The TLDR:

• ^{acu points to get you through this transitional phase}

• ^{my go-to drinks to cool internally}

• ^{the case for blow up pools}

• ^{products I love for stopping the ungodly itch of those damn ‘squitos.}

Maybe we can all agree, this summer has felt unrelentingly hot. I blame global warming, our economic and political lack of urgency about environmental stewardship, the dismantling of EPA protections, and local governments for failing to plant enough trees and other flora to provide canopy cover.

With little reprieve, especially on the Northeast side of Los Angeles, I’ve been relying on traditional and some non-traditional practices to stay cool. Sweat and irritability go hand in hand for me, and I am constantly looking for ways to beat the heat. (Sorry to my boyfriend who tries to hug me when I’m sweating & overstimulated by the heat rising within me & feel like I might crawl out of my skin.)

Living seasonally is a practice that requires constant refinement for the moment and body that is present. My personal practices have grown out of trial and error. Worry injures the earth element, so don’t worry about what works for others, learn what works for you. Here are my personal favorites that cool me down emotionally and physically, support the Earth Phase (Spleen and Stomach), the element of Late Summer, and help to ease me into the Metal Phase (autumn, Lung and Large Intestine).

Also, a little trick for dealing with those vicious mosquito bites that feel extra spicy this summer.

for your frame of reference

In East Asian Medicine, the Spleen and Stomach are our main digestive organs. Gu Qi (food qi) is received through the Spleen and transformed into the nutrients that drive our daily energy. The Stomach receives food and helps break down nutrients. We call this “rot and ripen” in TCM – gotta love TCM for its simplicity in complexity. Together, the Spleen and Stomach cultivate the “Root of Post-Natal Qi,” serving as the ongoing source of energy for our daily lives.

Spleen energy goes upward - think energy, clear focus, and lightness in the digestion. While the Stomach Qi goes down - think smooth flow of digestion, absorption of nutrients.

When the Qi is stagnant, stuck, or deficient, it tends to go in the opposite direction or not at all. This is why we say the Spleen is prone to dampness, bloating, brain fog, and the Stomach is prone to nausea, acid reflux, belching, and digestive upset.

Drinky drinks

If you follow any TCM thought, you know the Spleen and Stomach are anti-ice — a sentiment I can support. Ice is stagnating in nature. But! the Spleen and Stomach do love hydration and a little sweetness.

This past weekend we enjoyed our new blowup pool with friends (more on this later). My friend Jazzmine kindly gifted us this delicious syrup she made for drinks. Mixed with sparkling water (im a Loonen convert) – it’s heavenly. Ingredients in the caption below.

Alongside this, I regularly enjoy making my own electrolyte drinks to replenish and hydrate.

My go-to when I am in a rush: a squeeze of lemon or lime. We have a lime tree in our yard thats a prolific beauty so I reach for limes typically. With a pinch of Himalayan or Celtic Salt and a dash or honey or coconut water.

When I’m feeling like I have time on my side, I make a batch of

Cucumber, coconut water, honey, basil, lime, pinch of salt that lasts in the fridge for 2-3 days

I tend to measure with my heart, but this should get you headed in the right direction:

1 large cucumber

1 small coconut water (from costco)

A tbsp of honey

Handful of basil

8 limes (i like mine tart and will mix this blend with more water as needed)

4 cups of water

1-2 pinches of salt

Blend together in high speed blender, strain and enjoy!

** I typically drink this before/during and after a workout, walk, or on particularly hot days.

Farmers Market

The Spleen and Stomach are the embodiment of earth. The closer we can be to it, the better. With the uncertainty of food regulations and store-bought brands (even organic), this is the best time to move toward the Farmers market economy. As a longtime farmers market advocate, I’m happy to see more people participating in the conversation about how essential and affordable they are.

Wrote a wonderful Substack on the farmers market. She highlights the farmers market’s biggest PR problem: Read her Substack here!

