only to myself, but to this person. It's a kindness to alert him to what's actually happening when he's expressing this to me. So I turned around and faced him. He was following me. And I turned around and faced him. And I just told him straight up what I was experiencing. I said, "The way that you're speaking and what you're saying to me, it's making me really uncomfortable. And here's why." It was almost as if this angelic force took over my body, because I said it with so much love. I just felt myself beaming love out of my eyes to this person. And just saying like, "Can you understand and see in this moment that this is actually really scary for me and you understand why that would be."   Asia Suler: (40:49) Yeah. So I didn't say it with daggers. I said it with love. And it was like night and day. It was like I saw the blood drop out of his head or something. And he just mumbled some apology and turned tail and left. And it was just such a powerful moment for me to realise like, "Oh my goodness. It is powerful to be kind and it is protective to be kind and kindness means standing in your power and seeing another person's power in its truth." Not in the ways that they're abusing it, but their power to be good and their power to be kind to themselves. And, yeah. I think this was definitely a part of my journey with vulvodynia and chronic pain, I don't think it was all of it, but I think that just the cultural conditioning that is inside of us is absolutely acting on us all the time and the stress that those stories cause, the stress alone of those stories can really cause actual physical malfunction in our bodies. So to start rewriting that story, I think it is essential.   Tahnee: (42:04) Well, because I guess I think about ... There's another story you share in that article and I'll link to it in the show notes for this, but around being in a hot tub and someone grabbing you. And I relate to that, where you're just like, "I'm just going to get out of here," instead of confronting the situation. I think a lot of women I've spoken to and worked with have had those experiences, where it's not "proper rape" or anything like that, but it's inappropriate touch or inappropriate behaviour and we're not taught how to handle it. And a lot of us do default to don't rock the boat, just get out of the situation and stay safe. And I think, I know for myself in my own work around ... Yeah. I mean, just in your Pussy Portal, I'm heading there, but I've done a lot of work with my vagina over the years and had a beautiful home birth with my first daughter.   Tahnee: (42:58) And I think a lot of the reason I was able to do that was because of the healing I'd done over the years. I had chronic pain when I first went on the pill when I was 17 or 16. And I didn't realise ... Now I'm completely aware of what was going on, but it was not being able to communicate about sex, having inappropriate sex. It wasn't like I was ... It was with one partner, but I wasn't able to communicate my needs. So it was tensing up and then the pill hormonally was causing dryness and there was all this stuff going on. And I just thought I was broken. And I was this little girl just thinking everything was wrong with me. And over the decades of healing around that, it's been through internal work and through Dyadic work and Daoist practises and things that I've really come to value and almost worship that energy of how much power we hold as women. It's quite insane. And for me, my first pregnancy and birth was probably the culmination of recognising that, just really seeing and honouring, I guess, myself in that capacity to hold the power of that experience. And, yeah. I'm interested in your Pussy Portal, how you teach that and what practises and things you're encouraging people to explore through that work. Can you tell us please?   Asia Suler: (44:21) Sure. Yeah. So the Pussy Portal is an online library of resources having to do with root healing. It's created for anybody who feels they have a pussy or whatever word you want to insert there. That is the word that I use often in the work and felt very guided to use that word as a reclamation. But everyone has different words that they like, and it's all beautiful. And, yeah. So there's a lot of different practises that are featured in the portal. We do have Jade Egg and uni massage and different tantric practises. We also have herbal support and herbal protocols for various things, including hormone balancing, yeast infections, BV.   Asia Suler: (45:09) Yeah. There's so much. It's divided into four sections. So the idea of the portal is that when we're manifesting issues in the root of our body, it's because there's one of four relationships that's asking to be healed: your relationship to yourself, your relationship to others, your relationship to your ancestors, and your relationship to the earth. So within each gateway, there's a lot of resources focusing on those different areas of relationship. So everything from learning how to dance in a way that releases your pelvic floor and how to use your pussy as an oracle to actually understand what your truth is and make decisions. And there's science to back this up, that our pelvic floor and the nerves that innervate this part of our body are very connected into our nervous system.   Asia Suler: (46:03) And then tantric practises and relationships to others and how to have sex that heals your vagina because what you shared about having these early sexual experiences that were not in alignment with you and that were not appropriate and that ended up causing harm is I think a lot of people's experience of having sex, which it doesn't have to be. Yeah. And so the ancestral portion goes into the ancestral, sometimes the transgenerational and ancestral trauma that can manifest in this area of our body. And that is just very real. If you're someone who has ovaries, then literally you at one point were an egg in your grandmother's body.   Tahnee: (46:52) You've been through what she's been through.   Asia Suler: (46:54) You've been through what she's been through. We pass these things down the lineage and they live in our roots. So there's a lot to explore there. And then the connection to the earth, I think is this frontier that I'm very excited about. The reality that this is the root of our body, this is how we root here on this planet. And so when we are ... I also think that there's been times, especially in Western history, because that's what I'm most familiar with, where this connection to this part of our body has been severed specifically to sever us from the connective power of being in alignment with the earth. And so when we have this part of our body flourishing, we're able to receive earth energy and earth power and be embodied and emboldened by [inaudible 00:47:47] as birthers, as you mentioned, people who literally bring forth new life, literal new terrain and land onto this planet. And so there's so much there that I'm really excited about exploring, and it's really my growth edge. But, yeah. Those are the four different categories we explore in the portal.   Tahnee: (48:10) It sounds amazing. And I feel like those pieces are all loosely what I've experienced, especially the ancestral ones. It's really interesting because even though I had ... My midwife was like, "That was like a textbook home birth. It was perfect." And then I went to this shamanic pregnancy workshop four years later, my daughter was four and I was about to get married. And I sat through this experience with the 60 other women. And all I felt was shame and I couldn't work out where it was coming from. I was so ashamed of my birth and my experience. And then we did a journey and I came back that it was like my grandmother, not my mother, but her mother. My mum was adopted so I don't have a lot of stories about her. I don't really know her story, but I know she was a single mother and it was very embarrassing for their family. They were a [inaudible 00:49:05] family. It was really interesting to feel how I was carrying that shame. And I had to go on quite a deep process to move it through my buddy. And I was like, "Wow, this is an incredible experience." So, yeah. I can really relate to that ancestral piece as well. It's a big one. And you do a lot of shamanic work.   Asia Suler: (49:28) Yeah. What a powerful story.   Tahnee: (49:29) Yeah. I mean, it was a big day. I'm not going to say it's a pleasant experience, but it was a big day. But, yeah. You do a lot of shamanic work and I notice your relationship with herbs seems quite shamanic. I've read, and I don't know if this is true, that you said this or someone else, but that you see reishi almost like a psychedelic and that's been my experience working with her. I find, especially with meditation, it's like ... I can't even explain it. It's like a whole nother dimension of reality opens up when I work with reishi. And I know angelica is another one of your favourite herbs. So would you speak a little bit to that, I guess, other dimensional experience that you feel when you work with certain herbs or is it every herb that you have that with? Because I don't have it with every herb, just a couple.   Asia Suler: (50:15) Yeah. I think all plants are these multidimensional beings and working with them helps us to recognise our own multidimensionality. I think certain plants speak more to certain people. I also think certain plants have sole missions and life paths of helping to open up certain gateways in that way. So there's certain plants that I'll use for shamanic type work for communicating with the other world and receiving divine guidance and other plants that function in a different way for me. But everyone's different in what they experience and receive, but I've always felt really connected to plants on that spiritual level. And it's part of why I wanted to go to herbal school because I was like, "If it was up to me, I would just make flower essences and have the plants talk to me all day and I wouldn't learn."   Tahnee: (51:10) The practical stuff.   Asia Suler: (51:10) The more physical aspects, the practical stuff. Which is not saying everybody needs to learn that, but it felt important for me if I was going to work with people and their health and suggest taking whole herbs that I learn that stuff. So, yeah. But always to me, it always pointed back to that multidimensional experience, that sort of spirit to spirit encounter with a plant and how transformative that can really be. And while I do think there are certain plants, for example, like you mentioned, reishi and angelica that I really use to open the portals of my perception and download information from the other world that I've been ... Over the years of teaching thousands of people how to open their own intuitive connections with plants, it's been amazing to see the plants that come in and change everything for them.   Asia Suler: (51:59) It might be really different than a plant that came in for me, but it's absolutely perfect for them. And perhaps what it was that was blocking their intuition might be very different than what was blocking mine. And that plant was just the perfect ally for helping to dissolve that block and really step into this two way street of communication. So I think it is different for everybody, but just to know that if there's a plant that you're really excited about or you just can't get enough of, or you just want to be around that there's a reason for that. That plant is really reaching out to you, to interact with you and wants to help you in your healing. And so just listening to that impulse, getting yourself into a presence with that plant, working with that plant in whatever way you can, can really just ... It helps open that gateway of healing that the plant is already there nudging you towards.   Tahnee: (52:59) One of the last things I want to touch on with you is your ... Because you do have this flavour of Daoism in your work and I'm interested in that. You've spoken of Jeffrey Yuen, so perhaps it's through him that I'll get back to that in a sec. One of my teachers, he teaches that the reason we need herbs is because plants and humans being perpendicular to the earth's horizon, we're in this journey between heaven and earth, so one of these Daoist concepts, and he's like, "Plants are really one of the few things that can help us with this process of reuniting ourselves between this root and the heavens." And I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but I've always really related to that. He speaks of how animals' spines are aligned to the calmer of the earth based on their horizontal spine and this upright spine is the big distinction. And, yeah. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that and if you could speak a little bit to how the Daoist worldview, I guess, influences your work with herbs?   Asia Suler: (54:04) Well, that's beautiful. I haven't heard that reference before, but I love it. I think it's so poetic and gorgeous. And this is I think a big part of why I've been so drawn to Daoism is the deep poetry that is inherent in their understanding. And I grew up, my father was really into Eastern philosophy. He was a psychologist, but one of his specialties was where psychology and Eastern philosophy meet. And so from a young age, I was exposed to things like Daoism and we threw the Yijing coins as a family and things like that. So it was always a part of my ethos. And I think the way that they describe what feels sometimes indescribable and to go into the idea of the Dao through this lens of poetry, which a lot of times these Daoist texts are poetry because that's kind of the only thing that can really capture this concept of the way the Dao, the unceasing flow of energy in life that you align yourself with.   Asia Suler: (55:16) And so I love that aspect of Daoism and I love this the way in which Daoism has its roots in deeply mystical and animistic traditions, which I didn't know that term animism until later in life, but I realised that that's so much of how I experienced the world, animism being this idea that everything on this world is alive and animate and animated by spirit, energy, chi, as you would say in the Daoist tradition. So that languaging made a lot of sense to me. And also the way in Daoism where the opposites and polarisation is actually a conduit to wholeness. Whereas especially in Christian doctrine in the Western world, and then outside of Christian doctrine, which is one big foundation of Western thought is that, and then another is this rational materialism. It's like things are divided from one another.   Asia Suler: (56:23) It's like the good and the bad and high and low and rational and irrational, whereas in Daoist thought forms and belief systems, actually the polarisation, the yin and the yang, it's part of this greater process of wholeness and within the yin is the yang and within the yang is the yin and that actually this process of dividing is a divine process of alchemy, of dividing and then coming back together. And when you come back together, you are creating more wholeness than there was before. And so to me, that just feels so much closer to the truth of what I experienced, even in my own journey that these disparate sides of me or parts of my life don't exist in these separate categories, but that they exist in separation because there [inaudible 00:57:15] to bring me back into wholeness the more I integrate them back into my own being. So, yeah. I'm perpetually fascinated by Daoist philosophy and it ended up just being a coincidence in some ways that it just ended up being a part of my work because it just spoke to me. And, yeah. Then I did end up studying with Jeffrey and his student, Sarah Thomas, who specifically specialises in the stone medicine aspects that he passes on. So it did end up becoming a part of my work, but I'm a perpetual student and always learning more just ever enchanted in that field.   Tahnee: (57:54) Yeah. I can feel that generative aspect in your work of that academic part of you and I guess revive you, for want of a better word, and then how that generates this strength, this force that's carrying you through life. Yeah. It's a really beautiful metaphor. And I guess it's a good spot to leave it, I think. I wanted to thank you so much for your time. I know it's late where you are. I'm really grateful for you for spending the time with us. And I wanted to invite everyone to come and ... I mean, you've got amazing products. You've got your courses. They're on your website, but also through the Chestnut School, right? You're able to offer different pathways.   Asia Suler: (58:43) Yeah. So my main work is on my website, Onewillowapothecaries.com. I am a guest teacher in some of the Chestnut School's programmes. So if someone was interested in Western herbalism, that would be a good place to go study. What I offer on my website is not traditional Western herbalism. It's what we've been discussing, more of these aspects of spiritual esoteric, holistic herbalism in earth medicine. But, yeah. I would love to connect with anybody there on the site and I'm also on social media on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram underneath my name, which is Asia Suler. So any of those places are great places to connect.   Tahnee: (59:26) Yeah. I'll link to everything because, like I said, I love your Instagram and you're very generous. Your videos are great. Everything you do is very generous and very warm. So it's really nice to connect with you in that way. Yeah. Like I said, thank you so much. I'm really, really grateful and I can't wait to get my hands on your book next year. So congratulations again. It's very exciting.   Asia Suler: (59:50) Thank you so much. This has been such a delight to be with you. Thank you for having me on the show. So welcome.   Tahnee: (59:56) All right. Chat again soon.

