Soma Flow

The Accidental Healer: When Purpose Finds You (with Aram Levendosky)

• Tabitha MacDonald • Episode 53

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when your greatest fear becomes your life's calling? For Aram Levendosky, a needle phobia nearly prevented him from discovering his gift as an acupuncturist. Through a series of "spiritual bitch slaps" (as we affectionately call those universal nudges), Aram found himself repeatedly guided toward Traditional Chinese Medicine until his own healing experience made the path undeniable.

This conversation takes us deep into the four foundational pillars of Chinese medicine that create true wellness: lifestyle alignment with nature's rhythms, therapeutic bodywork, mindful movement practices, and finally, acupuncture itself. Aram shares fascinating insights about cupping therapy's ancient global history, explaining how this powerful technique creates suction that lifts tissues rather than compressing them—offering unique benefits for circulation, adhesions, and toxin release. As someone who's practiced cupping for 15+ years, his expertise reveals why athletes and celebrities have embraced this ancient technique.

Perhaps most powerful is Aram's philosophy on healing: "Your health is in your own hands. You have the power to heal yourself." Unlike practitioners who create dependency, he sees his role as simply reminding the body how to restore its natural balance. We explore how meditation, qigong, and even beekeeping (yes, beekeeping!) provide therapeutic benefits through vibration and energy cultivation. The parallels between sound healing and the hum of a beehive offer a beautiful reminder of nature's inherent medicine.

For anyone struggling with chronic pain, stress, or the limitations of conventional healthcare, this episode offers practical wisdom from traditions that have stood the test of time. Discover why addressing energy blockages rather than just symptoms creates lasting relief, and how simple practices like proper hydration, focused movement, and mindful breathing can transform your wellbeing. Ready to reclaim your innat

Are you ready to feel supported on your healing journey?  The Soma Flow Library of Healing is now available.  With a powerful meditations, hypnosis sessions and Superconscious Recodes to restructure your unconscious patterns, this is a must have tool to your journey back to you.  

🎙️ Call to Action: Let the Journey Begin

If this story stirred something in you…

If you found yourself resonating with our lead character's journey — her council, her shadow, or her calling — I have a powerful invitation for you.

🌟 Step into your own aligned transformation by joining our private Facebook community:

The Conscious Creator Circle: How to Build Aligned Income with Digital Products

Drop your guess in the comments — but here’s the twist: you can only share your answer inside the group.

This is our sacred space for intuitive alignment, soulful strategy, and transformational support.

👉 Join here

💫 And don’t miss this…

🌀 James Wedmore’s free training series — Rise of the Digital CEO — is happening May 29th!

This is a must-attend event if you’re ready to scale your business in a soul-aligned way with intuitive strategy and purpose.

✨ When you register through my special link, you’ll get three full months of bonus support from me — including:

  • Live Intuitive Coaching
  • Group Strategy Sessions
  • Accountability and community inside our Conscious Creator Circle

It’s the perfect blend of structure and soul — just like all of our hero's learned to embr...

Speaker 1:

I am very excited to have a very special guest on the Soma Flow podcast today. His name is Aram Levandosky. He's an acupuncturist, a holistic healthcare practitioner and a dad who has been sticking people where it hurts for over 15 years. I should have put that after the acupuncturist, not the dad, but we'll talk about that. So today we're going to talk about the journey to following your soul's path and fatherhood in the modern world. Welcome, Aram, I'm very excited to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, tabitha. It's great to be here. I'm excited to be here, that's good.

Speaker 1:

Aram and I have a unique and special history.

Speaker 1:

Uh, we met at a, oh a senior fair at the YMCA in Sherwood, and I don't know if I've ever told you this, but you're the reason I started my business, soma Massage, and uh, no, I didn't know that oh, I'll have to tell you this really quick because we're going to talk about universal intervention on today's call too, and I was at a struggle point about whether or not to go back to corporate America or open Soma Massage, and you had referred someone to me and right at the moment I asked she called At the exact moment, her name was Julie, yeah, and she said I was referred to you by Aram and I would like to book a massage.

Speaker 2:

And I said, oh well, that was fast, because I had literally just thrown my hands in the air and was like I don't know what to do fairly introverted at the time and just putting myself out there because I was doing free ear acupuncture demonstrations to try to cultivate and you know, get my name out there as far as being a business owner in the area and cultivate some patients. So me being there was a real push for myself as well.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it because I won a free acupuncture appointment with you and then I got in a car accident like a week later, so it ended up being highly profitable, right? Because, like I mean, you know, mbas oh yeah yeah, and then it was amazing. So that was definitely flow is what I would call it Universal flow Most definitely, and now it's like 15 years later.

Speaker 2:

Right yeah, and we're still doing what we were doing. Yes, and we've grown in so many ways as well.