Products

Mosquitoes LOVE my sweet sweet blood, Type O baddies unite. I know, no matter the blood type, I’m not alone here. This summer has felt unprecedentedly itchy. Anyway, while I solve how to keep them away - don’t worry, I follow all of the Instagram advice- I have some hacks to keep the itch away. In the wise words of my boyfriend, “this actually works”

Three products I choose from: Battle Balm, Manuka Oil and Tea Tree, and White Flower Oil. The great thing about these products is that they are multi-use.

White Flower oil is my summer girl. Commonly known as Pak Fah Yeow, it’s a blend of several essential oils, including eucalyptus and lavender. I use it on patients, my own aches & pains, stuffy nose, headaches, and bug bites!

I carry the little guy around with me, and it makes me feel elegant and prepared.

Battle Balm is Tiger Balm on steroids. I use this for muscle strains, low back pain, headaches, and, you guessed it, bug bites. I keep this at home at all times and reach for it year-round. A little goes a long way!

Manuka Oil and Tea Tree Oil is something I’ve been using for as long as I can remember. I use it on rogue pimples and on bug bites as they heal.

Water

Drink it, go in it, be near it. That’s it, that's the TLDR.

A couple of years ago, a few friends and I spent a weekend in Joshua Tree. They only had a hot tub, and it was unseasonably hot, so we picked up a blow-up pool and had the time of our lives. This summer, my partner and I, replicated the fun. We rent, so we can’t do any permanent water fixtures, so instead we headed to Dick’s and spent $50 on a blow-up pool. It has been the perfect addition to our summer fun.

You don’t need a blow-up pool or anything fancy, but I do recommend spending time near and in the water. I’ve also been swimming laps at my local community pool, which has felt freeing, cleansing, and a great way to get exercise in the heat.

For all things water read — one of my favorite Substack publications.

Qi Gong / Acupressure

The oldest literature on East Asian medicine advocates massaging and applying pressure to meridians and acu-points to stimulate the movement of Qi and help to ward off disease. Daily massage can guide Qi through the body to help with stuck or deficient areas.

A little tip on how to measure: 3 cun is equal to the width of 4 fingers (pointer, middle, index, & pinky), so just use your hands for an estimate of where the point is

There is no “correct” order, but I would recommend starting at the head

1. Large Intestine 20: Located at the space where the outer nostril meets the cheek (see first photo on the right side). Using your fingers or the tip of a gua sha tool — Place the tip of the middle finger over the forefinger and use the pad of the forefinger to rub and press 9 times.

   1. This is great for sinus headaches, congestion, and brain fog. This point is where the Large Intestine and the Stomach channel meet, making it a wonderful point for the transition from late summer to autumn.

2. Lung 1 and 2: Located in the hollow underneath the collarbone and 2 fingers’ width below the space where the collarbone meets the shoulder. Place your thumbs and forefingers on LU 1 and LU 2 and rotate the elbows 9 times in each direction.

   1. These are two very powerful points on the Lung Meridian. Stimulating LU 1 and LU 2 in this way activates the Lung Meridian. This is also where the Spleen and Lung Channels meet.

3. Stomach 40: Located 8 cun from the eye of the knee, 2 fingers’ width from the shin bone on the lateral (outside of the body) - either using your hands, a sculpting tool, or a Lanshin massager — rub the area 12-36 times.

   1. This point is great for brain fog, constipation, bloating, gas, general body heaviness, and a sluggish feeling - an all-star for this time of year

4. Spleen 3: Located on the inside edge of the big toe, in the little dip just behind the ball of the toe. Slide your finger from the side of the toe, and your finger will fall into it. Either use your hands, a sculpting tool, or a Lanshin massager to rub the area 12-36 times.

   1. This is a powerhouse point for digestion, brain fog, and general health and wellness.

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Admittedly, I love an iced coffee. Straight to TCM jail, I know. Never first thing in the morning and usually an espresso tonic, this is a simple expression of my joy. Joy, the emotion of the heart, is our free will in motion. It is the way out of a loop and into the present.