In this powerful discussion, Ann Cecil-Sterman shares her fascinating journey from professional flautist to author, teacher, acupuncturist and pioneer in the field of Classical Chinese Acupuncture. In the first of this two-part interview, Ann joins us to explore the meaning of Qi, a term that's often used to describe energy, and how this ties into creating miracles and endless possibilities. As a long term student of 88th generation Daoist Master, Jeffrey Yuen, Ann shares her deeply personal introduction to acupuncture, and clarifies why Qi has far greater reach and meaning than you might think. Visit acenterfornaturalhealing.com/qi to learn more. Join our community and get a free 5 step guide to fatigue relief at acenterfornaturalhealing.com/guide Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.setarehmoafi/ https://www.instagram.com/salvadorcefalu/ https://www.instagram.com/acenterfornaturalhealing/ Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/setareh.moafi https://www.facebook.com/salvador.cefalu.9 https://www.facebook.com/acenterfornaturalhealing

Today on the SuperFeast podcast, Tahnee is joined by Chinese dietary coach/practitioner, herbalist, Qigong teacher, author, and man of wisdom Andrew Sterman for a multifaceted conversation around the energetics of food and their power to heal. With his depth of knowledge and spirited ease, Andrew takes us on a journey back to the basics of where good food meets good health. In a world of endless niche diets that leave us cynical and confused, Andrew assures us the power to heal ourselves lies in the accessible space of our kitchen where cooking is kept alive and through inherently knowing our health. Andrew brings the modern context of food to life while keeping the wisdom of how and why we do things intact. A brilliant conversation with something for everyone.    ''The most important player here is the home cook because the home cook is the director of family health''.  - Andrew Sterman   Tahnee and Andrew discuss: The fusion of age-old food wisdom with a contemporary context. Understanding the basic energetics of food and how to apply them. Cooling and Heating effects of different foods on the digestive system. Tongue diagnosis; What your tongue says about your health. SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). Slow-cooked food and the benefits for the stomach. Preparing food for better digestion. The home cook is the key player in good health. Foods and spices to warm the stomach for better digestion. Eating according to where you live and the climate.  Carbohydrates; why we don't need to be terrified of them. Keto and Paleo diets for short term therapy but not long term health. Sugar and how it affects digestion. Food Stagnation.   Who is Andrew Sterman? Andrew Sterman is the author of Welcoming Food, Diet as Medicine for the Home Cook and Other Healers. The two volumes of Welcoming Food offer a unique entry into understanding the energetics of food, explain how foods work in common sense language, and provide easy-to-follow recipes for everyday eating. Andrew teaches courses in food energetics internationally and online and sees private clients for dietary therapy and medical qigong. He has studied broadly in holistic cooking, meditation, qigong, and tai chi. Andrew has also been a student of Daoist Master- Jeffrey Yuen for 20 years in herbal medicine, qigong, and of course, dietary therapy from the classical Chinese medicine tradition. Visit Andrew at andrewsterman.com/food .   Resources: Andrews Website Welcoming Food, Book 1 : Energetics of Food and Healing Welcoming Food, Book 2 : Recipes and Kitchen Practice Andrew's Instagram Facebook-Understanding Food: An Energetics Approach Food and Healing Course Riding The Wave: A free weekly group meditation Food Chat with Andrew Sterman (twice a month via zoom) Qigong Classes with Andrew Sterman Corona Virus Help-Live Offerings   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi everybody. And welcome to the SuperFeast Podcast. I'm doing the intro this week. I had a chat with Andrew Sterman, who is this awesome Chinese dietary coach and practitioner based out of the United States. He works with Jeffrey Yuen, who is a Taoist master, who I have been following for about, I would say around seven or eight years now. He was first recommended to me by one of my acupuncturists in Newcastle. And I just love Jeffrey, his philosophy, he's really rooted in the Taoist tradition and obviously Mason and I are big fans of that. And when I first read Andrew's work, it was just an online PDF about Chinese dietary theory. I just thought, "Oh, finally, someone who really explains this stuff in a modern way that makes it really digestible." Good pun.   Tahnee: (00:57) And also he just seems like a really interesting person. He works as a clinician so he has a lot of experience dealing with all of the various types of things that people present with when they're trying to dial in their nutrition. So we do go on a wide adventure in this podcast. Andrew is just such a great, interesting orator. He just holds this really beautiful space when he speaks. So I really just let him talk. And he covers everything from some of the basics of the energetics of food, tongue diagnosis, SIBO, which is Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, which is something we hear about a lot in our work at SuperFeast. Just a lot of stuff I think that will really help those of you who are a bit newer to the energetic idea of food, start to get your head around things.   Tahnee: (01:49) And that's the big distinction, I guess, between a Western biomedical nutrition approach and the Taoist approach. Also comes through Ayurveda and other Eastern traditions where they're really looking at the impact the food has on the energetics of the body, not just the chemical constituents of food. So a carrot is in a carrot. If you cook a carrot, if you eat it raw or grated, if you steam it, if you fry it, there's all sorts of different ways in which we would affect the energetics of that finished product that we eat. So I have been diving into this stuff for probably really seriously, for about five or six years. And especially since having [Aya 00:02:35], I have become more interested in, I guess deconditioning myself away from the Western nutrition model and looking at this more Eastern energetic approach.   Tahnee: (02:48) I have just finished reading Andrew's books and I highly recommend them. We're going to be giving away a copy of each. They're basically a partner pair. So the first one's more theory and the second one's more practical recipes. And I love that he, being a foodie, he brings in food from all different types of cultures. So it's not just Asian... Mason actually doesn't love Asian food, I do. But so in our family, I'm often cooking with more Western flavours, more European flavours, because they are really the ones that we enjoy to eat.   Tahnee: (03:20) And I really like how Andrew bridges those worlds. He offers some beautiful Asian dishes, but also a lot of really yummy, more Western or European style flavours. He brings in a lot of beautiful traditional wisdom. He overlays it with stories of his travels. He's own experience raising kids. He's got teenagers. So I just, I really enjoy reading his books. I think he makes what can be a quite dense, complicated theory, really accessible.   Tahnee: (03:47) And even if you're really new to Chinese medicine and Taoism, I think you'll find his books really accessible and fun. So check out our social media. We'll have the giveaway live when this podcast goes live. And if you aren't a lucky winner, then jump on and order his books. I, again, highly recommend them. I'm going to hand over to Andrew now. He is, like I said, just a great guy to listen to. He's a classical musical performer as well as a really amazing practitioner. So he's got this artistic flair that I think comes through in his writing and his talking. And I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed chatting to him, have a beautiful one, enjoy Andrew. My partner and I, we're both through the Taoist lineage. He works with herbs. I work mostly with yoga and I practise Chi Nei Tsang, which is an abdominal massage. I've mostly studied with people like Mantak Chia and then also herbal traditions and stuff. But I guess- [crosstalk 00:04:51].   Andrew: (04:51) Fantastic.   Tahnee: (04:52) ... the yoga side of things. So our work is really about trying to educate people away from these quite myopic and like you're saying, narrower views of what health means and really trying to expand people into this sense that it's an individual journey and what's right for you at one stage of life might not be forever and there's ways in which we can potentiate our health through lifestyle and these practises and little tweaks that mean that we can live in a really full and wonderful way that isn't just...And we've both come out of... We're both in our mid 30s now, but we've both come through those early twenties.   Tahnee: (05:35) I was a vegan and vegetarian and very into yoga and very one lined about a lot of things, make sure that younger people were coming through with a bit more of a broader sense of not just this social media fads and all these things that happened so...   Andrew: (05:51) Exactly.   Tahnee: (05:52) Yeah, we also have a little girl who's four. So we've both developed a lot of interest in, I guess... I mean, I've been studying Acupuncture. I did put it on hold during COVID because they weren't doing any contact. So I just thought I'd wait, because I didn't want to do it all online. And Jeffrey Yuen came across my desk about probably 2014 and my acupuncturist at the time was mentoring me and he was a five elements acupuncturist, but he was really into Jeffrey Yuen's work and really was passionate about trying to get to New York and study with him and all these things.   Tahnee: (06:29) And anyway, long story short, I did some of his online courses and then stumbled across your work and just found your writing so engaging. And I thought, "Well, he writes so beautifully, I'm sure he speaks beautifully." So I thought I'd reach out. And as I said, I've really struggled to find people to discuss nutrition and food energetic side of things. Because as you were saying, it can be quite narrow. And there's also the sense of it has to be very Chinese.   Andrew: (07:00) Exactly. Right, that's a really big point. A lot of what I do, part of my passion or my niche or whatever we want to say, is to bring their food energetics into... It doesn't need to be modernised. The wisdom is intact, but the foods are different. We have access to modern foods and modern tastes and things that we grew up with. We can expand that of course. I think all of us who were on this journey have expanded from our childhood foods, but it doesn't... We definitely don't need to move to Asian or Chinese foods in order to do food energetics work.   Andrew: (07:45) The important thing is to use the basic principles and to apply them to the food in your local market. Whether it's a commercial supermarket or farmer's markets or your garden, or wherever you get food, you should be able to look at anything that you're buying or cooking and understand the food energetics.   Tahnee: (08:06) That's such a... Yeah, that's such an integrative part of it. I think, because I guess what I... One of the things we see so often is that people are coming in with this, like they're eating... I mean, I guess we get a lot of people with pathological stuff starting to go on because they've been maybe in a really cold raw vegan diet for a long time.   Andrew: (08:30) Yes.   Tahnee: (08:31) And then they're all understanding you're [inaudible 00:08:35] your system effectively and it's slowing everything down.   Andrew: (08:37) Yeah that's a huge-   Tahnee: (08:40) Yeah. If you could speak to that, that'd be, yeah.   Andrew: (08:45) You're absolutely right. Many people who care a lot and they care deeply and are interested in changing their dietary habits for better health become overly enamoured with raw foods, with foods that are seen as energetically cold in the Chinese medicine system. So the idea there is not that someone says the foods are cold it's to understand that vegetables high in water, high in minerals, that with a complex array of tastes, including some bitterness. Say, for example, those who really, they have a taste of wheatgrass juice or something along that line, it's very, very bitter. And bitter has a descending cooling quality, clears heat, it clears excess fire from the stomach and can have a lot of benefits because of that.   