Speaker 1:

So many ways and let's talk about that because you didn't want to be an acupuncturist. Right, tell me the story, because I really want to hear how you became an acupuncturist, right, like, tell me the story, because I really want to hear how you became an acupuncturist.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's a fairly long story so I'll try to keep it short. But my parents raised me open to holistic medicine. They always had a wonderful garden so we ate a lot of vegetables and taught my parents especially my dad, taught us how to cook. He was a healer in his own right. He would practice touch for health on me and shiatsu on me growing up, and then he would have me practice on him. So I was interested in health from a very early age. So in high school we had to job shadow somebody in a career for two weeks. So we followed somebody around in their career and I was the last person to pick and there were two names on the list. One was a graphic designer and one was an acupuncturist, and at that time I was super needle phobic. I would feel faint if I had a blood draw or something like that. So I definitely didn't want to be with the acupuncturist. That was not at all who I wanted to be matched with.

Speaker 2:

So I chose to be with the graphic designer. I actually enjoyed art and I thought, well, maybe this would be something that I'm interested in. She was super busy and said I'm sorry, but I'm not able to take on, you know, an intern or somebody to follow me around for two weeks. So I was forced to be with this acupuncturist. His name was Dan Kenner. He's an incredible person. Unfortunately he passed away last year. He was one of the first Westerners to go train in Japan, and so he's a very interesting person. Obviously fluent in Japanese, he's written many books. He's also a naturopath, so he's a double licensed acupuncturist and a naturopath. So I was introduced to acupuncture through him. He had a home clinic and he was somebody who really walked the talk. He believed and believed in the medicine. It was his passion. So he ate an incredibly healthy diet, he exercised daily and he meditated regularly, and then he also had this holistic health practice.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing Cause. I love that you said that, because I think a lot of the time when we go like even when I walk into the doctor's office, which I don't go to very often but they look sick Like the people were and I'm like I don't feel like that. That doesn't inspire me. So I love that you said he walks the walk, because I think when you're looking for a practitioner you want someone who uses their own medicine, you know, Most definitely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so uses their own medicine. You know, most definitely. Yeah, um, so he was the first one. He said we're going to start with just doing one acupuncture point on you, and so he did this point here that most people know for a headache. It's called hagu or large intestine four. So he did that point on me with a thin japanese needle. I didn't feel faint, I didn't have excruciating pain like I was expecting from acupuncture. In fact, I started feeling really good, like my gosh. I feel like my circulation's opening up and I feel like something's going on in my body that I'm not used to. So I became more curious about it. I still at that time didn't think I wanted to be an acupuncturist because I still had some of that phobia. So okay, but I did get to be with him for two weeks and he later in my life became quite a mentor.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Yeah became quite a mentor, amazing. Yeah, I love it when the universe lays a foundation or a groundwork for something that's going to happen later in life, and then it makes sense later and it's like, oh, that's why that had to happen, so that that could happen.

Speaker 2:

Most definitely.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

He laid down a foundation that at first I was really resistant to, and then I ended up following in his footsteps in a way. So I ended up going to Japan as well and experiencing acupuncture there as well. I didn't train there in the same way, but I lived next door to an acupuncturist there and learned a lot from that fellow as well acupuncturist there and learned a lot from that fellow as well. So I just had so many different sort of reintroductions to it that it kept it kept kind of being in my background and saying, hey, this is something you should look at, and it's almost like it kind of slapped me in the face multiple times and say, hey, what are you doing? You should, you should be practicing this medicine as well.

Speaker 1:

I like to call that a spiritual bitch slap. I just gets a little bit. It gets a little bit louder when you don't listen and I and I didn't listen over and over.

Speaker 2:

So, uh, for for for a while, right, and then eventually, um, yeah, my own pain brought me back to the medicine, and that's that acupuncture and Chinese medicine is what cured my pain. And then, okay, there's really something here.

Speaker 1:

So, I you know it's funny when I was teaching massage full-time, almost everybody in massage school said I joined because a massage therapist helped me out of pain and I want to do the same for other people. And I think that that is like how a lot of healers come in to their gifts. It's not having lived a life that's painless, it's the pain that drove them into wanting to help other people experience the relief that they had.

Speaker 2:

So most definitely.

Speaker 1:

Tell me how you've expanded it now, because you do a lot more than just needles. Like, if you're talking to people who really didn't know anything about acupuncture, like what is it? How was the expansiveness of the holistic health approach?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Chinese medicine really is founded on four pillars, acupuncture being really the last thing that you're going to use as far as healing. So the first first is is lifestyle. So living a healthy lifestyle that engenders health. So living a healthy lifestyle that engenders health, so that's really the foundation. So there's diets included in that, herbs are included in that, and keeping your stress at a mild level, but also getting good sleep is really important to that.

Speaker 2:

In Chinese medicine they follow the seasons really closely. So eating seasonally, staying warm in winter and preserving one's energy in winter is really important, and starting to expand that in springtime and then fully expand your energy and being more active in summer, but then starting to bring that back in in fall um, so just following the natural cycles is really important. The next step is body work. So if there, if there's an imbalance in the body and what I mean by imbalance so chinese medicine is based on yin and yang um, so when one of one of them is out of balance or one of them is deficient, then we want to bring bring them back into balance. That's how, what creates homeostasis in the body and allows us to heal fully. So next we bring in body work if the lifestyle is a little out of balance, okay. So we do things like cupping or something called Twina or Shiatsu some different massage techniques that you know so much about and cupping therapy is a huge part of what I do. I work on about 80% of my patients with cupping Wow.