As a firm believer that your digestion intimately interacts with your joy. Pleasure is a driving principle in my food consumption.

One of the most common things I hear in practice is something along the lines of “I don't like (insert unlikable object), but I’ll eat it if I have to.” Ever the professional — looking askance, I let the statement always linger in the air until I say something like “and why would you HAVE to.”

Don’t you think not liking it, but doing it anyway, is exactly why we got here in the first place, babe?

That’s not to say food is purely for pleasure. But goddamnit, I will not spend one second scarfing down something that, from the moment it's in my mouth, my body rejects.

I speak this from a place of palate privilege. My strong disdain for food extends to roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, and certain animal proteins.

That is also not to say I digest everything I find pleasurable well.

But the truth is, if you don’t account for joy in your wellness practices, everything becomes an uphill battle.

As we move into Mid and Late summer, the energetics of food and nourishment change. Midsummer carries a surge of Yang — heat feels stifling, and the air becomes thick. Thick hot air (gross) brings with it overheating, mental sluggishness, and weird digestive shifts. If you’re currently in LA, we’re in this together.

Cooling around this time of year is less about blasting the A/C and drinking Iced drinks (admittedly, I do both in moderation) and more about consuming hydrating foods and preserving the yang we’ve built up for winter by staying cool midday. Yup, permission to nap midday.

The seasonal focus is on the intermingling of the Fire and Earth elements. The Heart, Small Intestine, Spleen and Stomach, respectively. The Heart, carried along by joy, meets with the Spleen in Late Summer to help bring us back to center. Guided by TCM food energetics, the goal of recipes and meals is to ease excess heat and clear inflammation, restore hydration and fluid balance, aid our detox organs and digestion, and calm the mind. All with the goal of renewing energy and clarity.

This balance is struck by focusing on foods that are naturally hydrating (think melons, cucumbers, and celery) alongside grounded, neutral foods (grains, sweet potatoes, and legumes). Foods are prepared by steaming and stewing rather than frying and baking, and the focus is on keeping meals simple.

My shopping list for summer is based on 3 simple questions:

1. Does it give me joy, or am I doing it because I think I have to?

2. Does it nourish or deplete me?

3. Is it seasonal? And if not, see questions 1 and 2 again.

Without further ado, here is my extensive grocery list for summer. Next week, Ill be back with a few of my favorite summer recipes.

Fire (Summer / Heart) — Emphasis for July

Flavor: Bitter | Color: Red | Cooling, hydrating foods to balance heat.

• Tomatoes

• Watermelon

• Strawberries

• Cherries

• Red bell peppers

• Beets

• Bitter melon

• Arugula or other bitter greens

• Red kidney or adzuki beans

• Hibiscus tea

• Dark chocolate (in moderation)

• Tofu

• White Fish or Salmon

Earth (Late Summer / Spleen-Stomach) — Emphasis for August

Flavor: Sweet (naturally, not sugary) | Color: Yellow/Orange | Grounding, easy-to-digest foods.

• Maitake mushrooms

• Adzuki beans

• Sweet corn

• Squash (summer and yellow varieties)

• Sweet potatoes

• Carrots

• Millet

• Oats

• Chicken

• Pumpkin

• Cantaloupe

• Peaches

• Honey

• Ginger

Wood (Spring / Liver) — Supporting Element

Flavor: Sour | Color: Green

• Leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard)

• Broccoli

• Green apples

• Lemons and limes

• Sprouts

• Fresh herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro)

Metal (Autumn / Lungs) — Supporting Element

Flavor: Pungent | Color: White

• Maitake

• White radish (daikon)

• Cauliflower

• Pears

• Almonds

• White beans

Water (Winter / Kidneys) — Supporting Element

Flavor: Salty | Color: Black/Dark Blue

• Black beans

• Black rice or wild rice

• Seaweed/kelp

• Mushrooms (shiitake, black fungus)