Andrew: (09:41) However, it tends to cool the stomach as it does so. So it can clear excess heat and then eventually bring cold into the stomach or digestion or the lower belly. And since cold tends to settle. Now we're immediately getting into more detailed Chinese medical theory, but cold tends to settle downward. Heat tends to rise. There are times when you could have inflammation on your feet, for example, where heat is somehow descending. But typically heat rises to the head and cold settles into the lower abdomen. And this is something that I see every week in my clinic or zoom clinic, now online clinic. The people trying so hard to do what's best and ending up hurting themselves, or at least not being optimal. And one of the signs here is, I mean, how do you know? You have to have a way to know your own health status. We can't just wait for blood tests or for what a book might say, a certain food might do.   Andrew: (10:51) We need to actually know about our own health, which is where in the practise of Chinese medicine, we use pulses and we use tongue diagnosis, as well as the stories people tell, "I'm having these symptoms. This didn't used to happen and it happens now." Things like that. Very important to listen to people with a lot of depth and insight, to really listen to what they say and the tone they say it, the body that they're saying it with, to listen to their Qi as they're speaking. There's so much we can do with our ears, which is all called listening in Chinese medicine. I mean, and it does include listening to their actual words, but so much more. But we need a real way to look inside. And so in our tradition, that's pulse reading and tongue diagnosis.   Andrew: (11:42) Now during the COVID isolation period, we're not taking pulses, but I'm looking at tongues all day long. So the way I conduct a session and we'll get back to the cold foods in a second. So the way I conduct a session is that I'm asking for people to send tongue photos a day or two in advance. And like a phone selfie, tongue photo is fine if it's focused well enough. And we use that as a basis of diagnosis, not only for me to look at, but I'll put it up on the screen to share, and we'll go over points so that they can see that this is thin there. This is swollen there. This colour is a little bit redder than we might think. Don't you agree? Says, "Yes, it is so red." This seems pale here, look at the coat or these bumps or the scalloping here. And then we decode all these things and pair them with food habits and ways to get through.   Andrew: (12:39) So with that in mind, as we're looking at the idea of cold in the diet is a very common or disagreement, if you like. I wouldn't say it's a misconception because maybe they're all right. I love the difference of opinion. But in a laboratory, a raw piece of asparagus has more nutrients than a cooked piece. And that holds most of the time, not entirely, but most of the time cooking does release some nutrients, but it also tends to degrade more. We understand this, however, the benefit for the stomach as we cook food outweighs the percentages of lost vegetables, of lost nutrients in the vegetables or other foods.   Andrew: (13:34) So we're very interested in this idea of cold. So when we eat food, none of it digests until the stomach warms it up to body temperature. The stomach works best. And you could even say works only when it's warm and moist. So if there's a lack of moisture, a lack of hydration, if the food is too dry, maybe we drink water sufficiently, but the food itself is too dry. It's a lot of sandwiches, a lot of breads, a lot of-   Tahnee: (14:05) Baked goods and things.   Andrew: (14:07) ... baked goods in the morning, in particular. Particularly dangerous actually or grilled and sauteed things that may not be very moist. This is difficult for the stomach. The stomach will need to draw hydration from its resources from the rest of the body. And that's not what we want. So Chinese medicine is always recommending warm and often enough, wet cooked foods as the easiest to digest. So that's the first place I often go, not always, but it's one of the first places I go recommending to people.   Tahnee: (14:47) Oh, sorry. Just to be really clear, like a wet, cooked food is like a porridge, a congee, a soup, I mean, a stew, like how far into wet are we going?   Andrew: (14:58) I definitely include stews in the wet category. And because they're... Not only are they moist, but they're cooked for a long time. And the idea of adding heat underneath the cooking pot. I mean, like that's just mechanical. We're just cooking food-   Tahnee: (15:16) The Qi's [inaudible 00:15:16] as well, right?   Andrew: (15:18) We're imbuing the food with heat, with warmth, which would be part of yang Qi and the moving Qi, the energised Qi that we call yang, as in yin and yang. And adding yang Qi can happen quickly as in a quick hot saute or wok frying, or if it's French or European style, just a quick pan saute. And so the heat's very high and we're moving things around, literally moving the pan, the food in the pan with a spoon or with your cook's wrist, flicking the pan, around adding yang Qi in this way. Or with a stew, it's cooking at a lower heat for a very long time. It could be an hour, it could be a day. And we all know the stews taste better the second or third day as well.   Andrew: (16:11) .   Tahnee: (16:46) [crosstalk 00:16:46]   Andrew: (16:47) Yeah, it doesn't have the same [inaudible 00:16:48] but that's the concept is to open the stomach, to receive food. And as I was thinking that over, the idea is to open the stomach to welcome food. And that really... What that really is... What that would mean, and in more clinical terms is appetite, so that you have an appetite to bring in more food or I'm comfortable, I don't have urgent hunger, but I'm really looking forward to... Well for you it's breakfast, but here, the dinners, the next meal and making a little bit of a plan from what we've shopped and organising that. And then this idea of looking forward to it and appetite is not just appetite for food. Appetite, and this is in very real terms, seen in Chinese medicine, but all across the world, is appetite for life.   Andrew: (17:44) When the appetite is good, life is good. I'm just saying, if you had some challenges, things are a little tricky right now, but I can't wait to eat. And this wouldn't be emotional binge eating, but I'm just saying, it'll be beautiful to get going with cooking and those first beautiful bites of food. This is appetite for life itself. So it's not a coincidence that those words overlap.   Andrew: (18:10) So opening the stomach or what I'm calling, welcoming food, or to put them together, open the stomach to welcome food, is the first step in digestion. And then the stomach begins to sort and separate the foods, begins to secrete stomach acids, if proteins are present. If it's a vegan diet and in particular, if it doesn't include something like soy protein or... I don't advocate soy protein except as soybeans or tofu miso, these traditional products, I don't... For me personally, [crosstalk 00:18:48] I don't... I worry a little bit. I do worry a little bit about those foods.   Andrew: (18:55) Will our bodies, in their wisdom, be prepared to recognise them in order to digest them properly? We need to recognise these foods. And so if they're highly processed, I'm very concerned about extracted proteins including soy proteins. You say, "Oh, this is beautiful. This is like tofu." But it's not, it's a new process relying on methods that render food, somewhat confusing to the body. And we could get into more detail the idea of protein isolates.   Tahnee: (19:32) Yeah. I was going to quickly touch on because smoothies and wet foods, I would argue personally that they're not a wholesome, wet food in general, as a sometimes food in summer and maybe if you have good digestion, but a lot of people then load them up with isolates and proteins. Can you speak this quickly while we're here, a little bit to that as well?   Andrew: (19:52) Yeah. I mean, I love a good smoothie once in a while, but it's not very often. And it would be in hot weather, exactly like you saying. Now, if your weather is always hot, you can still overdo it quite easily. Remember the basic motto is this, it's not a motto. It's just the truth. The stomach works when it's warm. When the stomach is cool, digestion slows down, when digestion slows down problems accrue. So we get food stagnation, we get slow transport, it's peristalsis slows down, eventually elimination slows down and there could be chronic constipation. And then we need to turn to Chinese medicine to understand what happens next is that the body will throw heat, yang Qi in the form of wei Qi, which is this moving, a subset of yang Qi, moving Qi, which is always present in the belly and in the gut, will increase this warming Qi in the belly.   Andrew: (20:53) In other words, send heat, raise heat into digestion to move what's become sluggish. Now that might have its effect. And in which case, you might have diarrhoea for a day or something like that. And you think, "Oh, that's interesting. I don't know why that happened." It happened because of the cold food which tends to fall quickly through digestion, the spleen pancreas Qi's not strong enough to uphold. I mean, it can be for a long time, but eventually if cold settles in, the uplifting Qi that we put under the category of spleen and pancreas, won't be strong enough to uphold.   Andrew: (21:31) And then you have something... I have a new patient or client, perhaps better to say. Just last week, a longtime vegan appearing in excellent health, but then she says, "Whenever I eat a salad..." And then she apologised, "I'm sorry to talk about this kind of thing, but I have to run to the bathroom. I have urgent watery diarrhoea." Said, "Okay, we can fix this very, very easily." I mean, of course, we look at her tongue and have to make sure what the reasons are. Have you travelled? No one's travelled. So we don't have parasites. It's not that kind of thing.   Andrew: (22:07) We're looking at the first things first, if it doesn't help them, we can reach deeper or refer into hospital care. That's always on the table, but that's the legal metrics we work in. But in fact, she's already better. The second day she was better. So instead of the raw salads, which has given you the symptom reliably or the smoothies, which are also raw. Have cooked vegetables, add some warming spices, things like cinnamon, fresh ginger. So that would be raw ginger root, but it's so warming it doesn't affect you as a raw thing. Turmeric would be beautiful, nutmeg even clove, which is considered very warm. Maybe cumin, which is considered the seed spices I'm looking at now, which are warming, cumin, cardamom, coriander seed, and then the leafy spices, which are warm, would be rosemary, which just grows in these tall stocks. It's very uplifting.   Andrew: (23:06) And we're using these things to warm the stomach. It's even possible to use a bit of black pepper in a pointed way, therapeutically here. And she said she felt better after the second meal cooking this way. And then she said, "But what about these smoothies? There's so much nutrition in them and it's really, really good." I said, "It's really, really good unless you have a cold, that's beginning to gather in your stomach and in your gut, in which case they're not really, really good. They test well in the lab, but they're no longer good for you. Maybe on occasion, once you get you back on track. But instead have a soup a vegetable soup, the broth, this is the hot version of a smoothie, is a soup." It sounds like you certainly don't want to cook a smoothie. There might be banana or mango in there, something like that. That would be quite disgusting if it was cooked, at least not cooked skillfully well, but that's what we need. So you would go to a vegetable soup with maybe some warming spices. It could even have a little bit of cinnamon, especially at first, that would really help warm the system. It's desperate for that. And just this particular person felt better by the second meal. The urgent diarrhoea absolutely vanished. And then she's still vulnerable probably for another while, depending on how she follows the plan. So you have to remember for vegans and vegetarians, that meat is very warming. And I say this as a ex- vegetarian, and that might be the bad news of [inaudible 00:24:50] but I do understand this very well. And I eat vegetarian meals every day, but just not every meal.   Andrew: (24:56) So, I mean, I advocate that everyone should be good at vegetarian cooking. It's inconceivable not to be good, to find it difficult to cook a well balanced, nourishing and delicious meal that doesn't include animal products. But animal products, if we eat them, are warming in particular, of course, the land animals, fish, and seafood less so. And each one's a little bit different. They've all been classified in the medical system. But land animals are very warming, beef, lamb, which I suppose, and pork a little bit less so, but still somewhat warming. Here in America I have clients out in the Western part of America. They eat a lot of venison. They're eating elk and bison. These are all warming. But generally speaking, it's beef and lamb and pork that we're talking about. And chicken. Chicken is very warming, chicken and turkey, very warming.   