Speaker 1:

You taught it to me. You're the reason I introduced it at my clinic, because I enjoyed it. And then I think a lot of massage therapists have used cupping. Actually, I have these I'm cheating with these like little electronic cups that I keep on my desk in case I need it. But yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So many different practitioners are using cupping now. It's wonderful it's been revitalized. It used to be an incredible therapy that was used around the world. Every single continent in the world has a cupping tradition. It's not just from China. Africa has a cupping tradition, central South America, the Middle East. Europe has a tradition in cupping, so I have patients from all over the world who are really excited that I do cupping. I have a patient right now from Ukraine and she said my grandmother used to do cupping on me. I have a patient from Tunisia who said a very similar thing, and patients from Mexico and Central America who would say that healers down there would do cupping on them. So it's, it's an old world tradition that's getting revitalized. It moves the chi in the body, so our energy, and it also helps open circulation. So different from massage where you're putting pressure down on the body. It's pulling up on the body, so it's really good for adhesions in the muscle, for helping relieve those and also pulling toxins out of the body as well. It's an incredible therapy.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. When I first started working out this year, I bought those. They're like battery operated ones and I would sit in my like in my bed just going like, oh my god, everything hurts, because it had been a while since I was exercising for sure they were so helpful. They have been so helpful. Even on my road trip to California with my daughter, or Arizona. I used them in the car because I was like it's a long drive, so right, right.

Speaker 2:

Post-workout is an incredible therapy. Pulling out lactic acid, opening up joints that are stiff. Cupping is incredible for reducing pain.

Speaker 1:

So many athletes are using it today isn't that amazing how, like, everyone's circling back to just what works instead of getting okay, it's like no, this just works. Like it's been around for thousands of years because I don't know it's effective.

Speaker 2:

So like right, yeah, over 5 000 years for for chinese medicine, um, cupping therapy would go even farther than that. So tibet has a tradition of cupping. They use a metal bowl. In africa they use horns, so animal horns. The practitioner actually sucks the suction or creates the suction. Those traditions go. I don't even know how far back right, they're just thousands of years that's so.

Speaker 1:

That's like I just think that there is this massive movement of returning to more natural and holistic health, because I've heard this quote so often it's we don't have a health care system, we have a sick care system, and I think people are tired of it. Like I mean, I was just even with some of my older clients and I'm just I just educate them about hydration and they're like nobody told me this and I'm like no, you were the generation that grew up with marketing, so they actually profited on you drinking coke and milk. So, like you, your, your whole unconscious programming is embedded with sales. And so, yeah, I don't know, it's frustrating when I'm like getting someone to just drink water is like the biggest challenge and the biggest impact on their health, and it's fascinating that, like that's just not the, the basics that are handed out.

Speaker 2:

So most definitely and especially water. Right, we're almost 80 percent water and our whole neurological system, which is an electrical system, needs water to operate right yes yeah, it's interesting. Uh, yeah, it is. It is one of the difficult parts of what we do is educating us, especially when people have different ideas about things and and uh, yeah, yeah it's hard to undo what sales and marketing has done like mean.

Speaker 1:

For me, that's. My biggest challenge is like undoing the like lies that you know people have been sold to make money.

Speaker 2:

And then also those things become habits too, right. And how? How do they relearn a habit? And often they're an addictive habit too, if it's, if it's sodas, right.

Speaker 1:

It's all addiction. Yeah, if it's. If it's sodas right or um, it's all addiction yeah because it's just it. Yeah, it's addictive. Things make money, and so it makes me angry that our health is being compromised for capital gain.

Speaker 2:

But like that's, that's a whole nother topic, but I have a real quick piece on that. I mean, that's the whole thing. That's my whole. Goal is to help people so they don't have to keep coming in. It's not that it shouldn't be an addiction. It shouldn't be that you have to be reliant on a doctor or a drug to feel good. Your health is in your own hands. You have the power to heal yourself. I see my role as just there to remind you to get back into homeostasis so you can heal yourself. I see my role as just there to remind you to get back into homeostasis so you can heal yourself. I like to be out of the room when that healing is going on.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I couldn't agree more. That's why I give all my clients an app like with meditations to help them activate the healer that's already within them, because was like I don't want you to need me. I want you to know that, like I'm there if you, if you get in trouble, but like I want you to feel empowered to listen to your body so that you know what it needs and that's definitely that's my yeah, because we do have the ability to heal ourselves.

Speaker 1:

And, um, I don't think most people know that, or it's just that there's so much misinformation out there. It's really hard to know what you specifically need.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Because it's so many lies.