• Walnuts

• Blackberries

• Bone broth or miso (for umami/salty depth)

Pantry Staples (both months)

• Olive oil

• Sea salt

• Rice vinegar

• Soy sauce or tamari

• Brown rice

• Eggs

How to think about building meals

• Center meals on balancing Earth and Fire foods, complement meals with sides and spices from Wood, Metal, and Water elements

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↪ If you enjoyed reading this, please make sure to support by tapping the <3. Right now I provide this work completely free. The like helps more people find Earth 2 Everybody and let’s me know what is resonating and what is not. I love to hear from you as well so leave any questions or thoughts in the comments or DM me.

↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

Welcome back to part 2 of a four-part series on working with the Fire Element, the element of Summer. Recipes, movement, journal prompts, all in service of a summer spent resisting burnout and bypassing by getting deliberate, intentional, and participating in some prescribed joy.

Haven’t read part 1 yet? It’s all about expanding your visual field. Start there first.

The beauty of East Asian Medicine is that it’s a choose-your-own-adventure type of medicine. It’s acupuncture, it’s psychological well-being, it’s lifestyle, it’s movement, it’s nutrition. It is all of these things (and more) without being universally prescriptive advice.

This makes it a strange thing to package, sell, and post about. The medicine is meant to be one that lives alongside you, not flattened into a tidy little product or prescribed point.

Unfortunately, showing up on the internet today means monetizing what you know — instructions, how-tos, etc. Especially as a service provider, you’re almost forced into a public role that is meant to be personal.

There are, of course, public health measures that help keep people safe and healthy. But the advice we are often receiving en masse is personal health wrapped up under the guise of public health. The commodification of generalized advice is stealing our innate connection to personal self. Cutting ourselves off from our own internal understanding, dampening our intuition, and foregoing discernment to keep the mind and body obstructed.

Discernment between what is ours and what is not ours, this is the skill we lose when advice gets commodified, and the one East Asian Medicine asks us to recover. This is the action of the Small Intestine (the paired organ of the Heart), to separate the clear from the turbid. To get clear on where our capacity lies and to release what we do not have capacity for.

To be clear, this is not an invitation to shut off from the world around us, to turn a blind eye to tragedy, or to stay stuck in defeatism. This is quite the opposite.

Discernment is the precondition for healthy collective participation, not a replacement for it. Shifting toward integrity and listening to internal value systems can become the creative force that catalyzes change — personally and communally.

This capacity for discernment, for separating the clear from the turbid, has a home in the body. It lives in the Fire element, the element of summer. The Fire element, the element of summer, is the sun made manifest. Every living thing on earth depends on the sun's strength and steady rhythm, much like the body depends on the steady beating of the Heart, Fire's primary organ.

Considered the “emperor,”1 the heart sustains and gently supports life. When out of balance, blood circulation, consciousness, and emotional life are affected. Insomnia, anxiety, heart palpitations, or menstrual cycle issues can be an expression of the heart. The heart’s paired organ, the small intestine, sorts through nutrients, and when it is unable to do its job, abdominal pain, urinary issues, and bloating may arise.

The Fire element, unlike the four other elements, has four paired organs rather than two. The Pericardium, which acts as the Hearts protector, shields it from emotional and external shocks (its imbalance can manifest as chest tightness, guarding, or heightened emotional states); and the San Jiao (Triple Burner, no direct western correlate, but potentially fascia), regulates the body’s overall temperature and the movement of fluids and Qi through three “burners” spanning the torso — when disrupted, it can produce irregular temperature sensations, digestive disturbances, or a general sense of imbalance across the upper, middle, and lower body.

Together, these four organs reflect Fire’s dual nature: when balanced, they bring warmth, vitality, and emotional openness; when imbalanced, they tend to produce either excess heat (agitation, inflammation, insomnia) or insufficient fire (coldness, low spirit, poor circulation).