Andrew: (26:06) People often think that the chicken is like a nothing. It's just like, "Oh, I don't know what to eat. I'm not that hungry. I'll just have chicken." But chicken is very, very uplifting, warming, almost instigating food. As we say in Chinese medicine, the way it's taught is that the chickens aren't very good flying birds. They don't really fly very well, but they aspire to fly. And where I live, there's some wild turkeys and they're beautiful when they come through. There's, I guess we call them a gaggle. I'm not sure. I've forgotten what the group name-   Tahnee: (26:44) [crosstalk 00:26:44].   Andrew: (26:44) Yeah, I think there's a special name for the group, but in any case, they come through. It's a group of six and they're large. They're large birds and surprisingly tall in the wild and they fly and they roost in low branches. They, I mean, they can't fly distances, but they fly to get away from danger and they fly to get up to branches, to roosting. They're quite big things but chickens are... Domestic chickens of course, they're highly domesticated, but with certain Chinese medicine dietetics, is that they aspire to flight. They're trying to rise up and then of course they're warming. And if we're looking for a scientific, from a modern or Western scientific way to justify that, to make some sense out of it or to feel more confident in it really is what it is so that our brains don't short circuit. The interesting thing about poultry is that birds don't get fevers.   Andrew: (27:53) They are very hot. Their healthy temperature is very hot. We use Fahrenheit over here, but it's about eight degrees, six to eight degrees warmer Fahrenheit. So that might be just, to easily say about three. So significantly warmer than humans. And so they are significantly hotter in a healthy resting state than people are. So to eat them as food, the body's thinking, "Well, these proteins were made at a certain temperature. These fats were put into the flesh at a certain temperature. And the easiest way to digest this food would be to raise closer to that temperature, where the chemical breakdown patterns that that digestion is conducting will happen much more easily." And that's exactly what happens.   Andrew: (28:45) So this is why, if people are very cold, now I know where you live you might feel that it's not cold very often. But if you're thinking about where I live in the temperate zone, where the summers are very hot and the winters are very cold. And this goes from all across the United States in the upper half, as well as most of Europe and the upper half of Asia, where people have to eat wheat to be warm, rye, warming, barley, somewhat warming and potatoes and animal food, things like this, a lot of butter and all. People were cold and the farmers were cold and they're working out there. And so if someone were to get sick, you will think maybe they're catching a cold, they're catching a flu or they were catching COVID. What is it that is making them vulnerable? And it's the cold, the fatigue and the dehydration. And this-   Tahnee: (29:50) But chicken soup works so well, right?   Andrew: (29:53) That's why chicken soup works. But it doesn't work if you're living indoors, well heated and you already have a fever. So this is where...   Andrew: (30:03) ... and you already have a fever. So this is where food energetics really makes a difference in life. And so it's a sensible difference. Chicken soup is helpful if you're too tired to make a fever, if you're too tired, too depleted would be the word we would use in Chinese medicine. If you're depleted enough so that you're not mounting a good, strong, robust, natural defence. If you are, you're fine. But if you're not, then chicken soup, it's hot. It's full of fluids, there's some degree of fat in it, I hope, at least if people are cooking well, it won't be too lean. The glistening fat on the top, let's say that. And the chicken itself is very warming. So this will help the body kick up a fever, but, and that's most useful for the first stage of infection, by the way, you're beginning to catch the cold, you're beginning to catch an infectious respiratory illness.   Andrew: (30:58) But if it has settled into the chest, and the next stage of the belly, and now you have a stomach bug and there's fever. So you use chicken soup, when there's chills, and then stop using it when there's a fever, that's the rule of thumb. But that's-   Tahnee: (31:24) That's true of all of those, I remember when I first started working with an acupuncturist and he was like, "Don't take garlic and ginger when you've got this chesty cough, because it's already hot." He's like, "That's only when it's at the very start you take those things, hot bath, hot soup, the heating spices, and then you should flush it out. And if it keeps going, then you need to stop those things." And this is grandma wisdom, really.   Andrew: (31:50) It is, and it's grandma wisdom, which is being passed on less and less, our modern culture doesn't respect the elders, and in a very righteous fashion, and we're losing a lot of good information. So you're right there. And it also goes back to the beginning of Chinese medicine, in the incredible, genius text called, The Shanghan Lun, which is translated usually as, "On cold damage," or, to say it another way, "The damage cold does," it's a treatise on cold damage, is one way to translate it. And that book was published in about the year 220. So, a very old book where the author talks about the initial stage, when we're trying to push out a pathogen, they didn't say the word germ, but they did say pathogen, and trying to push it out, and we would use chicken soup. We would use garlic. His first recipe relies heavily on cinnamon.   Tahnee: (32:56) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. When that's the formula you take at that stage as well, they're full of-   Andrew: (33:01) That's the formulas you take at that stage. So that's the way we can eat, as well, at that stage. So you could actually put some cinnamon into your soup, or of course, cinnamon tea. We would put some other things in with it, to make that work. In fact, someone phoned from London a few months ago, and he was in quite a panic and I don't blame him, well, panic is never the best way to make decisions, but what I'm saying is that it was understandable. And this is someone I did know because we don't really treat people that we haven't seen, we can meet online and we take a look at your tongue photo and begin to work, but, and he called and he said, "I'm coming down with COVID. I can feel it. I've lost my smell and taste. And I, I feel really, really awful. And it's only been a day, at least with symptoms, and I'm freaking out, what do I do?"   Andrew: (34:07) So I said to him, "Ah, well, don't freak out. And nearly everyone gets through this very well, and let's look around your kitchen. What do you have?" So we started walking around his kitchen. I'm in New York, he's in London. And I said, "Do you have cinnamon?" And he says, "Yeah, I have some cinnamon. I have sticks." Okay, good. And I said, "So, do you have an orange?" He said, "No, I don't have any oranges or tangerines or anything like that." "And how about lemon?" He goes, "Yeah, I have lemon." "Okay, good. And is it organically grown?" He said, "Probably not." So, "It's okay. Wash it off with some soap and then wash off the soap really well, we'll do our best."   Andrew: (34:53) And then, there was something else we put in as well. And we made a tea, a kitchen remedy for him. Oh, I think it was just fresh ginger, probably, every kitchen should have fresh ginger at all times. If we keep it too long, it can dry up. I do know people that freeze ginger, you can freeze it, just put it in a plastic food storage bag, Ziploc, or whatever type you use, try to get the air out. And ginger freezes fairly well for emergency use, but still, fresh is best. And every time you go to the store, you ask yourself the question, "Do we have fresh ginger? Do we have fresh spring onions?" And just always have those at the ready and, okay, so by spring onions, we mean scallions here. So they're not the bulb onions-   Tahnee: (35:48) The green, long, skinny guys.   Andrew: (35:50) The green, long, skinny guys. They're in the onion allium family, that includes garlic, by the way, and chives. So do you have chives or the skinny, in Australia, it's spring onion, isn't that right?   Tahnee: (36:03) We call them spring onion. Some people called them shallots as well, which is confusing, because then there's eschalots. But yeah, I basically would call them a spring onion in my-   Andrew: (36:12) Okay. Yeah, good. So here, it gets into foodie talk a little bit, but a spring onion is an onion that you can't store. And I think most Americans might not follow this, or even be concerned about this discussion, but the scallion would be the skinny onions that they store in the refrigerator, but they don't store in a root cellar, but the bulk onions, you can put away for months through the winter, so you would always have them, but there are other, fresh, bulb onions that don't store well, and they're sold with their green stems in the springtime, and those I call spring onions. But in any case, what we mean here are the very mild, skinny ones that don't have a distinct bulb so-   Tahnee: (37:01) White on the bottom, green on the top. Long.   Andrew: (37:03) Right. Right. And this has been used in Chinese herbal medicine, as well as dietary medicine, since before anyone was writing anything down. That was very important, because they grow wild. And so you should always have these at the ready.   Andrew: (37:16) So we made a home, kitchen remedy for him, that he just drank five to 10 times a day. He was just making it and making it. And he got through so quickly, and you could say, "Well, he would have anyhow, it's not laboratory tested, that strategy." But what are you going to do? You use what you have with the knowledge of food energetics, you look around the kitchen and you implement a strategy. And the strategy there was, it was a new infection, let's push it back out the way it came, through the exterior.   Tahnee: (37:51) Mm-hmm (affirmative). And would you use the citrus peel in that case? Just out of curiosity? Or use?   Andrew: (37:55) The citrus, I was using the citrus peel to relax his breathing, because we know in this case, you're putting together everything. COVID is a new illness. It wasn't written about in the Chinese medical classics, but so you extrapolate and you say, "Well, this is something where a lot of people get into breathing problems." A lot of people get into circulatory problems. So the citrus peel was in there to relax the diaphragm and open breathing. We say, "Open the chest," is the term, to open breathing so that he wouldn't get caught in respiratory problems. And that his lungs would continue to function well to clear whatever phlegm might be arising. So we could have put in the whites of spring onion, in which case, it becomes a little bit more like a soup, where you're beginning to put in these savoury notes. So you use what you have, but I didn't want to make it confusing. Three elements. That was all.   Andrew: (38:57) And so that's the same idea that you were talking about before. And all we're doing is implementing the first strategy from this book, written in 220. And then if it progresses further, we would implement the second or third strategy, whichever one was presenting. And it goes through six stages. In fact, that's its nickname, The Six Stages.   Tahnee: (39:16) Six Stages, yeah. And I think this is something with, like you said, we've lost the elders, we've lost the cranky grandmas who bundle you up in a scarf and a beanie-   Andrew: (39:29) Not entirely.   Tahnee: (39:31) I think in Australia. I know people, and I guess it's an interesting thing because I think when you're young as well, and you do have a lot of young chi naturally, you can be out in the cold with less on and you don't feel it as much. And I'm only 35, but I've noticed a change in the last 10 years, with my sensitivity to elemental forces. That's probably also, my awareness has built up a lot over time.   Andrew: (39:57) Right. And that's a big question that people ask in the food context. Often they say, "Well, Andrew, if I eat the way that you're describing, then if I ever have to eat some junk food or fast food, it's going to kill me. I won't have my chops for it. So I'll get weak doing this." But-   Tahnee: (40:19) Well, that's not true. It makes you stronger.   Andrew: (40:23) It makes you much, much more resilient, but like you said, more sensitive. So it's not that we're getting weaker, it's that we're more sensitive. So we have two teenagers, and I watch them sometimes when they eat with their friends after school, now they're in a remote school, and take a look at how they're feeling. And they're eating this stuff like vacuum cleaners, partly as rebellion, because they were raised on the kind of diet that was there. Their tremendous misfortune was to be raised by an acupuncturist mother and dietary and herbalist dad. And we cook every day, constantly.   