Speaker 2:

And the body is calling out to us. Just like we were talking about earlier of me being resistant to my own path, our body is telling us what it needs, right, if we learn to listen. There are certain points in the body, which we now call acupressure points, that call to us. Hey, I'm achy for a reason, so if you put pressure there, it's actually helping open the energy flow so that I can heal myself. So that's one of the things that I love about what I do is that it it is based on this system that is so integral I don't even know how to say it. But yeah, basically all you're having to do is access these points, stimulate these points, and it reminds the body how to heal, and I get out of the way, essentially, and the body's just doing the work. It's, it's, and it's more than the body. Obviously there's energy there and spirit involved as well.

Speaker 1:

Um which I love, because I think that in people think it's like um magic, it's like it's no, it's the wisdom of your body. It's we're just reminding it what it needs to do to function in the way that it was designed, and most of the people that I worked with just lost connection to that. They just either were never taught it or they just lost it somewhere because of stress or trauma or you know things that got in the way, and addictions as well.

Speaker 2:

So, but you know, yeah, and so many distractions and, and yeah, I think our current digital world distracts us from being present with ourselves too right, there's so many different things that do so much so and like I like walk around and I see all the forward head posture and I'm like, don't, doesn't the world realize?

Speaker 1:

that's like contributing to depression and anxiety in like a massive way because of where the head is sitting in space. Like it's like it's such an easy fix, but like everyone wants to chase a pill or something like that and it's like, well, maybe if your head was on right, like we wouldn't have anxiety running the show for teenagers, because their heads are always like in that cute up spot but always looking down, yeah and like it actually sends a chemical to the brain that triggers anxiety and depression and low self-esteem.

Speaker 1:

So our whole world is set up in a way that triggers the disease, that creates the medicine to sell it, and it's a loop that makes me frustrated.

Speaker 2:

So right, exactly, and, and so how do we get out of that?

Speaker 1:

um, and that's, that's that's what you and I are here to remind each other and others how to do right, and yeah, um it's funny because, you know, I was watching this documentary on twitter and in the, the downfall of twitter, basically what, what ruined it and it was. So there was this scene where they brought back the original ceo and he started telling his his employees you've got to drink lemon water with sea salt in the morning to activate your hydration. I tell this to all of my clients. I'm listening to him.

Speaker 2:

I drink this every morning. My patients the same thing, it's life.

Speaker 1:

And then he told them to meditate and the documentary spun it in a way where it was making him sound crazy. And I was what, and I'm like what, what? And the employees were like he had the audacity to come in and tell us we needed to drink this lemon water with salts in the morning. And I was like, because he cares about you, what?

Speaker 1:

I mean, I don't want to talk about the politics of twitter or anything like that, but they were angry that she had the audacity to tell them to meditate and to hydrate and I was like because it makes you more productive, it makes you more efficient. When you're not in a state of fight, flight or freeze, you can think more clearly, you have better ideas and strategies, you work better together, like you're in your parasympathetic nervous system, so you're actually able to heal, rest and digest it was so interesting that that was the thing that they were villainizing him about and I thought like because what?

Speaker 1:

what made? What made me think about? It was like how are we supposed to change a society? That, like, when even one of a ceo comes in and tells his staff that and then they're like, oh he's crazy, he wants us to hydrate and meditate, and I'm like like where do you begin shifting that culture to not thinking that's weird, but just that is normal, like yeah, I really think it comes down to to education and then people being aware of what happens when they, when they do feel good and they do get out in nature and they do meditate and they do drink lemon water and eat good food yeah and compare that, to contrast that to the stressful, you know, lifestyle that we're taught to lead on a daily basis.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's like if I've been listening to the WildFit program and he was saying Eric Meads, he's a really big advocate for the natural health movement. And he said count how many times you are advertised to to eat on the way to work. Just count. And it was like oh my gosh, especially with our phones, we are constantly being triggered into addictive behaviors, constantly, and I made me sad Cause I was like I started counting and I was like, oh my gosh, it's so many, it's so many.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, our attention is a superpower. Where we focus, where we concentrate, is incredibly powerful, and that's being that's being taken away from us, so we need to bring it back. Um, and that's that's how we can heal ourselves, that's how we can connect with one another. Is one-on-one attention with each other and others. Um, yeah, and nature um, super important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's very healing.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, but that really speaks to that first pillar of lifestyle. So I I didn't get to go over the next two pillars yet, so we, we, um that you got me all like oh, I got super excited. Um, so the third pillar is movement and the importance of movement right and how we can heal ourselves through movement. So in Chinese medicine they have something called Qigong, which just means qi work, so how to fill ourselves with qi, or vital force and energy.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about this for a minute because I have a lot of younger guys that come in and they have a lot of like trapped anger in their bodies and I always tell them like that's gonna kill you when you're older, so qigong. I always say, go do qigong, like it'll help you move that trapped emotion out of your body and it's extremely empowering yes, qigong is an ancient movement art from china.