This is the cost of losing discernment: a body and a culture pulled toward one extreme or the other, with no internal compass steering away from the middle.

Working with the fire element is claiming your intention to work with your own personal sphere of consciousness as it relates to the greater part of the whole “Universe.” In essence, expanding your visual field.

Lonny Jarrett, author of Deepening Perspectives in Chinese Medicine, argues: Under the utility of fire, Oneness or the Universe or big C Consciousness or whatever you want to call it, is not a call to regressing to some earlier pre-individuated state, but rather something built with forward intersubjective intention, through self-realization as the catalyst.

That pull toward an earlier, pre-individuated state is personally very familiar. Our yearning to run away, live off the grid, and disconnect from what is happening around us is a nice thought. One I’ve had many times. But this does little for us collectively. Taking our collective yearning to change and evolve is language-dependent, built through dialogue and shared meaning-making.

A life well lived under the tenets of East Asian Medicine is one that is in balance for your life, at the moment you are in. Sometimes your capacity is greater, which means going all in to get over the hump. Sometimes it’s doing nothing, because you’ve been doing too much. But always, it’s with curiosity toward the version of yourself you’re met with in the moment.

This is what discernment looks like in practice: a fluid question asked again and again. Does this tendency suit me and benefit others? And if it does not, how can I change that?

Journal Prompts for the Fire Element

• Where have you outsourced discernment, your own read on what’s right for you, to someone else’s “universal” advice?

• What’s something you know is “not yours to carry” but you’ve been carrying anyway?

• When was the last time you felt your inner fire running hot (agitated, wired, overdoing it) versus running cold (flat, low, withdrawn)? What tipped it that way?

• What would it look like to bring integrity to a decision today?

• Where do you find yourself wanting to disconnect, run off-grid, or opt out? What is that yearning actually asking for?

• If self-realization isn’t something you find alone in silence, but something built through relationship and dialogue, with whom have you been building it lately? Who or what haven’t you let in?

• What is your capacity today, really? Not what you wish it was, not what you “should” have. What’s actually here in the body you are in?

• Where in your life are you sorting “clear from turbid” well? Where are you avoiding the sort altogether?

Until next time,

Gab

↪ If you enjoyed reading this, please make sure to support by clicking the like button. Right now I provide this work completely free. The like helps more people find Earth 2 Everybody and let’s me know what is resonating and what is not. I love to hear from you as well so leave any questions or thoughts in the comments or DM me.

↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

My acupuncturist hates summer. So does one of my best friends. In fact, I know a lot of people who hate summer. All for different reasons: obligation, sweating, sunshine (?)

Personally, I have a complicated relationship with summer. I hate sweating and, to my chagrin, I have the once-you-pop-the-sweat-don't-stop type of internal temperature regulation. The pressure that comes with summer is to either have ample time to be joyous and free, or to be busy and relaxed, or to be toned and well-vacationed. That all gives me anxiety. I get heart palpitations just thinking about what it means to “fill my time wisely.”

Wait…do I even like summer?

Yes, yes, definitely, especially now that I’ve learned to work with summer vs against it (a little foreshadowing).

I LOVE the sunshine and the heat on my body like a lizard (pre-overheating). I love that days are long enough to feel like you have time to relax and fit in the stuff you want to do. I love the smell of the air in the morning. And flexing the power of my volition as I navigate what to hold on to and what to let go of.

This is the tenet of the fire element. The power to use your free will. To hate summer or to love it, what you do with it is an expression of the heart.

In dysfunction, fire feels like an uncontrollable urgency. It requires you to seek instant gratification over integrity. It requires you to narrow your vision without tending to the periphery. Jenny Odell calls this “hard eyes.” The antidote to “hard eyes” is “soft eyes.” Soft eyes is a concept coined by Sally Swift in her book Centered Riding and is a central precept in various martial arts, like Aikido and Tai Chi Chuan.