Andrew: (41:08) And so they'll eat junk food on the outside, but it's not true that the teenagers just plough through this, and feel completely fine. They plough through it, feel very satisfied that they're being rebellious and having fun with their friends. And then they feel like they are a brick. They do have food stagnation, and all of a sudden what had been a really great digestion and elimination gets more complicated, and then their skin might break out a little bit. And then they come to me and they say, "Dad, do you have any herbs? Do you have some herbs?"   Tahnee: (41:50) I'm curious as to whether you, because I have a four-year-old, and one of the things that I found incredibly challenging the other day, and it was a proud moment as a mother was, I was driving her with a friend. So she's four, and her friend was seven, and they were in the back talking to each other. And my daughter said, "Oh, I'm not allowed to eat ice cream when I have a white coating on my tongue. So before I ask my mom, I check my tongue and just see if I'm allowed ice cream today."   Andrew: (42:15) Right, exactly.   Tahnee: (42:16) I just giggled to myself that she, at four, was already-   Andrew: (42:20) Fully indoctrinated.   Tahnee: (42:22) I was [inaudible 00:42:24] but it's been something that I don't even have to say, "No," anymore. I'm like, "What's your tongue like?" And she goes and checks and she comes back and she goes, "Oh, it's pink." And I'm like, "Okay, cool. We have a little bit of ice cream," or. "No, it's got a white coating." "Well, no, we're not having any today." She's just like, so are there any little tips you've taught your kids or any, if someone's wanting to look at their own tongue? One of my first yoga teachers, he's like, "You look at your tongue twice a day, every time you brush your teeth," he's like, "It's such an important way to measure what's going on in your body." And it's been something that I've been doing for, I think, 20 years now. But people look at me like I'm whack when I say it, so I wonder if there any tips you can give that are easy for people to get a gauge on how they might want to be adjusting their day, or their diet, based on what they're seeing.   Andrew: (43:12) Right. I think it's great to look at your tongue in the mirror often like that. It shouldn't be obsessive, but it doesn't sound, so I can hear in your voice that you're not being obsessive about it, it's just part of your health habit. There are people we have to be careful with our clients, that some of them do feel [crosstalk 00:43:33], and so your good eating isn't is not a jail sentence. It's actually just incredibly beautiful to eat according to your personal health status.   Andrew: (43:44) So, looking at your tongue is very important. And so the first thing, and we do this a lot, and in our, by our, I mean and my wife and I, in our food teaching, we often put up a picture of various people's tongues, and decode them, and talk about the dietary adjustments. And my wife, Anne, is proofreading right now, a major new book on tongue diagnosis with a lot of amazing photographs. It's really, really exciting. So we've been having a lot of fun working, it's her authorship, but we like to work together.   Andrew: (44:26) So what can we do at home? The first thing you can do when you look at your tongue from a dietary perspective. So we're not using acupuncture needles at home. We're not playing games with medicinal herbs without training, but everyone's eating. So we really are doing medicine every day, whether we like it or not. The way we're eating is holding our pathology, to use that word, in place. It's holding our health status in place, or it's changing it. It's not neutral. So, when you look at your tongue, and the first thing to look at would be the overall shape and size, does your tongue feel very small? Like it's barely sticking out of your mouth, or does it like really, really reach out? So, overly expressive might be a description, which would be a lot of yang chi, and a relative deficiency of yin, or vice versa, if the tongue barely peeks out of the mouth. There could be cold, there could be a lot of emotional constraint. If the tongue barely sticks out of the mouth, there's often a lot of emotional, internal pressure. That's always a part of it. We can't separate it out. It is incorrect to separate the emotional arena from a health status, as is usually done in the world of specialties, where we go to a digestive specialist and you go to your therapist, and it's all supposed to be neat and separate, but it's not.   Andrew: (45:59) So, okay. Then you look at, is the tongue narrow in the back? The tongue should be almost a little bit, not pointed at the tip, but it should narrow to a tip, to a rounded tip, and it should be full in the back. But for many of us, the back is very narrow, indicating that we've worn out the wax in our candle a little bit too much for our age. And so that's what we call yin deficiency. It could accompany hormone deficiency, for example. In fact, that's a big point when people come from fertility work, and they're eating salads and juices, and you can see that there's a narrowing of their tongue in the back, and they're having trouble getting pregnant. And we need to warm the belly, scatter the cold, warm the belly, and nourish yin. And there's many, many successful families based on that strategy with that presentation.   Andrew: (47:10) Or, you look at your tongue and we would look at the basic colour. Now this would be the colour of the coat, like what you're talking about your daughter, if there's a white coat, that means that's not the body of the tongue, that's the coat of the tongue. So that would be some kind of coating, might be an easier way to say it to those for whom this is new. So there's a coating on the tongue. And that really tells us how we're doing with fats, with lipids. Are we digesting fats well, or are we over consuming fats for our capacity to digest them? Which means it could be sugars as well. So in that case, yes, you don't want more dairy coming in, which is high in fat, and ice cream, of course, is high in sugar, high in dairy, and cold.   Tahnee: (47:59) Is that called the triple yin death?   Andrew: (48:03) Well, we don't have to be too judgmental, but [crosstalk 00:48:09] ice cream is delicious. There's no question. Ice cream is really beautiful. It should be high quality, and it should be only on rare occasions. So, and then really enjoy the times when you have it. And then take a look, you say, "Well, you know what? I still feel it in my throat, even six hours later," it's just a little thickness, a little bit of, as the body pushes some phlegm to the surface, a little bit of mucus to the surface of the throat, in an active self protection from the cold. That's what's happening, and difficulty digesting the dairy. So it's always the body's response. It's not that the dairy is phlegm and just gets painted, on the phlegm is the body's response to something it finds somewhat challenging. It's similar with too much spicy peppers or spicy chilies. I know we don't use the pepper word, spicy capsicum. I'm not sure what the right term is. And my wife is Australian, by the way.   Tahnee: (49:11) Oh, is she? Oh, yeah, like the chilli pepper. Yeah. Okay. [crosstalk 00:49:13]   Andrew: (49:14) The pepper word. Very, very long history of why that word, "Pepper," is misused applied to the spicy capsicum, or even the bell, what we call bell peppers in America. They're [crosstalk 00:49:27]-   Tahnee: (49:27) Yeah, the capsicum, we call that. Yeah.   Andrew: (49:29) Right. Capsicum, right. Which is their botanical name, but we're stuck with the word, "Pepper," because of Columbus. He was looking for pepper and he'd never seen a pepper tree growing.   Tahnee: (49:40) Oh, it's a spice thing.   Andrew: (49:42) It's a spice coming from incredibly far away and through, and they'd never seen a pepper tree. And they were looking for spices, and in a complex, very, very complex historical moment, 1492, in Spain, and basically the expulsion of the spice merchants. So they were without spices. So this was part of it. That part of the story is not told, surprisingly, in American education, but in any case, Columbus found these things that he found somewhat spicy and he called them peppers. And we've been stuck with that ever since, there's the confusion. So we can call them capsicum, but Americans don't know what that means. For the most part-   Tahnee: (50:24) That's a nice capsicum.   Andrew: (50:26) Exactly, exactly. So then you can look at the colour of the coat. If the coat on the tongue is white, then something's building up. I call this housekeeping. We're not keeping up with internal housekeeping. And this is not just on the tongue, it's through the internal body. That's why it's so significant. And then the clinician, with more training would look, at where is the white? Is it all over? Which, usually it's not all over. It usually starts in an area, and then it would spread to all over. So then, if we can see through the coding, you would look at the colour of the body of the tongue. And this is very, very easy to do. This is important. If the body of the tongue seems very, very red, then we're looking at heat in the blood, probably from too much meat, too much protein. It could be too much spicy food, too much alcohol, too much coffee, too much chocolate, too much garlic and onion. These are the usual suspects-   Tahnee: (51:36) Very hot, energy foods.   Andrew: (51:38) Really hot energy foods. These are the foods that are implicated in reflux, or GERD, acid reflux. It's the same list of usual suspects. That would be the thing we cut out first. That may not solve it, but that's what we have to do in order to solve it, in order to get to the actual therapeutic. So that would be if your tongue body looks too red, and you think, "Well, what's too red?" Well, if it looks really, noticeably red, you look at it and you say, "Wow, that's red." And you look at other people's tongues. And we have this saying, never stick your tongue out at someone with this training, because they'll know exactly what your status is, and-   Tahnee: (52:19) The report card.   Andrew: (52:23) We won't say anything, but just as a general rule, don't stick your tongue out. And then, if the tongue is too pale, this could indicate borderline anaemia, what we call in Chinese medicine, blood deficiency, where your body's not transforming your diet into rich enough blood. And so basically that paleness goes through all your muscles, somewhat pale. So the tongue is the muscle we can see. And so it's a look into the surface, and not into your blood, but towards the blood, we're seeing signs. So the pale tongue could be that the stomach has gotten too cold. I put that example, the opposite of the person who's eating too much meat. Now we're talking about that vegan, as mentioned before, where her digestion wasn't upholding, wasn't warm enough to do the transformation that was necessary for her diet.   Andrew: (53:21) So by adding all cooked food and warming spices, her body didn't need to present as much heat of its own. We were bringing that heat in, and it was so much more successful, until her body will take over. Which it will. And, but with someone where the tongue is pale, it could be cold, as in that case, it could be a blood deficiency, in which case we would want to eat, if red meat would be helpful, it's the easiest way to build blood. But if not, and along with that, we always want vegetables. We eat dark leafy greens, beetroot is actually really important for building blood. It includes what we call in Chinese medicine, the law of signature, but Western science has verified it. There're beautiful chemicals in beetroot for building blood, and in fact, two of them were actually named after beets. So, betanin is one of them, and other colourful root vegetables, but the dark leafy greens are very, very important. Berries are very important for blood. Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and goji berries. Very, very helpful for blood. We can use beans, like adzuki beans, red lentils, even perhaps black beans, for building blood, and anything that helps build fluid will help build blood. So that could be steamed rice, steamed millet, [inaudible 00:54:54], again, like you mentioned. So the system works very, very well and you match it to your tongue presentation.   Andrew: (55:04) I'm trying to think what else would be. If there's scalloping-   Tahnee: (55:06) What about, scalloped? Yeah. Because I think we always talked about in with yoga, [crosstalk 00:55:13]-   Andrew: (55:15) The scallop tongue is very common. So here you're seeing the imprints of the teeth, usually on the sides, occasionally on the front as well, that are imprinted on the tongue because the tongue has swollen. So I've even had people say, "Oh Andrew, my tongue is just too big for my mouth. It's always been like that." And so I love that, because it's so charming, it's so earnest, but it's not right. And the tongue has swollen. It's been like that for years, for someone who says that, they're so used to it, that they simply say it's how they are. But actually it's all that time that they haven't been digesting well.   