Speaker 2:

Tai chi comes out of it. Right, where you have these, these longer forms? Qigong can be very short form, it can be a long form as well, um, but it opens the meridian, the chi flow in the meridians, and open circulation, but can help release emotions and rebalance us. Um and I, it truly is a self healing movement technique. I, I consider it movement meditation. You're bringing concentration and focus to movement and you're combining those two things, which is incredibly powerful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you think that would help with this kind of like modern issue with focus that we're experiencing now at a greater rate? Like adhd addd, you know those types of things. Do you think that would make?

Speaker 2:

most definitely. It makes you slow down, it gets you off your phone. Uh, hopefully you're, you know. I mean, hopefully you're not looking at your phone while you're doing qigong. I I recommend finding a real live teacher and doing it with a real live teacher. But the next best thing is if, if you have to go through Zoom or YouTube, sure, but try to practice on your own or in a group. It's incredibly empowering and, yes, it does fully cultivate concentration and help get us in one mindedness right Because you're, you're thinking about this movement.

Speaker 2:

You're doing, you're you're working on observing your breath, just like in meditation, but you're moving. You're moving and meditating at the same time.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I have this one where you go up on your toes and then pull your arms down and you exhale really fast. That I started doing while I'm making my coffee in the morning and it's like. It's such a great, energizing like way to get up and get your body just ready for the day.

Speaker 2:

For sure, I love it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I started doing a Qigong class on Mind, on mind valley, which is like a personal development program on my phone, but like I just used it because I've never had time to go find a there's an incredible teacher here in portland, leo.

Speaker 2:

She's a real master from china, her and her brother, leo dong um. I got to train with them and actually went with him to china, but they're incredible teachers, oh nice, are you still teaching qigong, or do? You um, I I'm not teaching no um teaching some meditation, but not qigong at this time oh, what kind of meditation.

Speaker 1:

Are you teaching?

Speaker 2:

um the tradition of the japanese, um it's full moon meditation, a particular meditation that I learned when I lived in japan oh nice are you doing?

Speaker 1:

do you do that online? Do you do that in person?

Speaker 2:

online. So through through, through zoom uh yeah, yeah, and it's mostly through my son's aikido dojo. So oh nice that community. But other people are welcome as well right now. Yeah, people from all over the country zooming in, which is fun. Yeah, that's so cool.

Speaker 1:

Maybe, if you have information I could share it.

Speaker 2:

For sure, I'm not the host, the Aikido teacher is.

Speaker 1:

But yeah yeah, yeah, very nice, I love it. It's funny, I used to think meditation was an excuse to take naps that people lied about. I didn't even let energy work in my clinic. I was like, nope, nope, we're not having any of that nonsense. And then I did it and my whole perspective changed. And then I did it and my whole perspective changed.

Speaker 1:

And now I meditate like a lot and I love it and I feel younger and more energetic and more vibrant. Even I always show people pictures of me from 10 years ago and I'm like I look younger now than I did 10 years ago and I haven't. It's because of the meditation and lifestyle changes, but mostly meditation that's amazing.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

I need to regulate my mind and be the be in charge of it so right. It's incredible for mental health and for general health, meditation is so powerful what is it if you had to explain it to a newbie who's never meditated and thinks it's dumb? What, how would you? How, what would be like what? The simplest way to explain why it's helpful, like why it's the number, maybe number three, two thing they should add into their day besides water.

Speaker 2:

Well, do you, do you want to experience inner peace Because it allows us to do that, or do you always want to feel stressed? I mean, it's, it's really there's a dichotomy, and I feel like meditation allows us to feel stressed. I mean, it's really there's a dichotomy, and I feel like meditation allows us to feel this inner peace and get in touch with ourself in a way that I don't know anything else that allows that. Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's funny Cause, like when I'm talking to my clients, I always say, like if I could get you meditating and hydrated, you probably wouldn't need me very often. And they say, oh, I've tried meditation, it doesn't work for me. I can't quiet my mind and I'm like oh you don't have to. I never have a quiet mind when I'm meditating.

Speaker 2:

I know that's part of the practice yeah, like my mind is amazing.

Speaker 1:

It is extremely creative and I love living up there.

Speaker 2:

So and sometimes your most creative ideas and inspirations will come to you in that state right so that's another piece of it is.

Speaker 1:

It's an incredible creative tool, creativity tool oh yeah, and so I think it's a way of activating your intuition, like and definitely like to get to know what is right for your body. Like since I started using meditation for my health and and using it like my intuition to tell me what I need, I haven't succumbed to like the industry sales pitches for my body. Again it's like Nope, you just need to follow this and this, and that's how you're going to hit your goals.

Speaker 1:

And did the inner work to release the baggage around health, but that was my journey. So yeah, so like, when I talk about meditation, I'm always like you don't have to have a quiet mind. In fact, you might have a really noisy mind and that's actually not a bad thing.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, I'll tell a story about. So you know my history about living in Japan. I lived in a Buddhist monastery for three years there, and so when I first started meditating, we had to sit in the training period. So there was a year of training, intense training, where we meditated nine hours a day.

Speaker 1:

Wow, wow.