The practice of soft eyes is about letting your eyes physically relax. Instead of hyperfocusing on one thing or detail, you allow that thing to be at the center of your gaze, while simultaneously taking in the largest possible expanse within your full field of vision

Taking in your entire visual field is what the fire element is trying to teach us.

How can we see beyond our own circumstance, beyond substitute gratifications, beyond our myopic view, and lead with integrity to liberate fire? I.e., shifting our attention from the hyper-personal and sometimes victimization that comes alongside it to become a catalyst for change that challenges the status quo and old functioning structures that may no longer work.

Over the next few articles, we will explore what it means to integrate the nature of the fire element into our lives. Not just for a more well-lived summer, but for a more whole future.

Integrating seasonal insights include:

• Dao Yin or seasonal Qi Gong exercises

• Clinical insight into the nature of the Heart & Small Intestine and the Pericardium & San Jiao (the organs of the fire element)

• Recipes for seasonal food therapy

• Journal prompts for utilizing the summer energetics to deepen your spiritual and manifestation practice.

For now, go out there and practice soft eyes. Let me know what you find when you expand your visual field.

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↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

↪ Sunday, May 17th in person workshop at Silver Lake Yoga. Workshop: Your menstrual cycle in east asian medicine: learn how to support your cycle with east asian medicine. Sign up at: larkacu.janeapp.com

When I think of all the things I want to accomplish, I always come back to the same truth: I’m fucking tired.

I sat down to write this post upwards of 5 times, and each time I just stared blankly at the page. Some of it was writer’s block, not knowing how to enter into what my point was. But most of it was just pure exhaustion. Between seeing complex cases in clinic, running a new business, keeping up with research and study, and life admin, I just didn’t have it in me to sit and think myself through something.

Having struggled with various forms of chronic disorders my entire life, starting with hypoglycemia at a young age, I am no stranger to bouts of chronic fatigue. As a kid, I was an athlete. I played soccer, basketball, swam, danced, and ran track. I was fast and I was good. And then, at age 10, I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia. My stamina took a dive, I gained a lot of weight, would vomit after any type of activity, and was often incredibly dizzy. This was the first time I was confronted with how I would have to move through the world differently.

Luckily, I no longer struggle with hypoglycemia, but I do struggle with many of the same symptoms, and I have an autoimmune disorder. Chronic fatigue, migraines, brain fog, ADHD, hypermobility, and general pain are things I manage daily.

And sometimes, I’m sure I’m not alone here, I just don’t want to fucking deal with it.

I’m lying in bed on my day off, clicking my jaw back into place. My body is doing what it always does: asking me to slow down, making itself impossible to ignore. And I’m struck, again, by how deeply capitalism has conditioned me to reject that signal, and how willingly I have.

Rejection for the sake of socialization, conventional ambition, and the exhausting desire to just fit in.

And yet I have hopes, dreams, goals. I’m multidimensional, baby!

Most of them orbit the same things: a better world, a simpler life, real community. The inconvenient truth is that those things often require conventional ambition and money. As it turns out, I am not someone who wants to live ascetically. I love beautiful things. I love to travel. I love living in California.

But I don’t want to pretend I have the energy to chase those things the way capitalism demands.

My work as an East Asian Medicine practitioner keeps pulling me back to the root question: am I actually taking care of the body I’m in, or am I taking care of the body capitalism can commodify?

In East Asian Medicine, spring is governed by the Wood element, the energy of vision, rising, and becoming. It’s the force that pushes a shoot through concrete. But Wood also teaches us that growth without roots is just strain. The liver and gallbladder, Wood’s organs, are responsible for the smooth flow of qi, and they are the first to seize up under chronic stress, suppressed emotion, and the pressure to perform.

So here, at the root, is what I’m actually practicing:

Frustration as information. The emotion of wood is anger. Frustration is anger that has nowhere to go. When you sit inside of your frustration, it becomes stagnant. Stagnation leads to more pain, more fatigue, more…anger. Utilize the energy you have for a short walk, fluttering your lips as you exhale, or by allowing yourself to feel angry. You’re allowed to feel angry.