Andrew: (55:57) And that's a sign, basically, that they haven't been digesting carbs very well. So I know that some branches of holistic medicine like to interpret that sign differently, but when the tongue swells like that, it may look swollen. It may just, you see the imprints. It definitely is swollen, it's as if we're eating carbohydrates, not transforming them into our personal nourishment fully. And so they're sticking around and there's food stagnation, and the inner body begins to swell, which is reflected with a swelling of the tongue in that area. Usually it's the middle of the tongue and the molars that we're seeing.   Andrew: (56:42) So the thing to do there. Well, here's the short take on carbs. There's so many people who are anti carb and they're terrified of carbs, or they vilify carbs. And I've been looking into this for years and years, and I just don't find that validity, unless someone has developed so much difficulty with metabolising sugars and carbohydrates that even healthy carbs are implicated. So, that happens further down. And we can come back from that, but there are such cases, sometimes with SIBO, with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and intense, intense bloating. We do see people like this relatively often, because they come to us for dietary help. They've been all over the place, and it takes some discipline, but it's absolutely-   Tahnee: (57:40) Are you putting them on a... Oh, sorry to interrupt you. Are you putting them on a paleo style diet then, in that case, a low carb? I'm curious because I had SIBO when I was overseas. In Thailand, I got really sick, really sick with some bug. I never went to a doctor, but I just spent five days really sick. Anyway, I came back to Australia and I put myself on, after doing some research on it, I put myself on a keto, almost, style diet for a while with a healing protocol, and it actually sorted it out. I can eat everything again now, but I'm curious if that's what you would do clinically or there's a nuance there.   Andrew: (58:20) Yeah. That's a part of it. We definitely do that. So you'd put someone on a keto diet, looking for ketosis. I really don't like that diet, because of the strain it puts on the liver and the kidneys. The same with paleo diet. I don't consider it a healthy long-term diet, and it's definitely not sustainable by a large population of the world. The world can not support this. So the question is, if it's necessary for a healing period for a few months, okay. That's an important point. But in terms of using it full time, saying, "This is the diet I'm," I wonder, well, I hate to say this, but it has an elitist problem, that we can eat like this because of, I don't at all, but if someone does, because they have the affluence to do so.   Andrew: (59:20) But they're absorbing resources at a frightening rate, and someone might say, "Well, that's simply not my concern, survival of the fittest, financially." But I don't agree with that. That's not something I subscribe to. I think we do need to eat within the matrix of the world, and in a healthy fashion. And that we need to spend our money, to vote with our wallets for good farming practises, and sustainable practises. Nothing else makes any sense at all.   Tahnee: (59:50) I absolutely agree. Yeah.   Andrew: (59:52) So nonetheless, if someone presents with SIBO and it's extreme, first, I check to see how extreme it is. The protocol I use goes something like this.   Andrew: (01:00:03) ... extremely just... The protocol I use goes something like this. It depends on the person and their presentation, their tongues, their pulses, if I'm able to take them and what I'm hearing from them about their specific symptoms but basically speaking the protocol goes like this.   Andrew: (01:00:17) First, let's cut out sugar because anything else is just not sincere. So we do all these things. We're cutting out grains, we're cutting out any processed food, we're cutting out all kinds of things and then the person's still having dessert or they're still sneaking this, or they're still saying, "Well, honey in my tea." I mean, just for an example, when I was writing Welcoming Food, which took quite a few years to make it shorter, to try not to make it long actually is what took a long time because the original drought was quite a bit longer. Anyone can write a great thing, but to write something meaningful that's short is quite... Is another matter.   Tahnee: (01:01:09) I agree, it's an art form and you've really done an amazing job. Actually, it's a-   Andrew: (01:01:12) Oh, thank you so much, thank you.   Tahnee: (01:01:14) [crosstalk 01:01:14] the first night I started reading it, I was like, "I've read so much on just Taoism Chinese medicine." And you've put it in words that first of all makes sense to anybody, which makes it so accessible, but it's also really succinct. Every sentence carries meaning, but it's... Yeah, there's not a lot of waffle and I really appreciate it.   Andrew: (01:01:33) Oh, good.   Tahnee: (01:01:33) It's a great-   Andrew: (01:01:33) Okay. I'm so glad to hear. Thank you. So during the writing process, I would sometimes pick up the laptop and my notebooks and go to a cafe, and actually in... I'm in Connecticut now, in the woods, but in Manhattan, we live in an apartment where the bottom floor of the apartment has a cafe run by a couple of Australians. So what what we call in New York-   Tahnee: (01:02:01) Hey, [crosstalk 01:02:02].   Andrew: (01:02:02) ... an Australian cafe has become a term. So it's great. So sometimes I go down there or down the street or something like that and I was in a cafe setting up and I was just doing some more edits and all that, and one of my clients came in and I'm sitting there with a green tea or something, whatever it was, and one of my clients came in and he waved to me and I waved to him and he came over and we caught up and we chatted for a bit, and this is someone who can't digest carbs. He's on a zero carb diet and he put three packs of sugar into his coffee without even knowing he was doing it.   Andrew: (01:02:42) So this is the state of affairs and so when we're working with someone... And I didn't call him on it, because it was a cafe, right?   Tahnee: (01:02:50) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Andrew: (01:02:50) So that's the stage he's at and so... Which reminds me then of just a story that you might enjoy that I was... We have a store in... A food market in America called whole Foods that sells a lot of organic things and relatively-   Tahnee: (01:03:11) A lot of things.   Andrew: (01:03:13) Well, food and food products and they're really relatively reliable for basically very good quality and it's not flawless, but it's very reliable, I'm glad they're there. So I was in there one day and I ran into Jeffrey Yuen there, master teacher in so many ways and I've been a student at Jeffrey's for 20 years and so... And he knows that at that time was just about to release the food books and so we had a chat and he had his basket and I had my basket, and we had a very, very nice chat and neither of us looked in each other's food baskets. This was a very, very important point of discipline, that just to really focus on... It's like, "I'm not checking out, well, what kind of food does this great Taoist master buy? I still have no idea. And that was my way of giving him space, and he didn't look in mine either. So where's the ice cream? So I'm sure neither of us were buying ice cream but so-   Tahnee: (01:04:27) That's really beautiful, though. I really... Just as a philosophical discipline to give that person their space in their private time I think.   Andrew: (01:04:37) Right. Because that's not how... What a teacher... And he has been my master teacher in so many ways for so long. What a teacher wants is not students that are following in their every move, they want students that light up on their own and go their own way. That's what the whole thing is about and that's what all the food practise is about. It's so that everyone can live their own life more effectively, more freely, with more enjoyment, and freedom means freedom from illness, freedom from pain, freedom from lethargy. That's very, very important. That's the point of it. It's not to be righteous with food.   Tahnee: (01:05:14) [inaudible 01:05:14].   Andrew: (01:05:14) Okay, so anyhow, back to this idea of SIBO, cut out sugar and so many people think they have, and they haven't, and it's important not to criticise them, but to work with them with their own readiness to actually do so.   Andrew: (01:05:33) So to find the hidden sugars, maybe it's like, "Well, I've cut out sugar. We never buy sugar, we don't buy honey or maple syrup or anything like that anymore." But then there's still some packaged things. I like to snack that comes in a wrapper that I unwrap, and you actually look at it, it's full of carbs and there's a lot of sneaking going on.   Andrew: (01:05:50) So, okay. So we're working with that. The first thing is cutting out sugar. The second thing is cutting out the glutinous grains causing inflammation and dysbiosis, poor digestion for so many people. So I personally digest wheat quite well and I limit it to, or I try to, mostly organic wheat because of the way non-organic wheat has been over hybridised and the way it's farmed. So I reach for organic wheat. I consider it very important and I know that's saying something, because wheat is the staple of Western diet, and that would include Australia, of course. And there's so much wheat being eaten in baked goods and so forth that it's hard to keep track of how it's grown, but it is very important for best health to... Not everything, you could say, "Well, it's too expensive to eat organic." But there are some foods where it's most important, and those would be wheat, corn, soy are the three secret ones that are in everything, so to speak and are grown...   Tahnee: (01:07:02) Yeah, the growing was awful. And the hybridization and GMOs, and yeah.   Andrew: (01:07:07) Right. Exactly. Exactly right, and the GMOs need to be... They're designed to be grown with massive-   Tahnee: (01:07:16) [crosstalk 01:07:16].   Andrew: (01:07:17) ... glyphosate and things like this. So this is an enormous problem. So it's a really active, big problem for people's health. It's not just an aside thing, this is huge. So we cut out the glutinous grains, which would be wheat, rye and barley, and it's mostly wheat, overwhelmingly wheat. So you cut that out and then we take a look, are they still good with the non-glutenous grains? Rice, millet, oats, quinoa, teff, amaranth, fonio, which is an interesting grain that's coming to market now, beautiful, and things like that.   Andrew: (01:07:54) So maybe they're not okay with rice, with white rice because it's so... It converts to sugar so quickly that this still feeds the SIBO bacteria. It's not just bacteria, of course. It says SIBO with a B, but it's really microbes, a whole slew of microbes. Yeasts, funguses, all kinds of things that are growing out of control in someone's belly who has SIBO. So with bloating right after eating and this fizzy feeling. Like one of my clients says, "It feels like there's a beer factory in my belly."   Tahnee: (01:08:29) Oh my gosh, Andrew. I used to do burps that smelled like eggs if I ate anything with a carbohydrate in it.   Andrew: (01:08:35) Right, exactly.   Tahnee: (01:08:37) [crosstalk 01:08:37] the time.   Andrew: (01:08:37) So it might be-   Tahnee: (01:08:37) The fermentation [inaudible 01:08:37] was wild, yeah.   Andrew: (01:08:41) Right, the internal fermentation, it's wild. So it's not clean because you could say, "Well, what's wrong with fermentation?" So if someone really likes beer or they like vodka or whatever, that's fermented. Or they like kombucha or miso, these are fermented, but these are fermented under very controlled circumstances where you're picking your microbes, you're picking your yeast and then with something like beer, to some degree, it's filtered afterwards. And with something like vodka, the dirty alcohols are separated, the methanols and things.   Andrew: (01:09:15) So with internal fermentation, we get all that. It's like a really dirty mash, and the microbes that are doing the fermentation are not the ones you would want so they would make awful beer as well. So, okay, good. So sometimes you have to cut out all the carbs, and that would include things like millet and brown rice, and maybe some of those people can continue with quinoa, which is not a grain or buckwheat. These are called pseudo grains and they digest more like seeds. If so, that's useful and you can have them as porridges, you can have them steamed or in grain salads, things like that.   Andrew: (01:09:53) And then we add root vegetables if possible, and you have to think then, "What are we getting full on? Where are we getting our nourishment without grains and how we handling the organs of digestion that thrive when we eat grain?" So a healthy body eating grains in a healthy fashion has food for the stomach, spleen, pancreas, and small intestine that they absolutely thrive on. So without grains that provide bulk, they provide healthy carbs, it's difficult to run metabolism and it's difficult to run peris