Speaker 2:

So those that first two weeks to a month of sitting for nine hours a day. And it's not a Zen practice where you're trying to empty your mind. You're doing some rituals, you're doing some mantras, you're sitting with certain hand, mudras or postures and you're and you're doing some chanting, but when you're first doing that, your mind is so busy it's like you're getting to sit with yourself and look back at everything you've done in your life, right? So you're flooded with memories. You're flooded with oh wow, look how I did this in my life, this experience, and look how I could have done it differently.

Speaker 2:

So that first month was a very busy mind time, but then it starts kind of calming. It's like waves, right, there's first, there's all these waves coming in, and then it starts oh, there's less and less waves and I can really focus on each wave or each thought or each memory, whatever's coming up, and then it starts to become more and more placid and calm and there is a place where there is a quiet place. That's just pure focus, just pure concentration, where you can go anywhere you want and you're not being controlled by these memories or you're not having these things come up as much. But that takes immense amount of practice. So to say that I don't know how to meditate or that I can't meditate nobody's no, there's, nobody is is a professional at it. It's just a practice, just like. Just like practicing basketball You're not going to make every shot. You have to keep shooting Right.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's going to look different for everybody, based on what their need is. Like I had someone email text me this morning with a emergency, like pain thing and I can't get in today, but I'll send you my app and just go listen to the pain meditation. It'll help at least decrease it or give you the solution, because your body will tell you what it needs. So like I was like until I can get you into tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

So like they're all different for different reasons and exactly everyone's experience should be different, like if it's all the same, then that's.

Speaker 2:

I think that's not right, but, like you know, it should all be different and unique for sure, and there's so many different meditations that can help us in so many different ways too right, and there's no right or wrong path or way to practice.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, it is like there is. Yeah, there is no wrong way to meditate. It's just like you know what you need. So that's why I like recording them now, because I have a lot of fun with working with the divine feminine goddesses.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 1:

Have you listened to any of them?

Speaker 2:

I haven't listened to any of them. You gave me that awesome meditation that I listened to about cleaning your cottage, and I think that's a really powerful meditation.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I think, for healers, especially like people who work in healing arts, we deal with people who are in so much trauma and pain that, because pain is traumatizing in and of itself, and then you know, we have to be able to clear that their energy from our field at the end of the day, otherwise it makes us sick. So that was what I found for myself especially was that, you know, working in with pain for a long time, I started getting sick and I didn't know what was mine or what was other people's anymore and I just felt like garbage.

Speaker 2:

so right, and that's part of, yeah, a good education. Training for healers, I think should include those techniques at how not to hold on to our patients stuff, right, and how, how to how to do that self-care stuff. So we're not holding their stuff but we're there for them, you know, listening and and helping in the ways that we can, but not holding at all Right.

Speaker 1:

That is, I think, probably the most important thing they should be teaching in school For people who are going into the field. It's how to not take on their stuff but like how to let it go at the end of the day. Because I hear horrific stories and I can hold space for people and I don't get in it with them anymore right right same you have to right most definitely people.

Speaker 2:

You know we're like counselors. People are opening up in ways that and telling us things that they haven't talked about before and you know, usually it's often it's a very sad story, right. Yeah, and and I think, yeah, we, we see so much burnout um with health practitioners. This is one of the things that leads to it is carrying the burden of our, of uh, that the patient's suffering, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I mean it's to me, I think probably, if you want, cause people always ask like cause the massage therapist average career is less than five years and it's because they usually destroy their body, because they're not working smart enough, they're not working in alignment with what their body needs, they don't have boundaries with their clients Like this total lack of education around self-care with their clients like this total lack of education around self-care. Um, and it's sad because it's such a wonderful profession that lacks the people in it, because they burn out too quickly right, and acupuncture too.

Speaker 1:

Only 35 percent of acupuncturists make it um that's a long education to have only 35 make it three plus year education, three to six year education, and wow, I didn't know that was true for acupuncture as well.

Speaker 2:

For sure, yeah, quite a few of us yeah don't make it through. So it's yeah, that piece is so important.

Speaker 1:

Self-care yeah, that, um, how do you do it? How do you prioritize your self-care? I've I've just decided that we're gonna have two, two episodes. We're gonna do a separate one on the fatherhood thing. Okay, we're gonna post this one sooner, because I was like I didn't realize we'd have so much to talk to about. So if that's okay with you, we'll do.

Speaker 2:

I would like to do the one on another episode.

Speaker 2:

Okay, good, so tell me about how you, how, what your self-care routine looks like and how that benefits your patients and you and your family, right, so I can't give if my cup's not full, right, so, um, so I realized that at a fairly early time in my practice, and so what I do is so, yeah, I, I, I practice forms of qigong, I practice meditation, I practice, I exercise regularly, like three to five days a week. I exercise, I garden. Garden is one of the biggest grounding healing things for me. I'm just being in touch with the earth and growing things. Um, I'm a beekeeper, so being around my bees, I find you are.

Speaker 1:

How did I not know this? Okay, I did not know.