Vision as guidance, not as a driving force. Spring energy plans, it pushes forward, and make things happen – under capitalism. But forced growth in depleted soil yields nothing. Use your vision to guide the decisions day to day. This looks like holding goals loosely, knowing where you want to go without punishing myself for not being there yet.

Movement as joy, not as a productive force. Stretching, walking, breathwork, slow movement. Wood energy lives in the tendons, it asks us to be pliable with ourselves. If you force a tendon to move in a way it could not, it would tear. What are the ways you can support gentle circulation to stay supple. Movement is maintenance for a well lived body.

Protecting sleep like it’s sacred. The liver replenishes its spirit through rest. Sleep and rest are not a form of laziness, they’re a way to create abundance and ground your spirit.

Eating in a way that doesn’t ask my body to perform. Warm, cooked foods. Fresh seasonal fruits. Bitter greens that support the liver. Food is fuel to live, but it’s also a form of care and joy. I made myself a simple chicken soup with fresh onion, cilantro, parmesan, and rice, cooked in bone broth, yesterday, and immediately felt more well-resourced. It doesn’t have to be extravagant. Do your meals leave you feeling resourced?

Letting things be unfinished. Wood element governs beginnings, not completions. Spring is about emergence, not about harvesting the fruits of your labor. Some things are still becoming, and that’s not failure. That’s just the season we are in.

Good news: according to TCM, this might actually be exactly what your body is supposed to be doing.

In traditional East Asian medicine, we use something called the organ clock, where each two-hour window corresponds to a different organ system. 1–3 PM belongs to the Small Intestine. Its biggest job is sorting the pure from the impure. I.e., what the body keeps versus what it lets go of.

physically, mentally, spiritually.

This is the time of day when the body sifts through the shit (quite literally, sorry) — separating the meaningful from the mundane, the useful insight from the noise.

trying to create a deeper relationship with your intuition & creativity. This is the moment

your body is not designed to be working at its most outward capacity at all moments. go inward, refine.

A short rest, a midday walk. Please…step away from the computer. anything that gives your system a moment of stillness. In that quiet, the Small Intestine can more easily distill the essential energy of the day and send that clarity back to the Heart.

The good news for all my work robots, 3-5 pm is the time for the Urinary Bladder. This is the perfect time for heads-down focus…if we give ourselves the space.

Spring is a wonderful time to practice this. Your yang needs a moment to rev up so it can crack the seed of potential wide open. This is your chance to extract the yang from the day.

So, if you find yourself fading around 2 PM, cool, you’re human! Your body is not failing you; you don’t have energy issues. It's communicating. Communicate back, give it space to feel safe, and sort things out.

xx Gab

↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

↪ March 18th @ 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, I am teaching a class on the archetypes of PCOS through the lens of East Asian Medicine on the Earth Body platform. $15 live class, recording will be sent for those who cannot attend live. Sign up and get more info here!

As a tried-and-true millennial, I’m no stranger to cleanses. The master cleanse had a chokehold on me for longer than I’d like to admit. The giddy delusion that a short 7-day detox could cure all that ails me and help me lose 10lbs? Without a single lifestyle change to support it. Sign me up! Spring has sprung, someone get the maple syrup and cayenne pepper, stat!

Fasting and detox methods have been used throughout centuries, within indigenous and religious cultures, for purification and spirituality. The detox culture capitalism thrives on is NOT that. The industry, I am speaking of course, is the one that thrives on social and bodily purity as a form of expressed patriarchy. Of course, detox programs have grown since the 1940’s when dear old Stanley Burroughs started marketing the master cleanse, promising to shrink us into the feeble, well-mannered people we ought to be.

Detox and cleanse programs are often marketed as the golden ticket to healing. They capitalize on the feeling of being sick and tired of being sick and tired – while rarely addressing what might actually be keeping you stuck in that cycle.