An old-school vet with an exclusively holistic practice, Dr. Cynthia Lankenau rolls with the punches.  She will tell you that Traditional Chinese Medicine is only the tip of an older, more impressive iceberg called Classical Chinese Medicine—and that it’s only one modality she’s used to replace conventional medicine. She has seen Nixon open China, the rise of GMO’s, the death of family farms, and the rise of regulatory boards. More importantly, she has noted how these events’ effects trickle down to our beloved pets. Even as cancer rates rise and small animals experience heightened stress levels, she remains optimistic and continues to learn voraciously. After nearly forty years of practice, she continues to add to a veterinary arsenal that already includes reiki, homotoxicology, homeopathy, acupuncture, and herbs. Links Mentioned in Today’s Show: Chinese Classical Medicine Links: The Shang Han Lun, a Classical Chinese Medicine treatise on Cold Damage Diseaseshttps://www.amazon.com/Shang-Han-Lun-Translation-Commentaries/dp/0912111577The Wen Bing Xue, a Classical Chinese Medicine treatise on Warm Disease Theory https://www.amazon.com/Warm-Disease-Theory-Wen-Bing/dp/0912111747A summary on what Mao Zedong stripped from Classical Chinese Medicine to create the newer Traditional Chinese Medicinehttps://jingherbsblog.com/ccm-vs-tcm-whats-the-difference/Homeopathy versus Homotoxicologyhttps://natural-med.co.za/what-is-homotoxicology/Referrals for Other Holistic Vets Holistic Veterinarian Medical Association.https://www.ahvma.org/International Veterinary Acupuncture Society https://www.ivas.org/New York State Holistic Vetshttp://nyholisticvet.com/Classes Dr. Lankenau’s Currently Taking: David Winston, Herbalisthttps://www.davidwinston.org/Jeffrey Yuen, Daoist and Clasical Chinese Medicine Scholar https://accm.ie/jeffrey-c-yuen/Dr. Lankenau’s Career Inspiration – Bill Moyers on Acupuncture https://billmoyers.com/content/the-mystery-of-chi/Milk thistle, one of her favorite herbshttps://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4952130Her profile on the American Herbalists Guild https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/professional/cynthia-lankenau-dvm  Other Interviews and Appearances by Dr. Lankenau: https://nodpa.com/n/160/Preventive-Practices-To-Maintain-Animal-Healthhttps://www.herbalist-alchemist.com/need-to-know/student-interviews/cynthia-lankenau/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUhRJOuzk5EThe Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity by Dr. Demian Dressler and Dr. Susan Ettinger.About Today’s Guest, Dr. Cynthia Lankenau, In her own words:While growing up on a dairy farm in the Hudson Valley of NY, I was instilled with a passion for animals and their care. My family also has an obsession with books and education. The blend of these two led me to veterinary medicine. I have always loved to watch animals graze in pasture, and then when practicing as a dairy veterinarian, I was fascinated in seeing how cows would seek out specific plants depending on their health issues. Over the years in my practice, I have seen an increase in immune disorders, cancers, and other chronic diseases concurrently with an increase in the toxicities of pharmaceutical drugs and their general decrease in overall effectiveness in case management. This trend added to the desire to help my clients which forced me to explore alternative treatment approaches: acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and, most importantly, herbal medicine. With my clientele, I have found herbal medicine to be the most satisfying providing a strong foundation for the animal to heal. My love of herbal medicine keeps me always searching for more classes and more education.  Dog Cancer Answers is a Maui Media production in association with Dog Podcast NetworkThis episode is sponsored by the best-selling animal health book The Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity by Dr. Demian Dressler and Dr. Susan Ettinger. Available everywhere fine books are sold. Listen to podcast episode for a special discount code. If you would like to ask a dog cancer related question for one of our expert veterinarians to answer on a future Q&A episode, call our Listener Line at 808-868-3200.Have a guest you think would be great for our show? Contact our producers at DogCancerAnswers.comHave an inspiring True Tail about your own dog’s cancer journey you think would help other dog lovers? Share your true tail with our producers.

Timothy Miller ND, MAc, LAc, RA is a naturopathic physician, licensed acupuncturist, and registered aromatherapist. He is a graduate of the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) in Portland, OR. Dr. Tim is a chemistry nerd. He is fascinated by the chemistry found in the natural world. Fueled by the abundant, potent, and unique components within aromatherapy, Dr. Tim has sought to understand how essential oils act on the body and identify which clinical applications are best incorporated into practice. Dr. Tim first began his aromatherapy studies almost 15 years ago. He has since traveled the world to advance his understanding of essential oils and their clinical implications. Dr. Tim has studied with Rhiannon Lewis, Gabriel Mojay, Mark Webb, Kurt Schnaubelt, and Jeffrey Yuen. He has successfully completed a National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA) approved course and has completed the requirements to become a registered aromatherapist. He is a member of the Aromatherapy Registration Council (ARC). Beyond his love of aromatherapy, Dr. Tim is an avid traveler and student of foreign languages. He enjoys spending time with his family, watching movies, and being in nature. Dr. Tim loves to learn new things and is driven by self-improvement and emotional intelligence. Dr. Tim believes deeply in Docere (the naturopathic medicine tenet of ‘Doctor as Teacher') and loves to teach. He is a speaker, teacher, practitioner, and contributing author. He believes learning should be fun and makes every attempt to engage his students in a profound and meaningful way.Find and Learn from at the following links: 25% Online Aromatherapy Courses with Dr. TimCoupon Code: labaromaExpires November 15th, 2019 at midnight Pacific time. Cannot be combined with other coupons or offers. Available for any of Dr. Tim's courses - including his Portuguese offerings. To view all of Dr. Tim's online courses: https://www.naturopathicce.com/instructor/timothy-miller/ AromaChemistry: An Introductionhttps://www.naturopathicce.com/course/aromachemistry-an-introduction/AromaChemistry: Full Coursehttps://www.naturopathicce.com/course/aromachemistry/ AromaPharmacokinetics: An Introductionhttps://www.naturopathicce.com/course/aromapharmacokinetics-an-introduction/AromaPharmacokinetics: Full Coursehttps://www.naturopathicce.com/course/aromapharmacokinetics/To learn more about plants & your health from Colleen at LabAroma check out this informative PDF: https://mailchi.mp/2fe0e426b244/osw1lg2dkh

Join us for a simple tapping practice called Emotional Freedom Technique with Geleni Fontaine of Third Root Community Health Center. This utilizes the knowledge of acupressure points and is something you can truly do anywhere - alone, in a group, or on the go. Check out the practice diagram and instructions for a more visual reminder and explanation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LqN9hSw2JhcbX5jFeK8JbC4Oh6geY1Q292fytzDnA14/edit?usp=sharing The phrase you’ll use is: “Even though _____, I love and accept myself completely.”   Check out episode 7 for the corresponding conversation with Geleni and Emily Kramer titled "De-spa-ifying Healing & Accessibility” to listen to our conversation about somatic symptoms of oppression and the increased pressures since the 2016 election, in what ways Trump and our current political environment is making us sick, what it would look like to de-spa-ify healing and make it part of our everyday lives instead of a luxury commodity, and how organizers and leaders can make our movement spaces more accessible to the widest range of folks with varying capacities. (Bonus: they also sing a song!)   **As a brand new podcast, we need you to subscribe, give a 5-star rating, and share a positive review to help us continue. Join us in the sustainability and viability of this project and subscribe, rate, & review now!**   ABOUT OUR GUEST: Geleni Fontaine of Third Root Community Health Center THIRD ROOT is a holistic healthcare center in Brooklyn, NY offering yoga, acupuncture, East Asian medicine, massage, herbal medicine, and wellness education. They are a multi-racial, cross-class, intergenerational community, and a worker-owner cooperative. Third Root manifests a world where we all belong, we are all healing, and we are all welcome in our wholeness. Collective members include Geleni Fontaine, Jomo Alaquais Simmons, Julia Bennett, Emily Kramer, and Nicolette Dixon. More at www.thirdroot.org GELENI FONTAINE, a collective member of Third Root, is a fat, queer, Latina/o transperson raised and thriving in Brooklyn, New York. They are a graduate of the Swedish Institute School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine where I studied Traditional and Classical Chinese Medicine with Jeffrey Yuen, 88th generation Taoist priest and healer. They’re also a registered nurse and use knowledge of Western allopathic medicine to support individuals navigating both healthcare systems. Geleni is a member of the Rock Dove Collective, a group of healers, providers, and activists coordinating a radical community health exchange in NYC; a former board member of the Audre Lorde Project, the first queer people of color center for community organizing in the U.S.; and NOLOSE, an organization dedicated to ending the oppression of fat people and creating vibrant fat queer culture. They have a 13-year history of training and teaching martial arts and have worked many years with the Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) as a youth educator, anti-violence activist, and crisis intervention worker. This experience has lent to their understanding of healing as a mind / body / spirit construct that includes support for individuals as well as radical responses to the institutional oppression we face as communities. JOIN THE COMMUNITYCheck out the incredible guests and topics we'll be featuring coming up and sign up for the email list to hear when new episodes drop at www.healingjustice.org Follow us on Instagram @healingjustice, like Healing Justice Podcast on Facebook, and tweet at us @hjpodcast on TwitterWe pay for all costs out-of-pocket and this podcast is 100% volunteer-run. Help us cover our costs by becoming a sponsor at patreon.com/healingjustice   THANK YOU Edited by Yoshi FieldsMixed and produced by Zach Meyer at the COALROOM Intro and Closing music gifted by Danny O’Brien All visuals contributed by Josiah Werning