Speaker 2:

I've been a beekeeper for 10 years now.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I got into my bees on Sunday. I have two hives now. I split one of my I had a big hive that overwintered this year and then split it into two. My bees help heal me. So the vibration that they make, the humming that they make and the smell of the honey and the propolis is this incredibly therapeutic thing just for me to be around them. Incredibly therapeutic thing just for me to be around them. So I, in the mornings, I'll often go and sing to them a little bit and then they sort of I know this sounds weird it does not sound weird to me you know me this does not sound weird to me, um I have weird things in my life all of the time.

Speaker 2:

This does not sound weird bees are important to obviously pollinating our plants like 60 of the fruits and vegetables we eat are pollinated by them. But not only are they important to that, but they're they're vibrating on a level, they're they're so interconnected. I learned so much from them. Um, in in Eastern Europe, they have bee therapy houses, so they put beehives in like a sauna house, so the bees don't have access to you, to you inside the house, they're just slid in under the seats. Um, and the vibration and the smell they've found in eastern europe, places like poland, uh, have been shown to be incredibly healing for for people, um, especially with depression and stress.

Speaker 1:

Um, so, was it because they're flapping and they're like literally clearing energy, as they're like their energy is like just changing the vibrational frequency around you?

Speaker 2:

Probably. I don't know how it works. I just know that when I spend time with my bees, it's like going to a sound bath, it's like my vibration has changed. It's like my vibration has changed. It's like listening to really good music, but also you're getting an endorphin rush. There's really incredible aromas that they make from the honey and the propolis as well.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing. No, I think that's so cool. I'm like, wow, that is because so many people are afraid of bees. But I remember like just even thinking about, like the meaning of like certain things, like there's, you know, like in the shamanism there's a little meanings behind bees.

Speaker 1:

They're not like a bad omen at all, they're actually like, um, I think it was when I keep, when I always pull the b card, it's always like where are you being in busy work, instead of intuition, like it's like work but there's more, like they have so many lessons to teach us, especially about like um the hive and like working together and that connectedness and how, when people are working, you know, as in a unison, it's not a bad thing, um, that it's actually for the greater good when it's for the greater good of the divine feminine too, to roll it back to you, because it's the queen who rules.

Speaker 2:

The rules the hive oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

So I was just, we were just talking about this before I got on and I I was saying I have a passion for helping women understand their role in keeping their families together, because it's they're. They're not doing it in a way that's serving their families and it's not their fault. They've been sold a lie about a lot of things, um and, but we could talk about that in another episode but like that is that is for me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because I'm like we are so much more responsible for whether or not our families stay together. Um, then, we know, and it's not what we've been told.

Speaker 2:

So right, so we can take lots of lessons from queen bees in general.

Speaker 1:

I love this.

Speaker 2:

I had no idea, yeah, so the healing properties of honey, propolis, pollen, all those things. There's one other thing that bees are incredible healers at and that's called apotherapy. So some acupuncturists use bees on acupressure points, use the stings so that the histamine that's released into the body makes our immune system respond. So if there's a sore shoulder that somebody has arthritis in, if you sting that area, then there's inflammation caused, caused right from the histamine being released. If they're not allergic to bees first, of course, then your immune system has to go meet that that toxin that's been released into your body and thereby heals it. It's only almost like a homeopathic dose of some sort of toxin that you're injecting into your body. Acupuncture works the same exact way, by the way, where we're doing a micro attack on the body. So our immune system has to go meet it.

Speaker 1:

Well that makes total sense to me, because what I've seen with people who have a trauma, a body trauma, is their brain just dissociates from that section, like where we go in and reactivate it. And sometimes I'll go in and like test and I'm like your brain doesn't even register that this foot is here. That's the problem, right. So that makes total sense to me. Like I just don't use bees, I use pressure points or like exactly.

Speaker 2:

I don't use bees either. I've had some practitioners from eastern europe ask me to, or some patients ask me to um. There are practitioners in asia who who just use bees um, or acupuncture um that's so cool it's.

Speaker 1:

It's a thing, check it out don't think I could convince my daughter because if there's to be anywhere near her she's freaking out and like screaming off. But I think that's amazing. I love that.

Speaker 2:

So going back to self-care, that's one of my things I do. I love being in water, so water is incredibly healing for me. It feels like home for me. So if I can swim, oh, um, if I can do things like sauna, um and cold plunge, um, or hot springs, that's incredibly healing for me. So I I make a point of scheduling throughout the year, different times, that I'm doing that. In fact, next Friday I'm doing some sauna and cold plunge. So yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I, I keep trying, but there's just no way I can convince my body that cold plunging is good for it.

Speaker 2:

I, I, I, I, I believe in challenging ourselves right Like pushing our boundaries and our comfort zones, and for me, I get this incredible endorphin release from it and it helps, yeah, my self-care.

Speaker 1:

I believe that I know that there's benefits to it and I'm I'm working up towards it. Sometimes I'll get in the shower in the morning after the gym and I'll go in and it's cold and I'm like I like it, I'll breathe through it and I'm like, okay, you're not gonna die, it's fine. But yeah, that's the.