In this episode, members of the Third Root Community Health Center collective join host Kate Werning for a conversation about somatic symptoms of oppression and the increased pressures since the 2016 election, in what ways Trump and our current political environment is making us sick, what it would look like to de-spa-ify healing and make it part of our everyday lives instead of a luxury commodity, and how organizers and leaders can make our movement spaces more accessible to the widest range of folks with varying capacities. (Bonus: they also sing a song!) PRACTICE: Download the next episode for a simple tapping practice called Emotional Freedom Technique. (We release a new conversation every Tuesday, and the corresponding practice on Thursday - so check back then if you don’t see it yet!) ** As a brand new podcast, we need you to subscribe, give a 5-star rating, and share a positive review to help us continue. Join us in the sustainability and viability of this project and subscribe, rate, & review now! ** Check out the incredible guests and topics we'll be featuring coming up and sign up for the email list to hear when new episodes drop at www.healingjustice.org MEET OUR GUESTS: Geleni Fontaine & Emily Kramer of Third Root Community Health Center THIRD ROOT is a holistic healthcare center in Brooklyn, NY offering yoga, acupuncture, East Asian medicine, massage, herbal medicine, and wellness education. They are a multi-racial, cross-class, intergenerational community, and a worker-owner cooperative. Third Root manifests a world where we all belong, we are all healing, and we are all welcome in our wholeness. Collective members include Geleni Fontaine, Jomo Alaquais Simmons, Julia Bennett, Emily Kramer, and Nicolette Dixon. More at www.thirdroot.org GELENI FONTAINE, a collective member of Third Root, is a fat, queer, Latina/o transperson raised and thriving in Brooklyn, New York. They are a graduate of the Swedish Institute School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine where I studied Traditional and Classical Chinese Medicine with Jeffrey Yuen, 88th generation Taoist priest and healer. They’re also a registered nurse and use knowledge of Western allopathic medicine to support individuals navigating both healthcare systems. Geleni is a member of the Rock Dove Collective, a group of healers, providers, and activists coordinating a radical community health exchange in NYC; a former board member of the Audre Lorde Project, the first queer people of color center for community organizing in the U.S.; and NOLOSE, an organization dedicated to ending the oppression of fat people and creating vibrant fat queer culture. They have a 13-year history of training and teaching martial arts and have worked many years with the Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) as a youth educator, anti-violence activist, and crisis intervention worker. This experience has lent to their understanding of healing as a mind / body / spirit construct that includes support for individuals as well as radical responses to the institutional oppression we face as communities. EMILY J. KRAMER is a yoga teacher and collective member at Third Root, where the crossroads of her work as a movement professional, social justice activist and spiritual seeker joyfully meet. In her classes, Emily invites us to pay attention to subtleties of our sensation and alignment in order to create space internally, making way for healing and discovery. She encourages students always to honor their own bodies and beings, while valuing the community aspect of the space. She has specialized training in anatomy, backcare, anxiety/depression, addiction, trauma-sensitivity, and yoga for young people. She studied with Off the Mat, Into the World, Alison West at Yoga Union, SchoolYoga Institute, Street Yoga, Bent on Learning, Leslie Kaminoff / the Breathing Project, Jyll Hubbard-Salk, Elena Brower, Larry Yang and many inspired teachers on this path. In 2009, she created Spirit Boxing, a workshop that combines her experience as a former amateur boxer and yogini, to serve women, youth, and queer / trans community. She has also facilitated movement and outdoor education programming with young people ages 6 – 15 since 2006. She has collaborated with Girls for Gender Equity and the Center for Anti-violence Education, and has taught through Bent on Learning, Safe Horizon, Kripalu, Columbia and Cornell Universities. REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE You can see Third Root’s space access statement at bottom of their website, www.thirdroot.org Bending Toward Justice: recommended social justice training for yoga teachers   JOIN THE COMMUNITY Check out the incredible guests and topics we'll be featuring coming up and sign up for the email list to hear when new episodes drop at www.healingjustice.org Follow us on Instagram @healingjustice, like Healing Justice Podcast on Facebook, and tweet at us @hjpodcast on Twitter We pay for all costs out-of-pocket and this podcast is 100% volunteer-run. Help us cover our costs by becoming a sponsor at patreon.com/healingjustice   THANK YOU This podcast is mixed and produced by Zach Meyer at the COALROOM, and this episode was generously edited by the talented Yoshi Fields. Intro and closing music gifted by Danny O’Brien All visuals contributed by Josiah Werning

  In this episode, I spoke with Brian Caswell from the Art of Acupuncture in St Pete, Florida... Winner of 2016 & 2017 “Best Acupuncturist” in Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay Awards. The lineage that he comes from is of Jeffrey Yuen, 88th generation Daoist priest of the Jade Purity School, Lao Tzu sect. He studied at Daoist Traditions in Asheville, NC which is a Classical Chinese medical school Classical Chinese medicine explains why points and channels in Traditional Chinese medicine work and where they come from. We discussed elements of Chinese medicine and healing the body, mind, and spirit. Brian explains: "I strive to blend Eastern medicine and philosophy with Western science. What does “blending” mean? One of my teachers answers this question wonderfully. Master Jeffrey Yuen, an 88th generation Daoist priest, introduced me to the concept of the “three treasures.” In order to achieve optimal health for every individual, the body, mind, and spirit must find unity. Through copious training, regular research and study and individualized assessment, I apply this “three treasures” concept with all of my patients--and throughout all of my life. Each patient is approached individually; no two patients will ever be treated or diagnosed the same. The uniqueness of our situation is the same as our fingerprints. Every person I meet with is special and continually evolving; your treatment should be the same! No situation is ever helpless. I thrive on treating conditions and diseases that other forms of medicine have given up on. I specialize in pain, depression, anxiety, mental-emotional conditions, weight loss, and autoimmune diseases. Have something different? I always welcome new challenges. " Brian Online: https://www.artofacu-stpete.com/brian-caswell-dom Eluv- http://www.eluvmusic.com    

In this brilliant episode we managed to cover a lot of ground with Ann Cecil Sterman – where we talked about dynamic pulse diagnosis, and how actively taking the pulse allows a practitioner to derive conclusions about how the organs are interacting with each other.We covered so much more than just dynamic pulse diagnosis. We got to hear about Ann's life mission, her passion and even how she plays in a professional orchestra from time to time.We also got into the nitty gritty on the “other channels” that are often forgotten about. Ann discusses how they are very powerful and an essential part of every acupuncturists toolkit that should be learned about and not be ignored.And of course the question of dosage for acupuncture – how often should we be giving acupuncture to our patients in order to get them an optimal outcome? And what to do if your treatment that should be working isn't working.Ann Cecil Sterman is a long time student of Dr Jeffrey Yuen, and has a busy practice in Manhattan New York where she focuses on treating chronic degenerative diseases. She has published 2 books: Advanced Acupuncture, A Clinic Manual, Protocols for the Sinew, Luo, Divergent and Eight Extraordinary Channels, and The Art of Pulse Diagnosis. Ann's teaching schedule can be found here.We'd love to hear your comments and feedback on this episode. Please drop by our Facebook page to let us know what you think on this topic!

What does your patient's heart rate tell you about their history of trauma? The types of qualities present in those with PTSD?Can you tell from the pulse what an aneurysm, prolapse or valve problems feel like on the pulse?What is the significance of an increase in the leathery pulse quality in today's society?In this episode we had an in depth discussion with Ross Rosen about so many aspects of pulse diagnosis of the Shen Hammer Pulse System.Ross early interest in Chinese philosophy, culture and martial arts led to the study of Chinese herbal medicine at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in New York City. He has dedicated years to the study of Contemporary Chinese Pulse Diagnosis (CCPD) and Contemporary Oriental Medicine and Chinese medical psychology is one of only a few practitioners who is certified practitioner and continues to receive hands on training with Dr Leon Hammer. Ross has also studied under Dr Jeffrey Yuen.Ross' clinic is located in Westfield, New Jersey. You can find details on his clinic at www.acupunctureandherbalmedicine.com and information about his upcoming seminars at rossrosen.comWe hope your ears and your own Shen can take the info from this episode to help your fingers to have a new understanding of your patients' pulses in clinic. We'd love to hear your favourite gem from this episode, please share it with us on our Facebook page.

Aired Wednesday, 12 October 2016, 2:00 PM ETToday’s Star is Luke AdlerLuke Adler’s goal is to help bring to light the systematic way we suppress our inner guidance and the physical effect of that suppression. He teaches how to reverse the disease process by looking within, learning to love what you discover, taking up daily meditation practice, and using breathwork to increase your ability to see life in all its nuanced beauty.About the Guest Luke AdlerLuke Adler, L.Ac. D.O.M., is a Board Certified Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist in the state of Oregon, and has received the highest level of national certification for Chinese Medicine. Luke is currently a doctoral fellow under renowned physician Dr. Jeffrey Yuen. Luke’s Ph.D studies are in classical Chinese medicine, with an emphasis in the esoteric energetics of acupuncture, herbology and ritual healing.Educated in California, Luke is trained as a primary health care provider of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture. His practice is holistically rooted in his ability to understand physiological pathology and make vital connections to emotional and spiritual blocks as part of an overall pattern of disharmony.In his book, Born to Heal, Luke uses the lens of ancient Chinese medicine, enhanced by exploration into his own consciousness and that the thousands of people he has served.His website is: https://lukeadlerhealing.com/

Dr. Beth Gineris holds three graduate degrees, in business, counseling, and Oriental medicine. She has spent twenty years as a psychotherapist, over fourteen years as a strategic management consultant, and eight years as an acupuncturist. Her vast and impressive education includes acupuncture, Oriental medicine, Jungian theory, Cognitive-behavioral therapy, Gestalt theory, Jeffrey Yuen, 5 element theory, energy re-balancing, and life coaching. She specializes in east-west mind/body/spirit integrated training to offer solutions-oriented life coaching, parenting skills, relationship development, and mindfulness techniques. This allows her to bring a unique blend of complementary methodologies and techniques into her practices with clients, and her writings. She is devoted to providing supportive, solution-focused teachings that allow people to live a more harmonious and happy life. She is the author of Turning NO to ON: The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness, and Turning Me to We: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness.

Health Chat with Kat with guest Dr. Beth Gineris Beth Gineris, MA, MBA, MSOM focuses her practice as a Medical Intuitive Life Coach and Mindfulness seminar trainer..  She specializes in using her east-west, spirit/mind/body integrated training and medical intuition to offer solutions focused Life Coaching, parenting skills training, relationship development and mindfulness focused treatment of many areas of spirit/mind/body imbalances.  Utilizing methods she has developed into models she calls Instinctive Health Medicine and Soul-utions Focused Life Coaching to return your whole system to balanced, harmonious living.   She focuses the work on developing your connection to your personal sensory guidance system so that you can proper and live harmoniously.  Her vast training includes acupuncture, Oriental medicine, Jeffrey Yuen,  Gestalt theory, Cognitive-behavioral theory, Jungian theory, 5 element theory, energy re-balancing, coaching, Meditation, yoga, mindfulness training, and micro-systems, group dynamics, team-building consulting

  Beth Gineris, MA, MBA, MSOM focuses her practice as a Medical Intuitive Life Coach and Mindfulness seminar trainer..  She specializes in using her east-west, spirit/mind/body integrated training and medical intuition to offer solutions focused Life Coaching, parenting skills training, relationship development and mindfulness focused treatment of many areas of spirit/mind/body imbalances.  Utilizing methods she has developed into models she calls Instinctive Health Medicine and Soul-utions Focused Life Coaching to return your whole system to balanced, harmonious living.   She focuses the work on developing your connection to your personal sensory guidance system so that you can proper and live harmoniously.  Her vast training includes acupuncture, Oriental medicine, Jeffrey Yuen,  Gestalt theory, Cognitive-behavioral theory, Jungian theory, 5 element theory, energy re-balancing, coaching, Meditation, yoga, mindfulness training, and micro-systems, group dynamics, team-building consulting www.youtube.com/watch  one minute youtube on dr beth gineris