Speaker 1:

That's one of the harder ones for me, I think it's hard, it's really hard um, well, because you also are, like um a business owner, like you're in your business. You're very active in our networking group, which is awesome. Um what, like what if you were? Just because we're going to go ahead and um wrap up soon so that I honor our time. Um, if you were to, let's do this instead. If you were to, to convince someone who's like I don't want to go get acupuncture because it would hurt, like I'm afraid of needles and all of the things.

Speaker 1:

What is the, the number one thing that could benefit them, like if they're struggling with something like what is one of the things that you treat most often with great success that, like other, maybe more traditional paths, don't don't even touch at the level that acupuncture can um, well, um, I think other modalities touch it as well, but, um, definitely for some pain.

Speaker 2:

That's um for, for for pain. It can help release pain in incredible ways. Um, but yeah, instead of just one, that's also stress, because it releases endorphins in the body. Um, it helps calm and relax us, so it can help reduce pain through those endorphins being released and through that circulation being opened up. Um, but it also for stress.

Speaker 1:

It's an incredible therapy well, stress creates pain, like the two are not separate, and like there's a book that was just written by. It's called the way out, and it's this neuroscientist who's educating people about the addictive patterns to pain in their brain and how it's really difficult to get out of pain once you've been in it for three months, because now the brain has an addictive strategy of creating more pain and it doesn't know how to get out of it and so things like acupuncture, I think are great for helping break that pattern in the body.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, that's huge in treating pain and also like the obviously the you know hands-on pieces of like releasing the actual pain triggers and things like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. The theory in Chinese medicine is where there's pain or stress, there's a blockage of the flow of energy. So that's why we have these meridian systems. There's 12 main meridians that go across the body and we select different acupressure points to open up the flow. So if you think of a dam on a river that the water is not flowing through, it's blocked. Think of a dam on a river that the water's not flowing through, it's blocked. Um, there's going to be some pain points downstream where they're not getting enough water. So to reopen that up, then you have less pain, it's. It's that's what we do with acupuncture cupping therapy very effective it's.

Speaker 1:

I think it's very effective. I mean, I used it, obviously when I was in a car accident. I saw you twice a week, so it was, I think, and actually I was um telling Chris yesterday when we're at the meeting that um, that I think is one of the things that got me through one of the hardest years of my life, because my marriage was falling apart at the same time and I was in massage school and it was like it. I think that the car accident, although horrible, was a little bit of a blessing, because I got like two acupuncture appointments a week and two massages a week and it helped keep me out of that like complete, you know, mental breakdown from you know, having something big like that happen in your life definitely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, some interesting how sometimes an injury can be a healing opportunity, right yeah, I would have never gotten that kind of care for myself through my divorce, like that, like I wouldn't have made the time for that, right, because who has time for that? But, um, because I was in my uh car accident and I knew I needed my body to work because I was in massage school, uh, I was like I don't have a choice, like I, I have to to prioritize it. And it was being paid for because in oregon we get, you know that covered under our auto insurance, which is amazing. Um, but yeah, so this was so much fun and we can talk for hours.

Speaker 1:

I was like okay, well, you're gonna be a regular guest.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, well, I hope I didn't go off on too many tangents, so I really like spending time together and talking together, so I really appreciate you, tabitha oh, I appreciate you too and, like the, just the influence you've had on my life over the years has been amazing.

Speaker 1:

And at bni, which is our, like the networking group that erin and I go to to support our, you know, local small businesses, um, everyone stands up every week in testimony to you in a way that is with so much respect for what you give them and freedom in their body that it may. It makes me so proud to like know that, like we have such an amazing human in in our chapter. Obviously that is so passionate about helping people feel good and that's like such a calling right.

Speaker 2:

That's very kind of you. And it's not just one amazing human in the chapter. We have an amazing group of humans. That's what's so beautiful about this group right now is it's such a dynamic group of amazing people right now, and you being one of them, so I really, really love everything you bring to the world as well. Um, you've helped teach me how to be a better person in this world.

Speaker 1:

You're an inspiration, so thank you thank you, that's really kind all right. Well, um, I'm gonna go ahead and close off. I'm gonna put a link to your, your website, if anyone's interested in booking with you. Just to say it out loud, because they're just listening along. How do people find you? How do they book an appointment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just booking through my website is the easiest way wwwaomhealthcom. There's a little book now button. That's the best way to book an appointment. If you have questions, you can write emails there as well.

Speaker 1:

And you work with insurance right.

Speaker 2:

Is that right? I do so. Most Oregon insurance companies, the bigger insurance companies I'm in network with, most definitely yeah.

Speaker 1:

Excellent and well. Thank you again. I'm so happy that we got to chat and I'm going to look forward to having you back for our Father's Day special, because I really want to get your take on parenting in the modern world and also to have you and your dad on, because you guys have such a beautiful connection that I just think it's really inspiring and I look forward to telling that story.

Speaker 2:

I look forward to it as well. So thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you everyone and we will see you next week.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Tabitha MacDonald

Host