I.e. the constant promise of a quick fix, offered without any meaningful or measurable change in the habits, environments, and systems that shape your health and daily life. The cycle keeps on spinning.

To be clear and candid, I have tried, at various times in my life, for various reasons, to detox this bod.

But the majority of detox forward changes have left me with a burning butthole and starving irritability. I now prefer a much more moderate approach, which often leaves me feeling stronger and clearer-minded.

Supporting the natural processes of detox is oh SO boring and arduous, but imo it’s a more sustainable strategy to addressing your health. Which ultimately makes it more fun?

And don’t get me wrong, sometimes a detox can be helpful! I’m not going to say for whom, because that is person-dependent, but a detox or cleanse can certainly be a prescription for an ailment.

The most honorable thing about the body is that it is a well-intentioned, high-functioning machine. Sometimes, as machines do, it breaks or slows down. A betrayal on all fronts, we search for ways to smack the metaphorical side of the TV and beat it back from the fuzzy fringes to its clear, high-quality picture. Cool for maybe a quick fix, but if we continue in this cycle long enough, the machine will eventually break down completely.

Traditional medicine teaches us that living in these extremes makes us deficient or stagnant, and it’s a sure-fire way to make us sick.

Another cool thing about your body is that it already has a built-in detox system. It’s constantly processing and eliminating waste – primarily through digestion, bowel movements, and urination. Sometimes these functions need a little help, but you can usually do this without spending thousands of dollars. Fiber anyone?

In the clinic, one of the first things I work on with patients who have signs and symptoms of Estrogen dominance (PMS/PMDD) is their bowel movements. Usually, this includes: herbs, acupuncture, maybe some digestive enzymes, nutritional advice, and, most importantly, reminding the body that it is safe and well-resourced. This rarely, if ever, calls for extreme detox protocols.

Which brings us to Spring.

After the Winter season’s downloads, Spring asks us to make sense of what we have learned. Discernment between right and wrong. Separating what is for you, what is to be left behind. A cleansing of the brain closet.

Associated with the Wood element, Spring embodies the benevolence of a tree. It is life-affirming, communal, sturdy, and flexible. Why would we greet spring with the extreme of a detox? Is it not more gentle to give the body time to adapt and make changes that support the seasonal shift?

The organs of Spring are the Liver and Gallbladder, key to our natural detox processes from both a biomedical and East Asian medicine perspective. The Liver is in charge of the free flow of Qi, while the Gallbladder, considered an extraordinary organ, stores and excretes. Together, they represent our ability to move toward that which we desire — our vision.

The Liver opens to the eyes, encouraging us to envision our dreams and goals. The Gallbladder provides the decisiveness and drive to move toward them, while also helping keep us grounded in reality. But when we become carried away by fantasy — believing that a single thing will heal or transform everything, we risk becoming stuck, circling the same place rather than truly moving forward.

When we become stagnant, cyclical, or extreme, how can we remain benevolent toward ourselves? We can’t. We become caught between an excess of wanting and a deficiency of resources. Benevolence turns toward anger, and anger seeks control through brute force. Fascism and the patriarchy are the Wood that does not bend: pugnacious, unrooted, like a weed that strangles everything in its path.

I am here to remind you, the ugliest and most devastating thing you can do for your health is participate in fascism at any level. And the antidote to anger is kindness. Kindness toward yourself, your community, and the person walking too slowly across the crosswalk.

So, how can we bend like bamboo?

Better than detox, invite your friends over for a nourishing meal and laugh.

Don’t have the energy or the community for that right now?

One of the simplest ways is to move your body: go for long walks in nature and stretch in the morning sun. In winter, our Qi is stored deep in the body, replenishing itself. In spring, Qi rises to the surface. Our joints and ligaments loosen, and our Yang Qi returns, giving us more energy, pliability, and resilience.

I’ll leave you with my favorite springtime herbal decoction, and later this week I’ll share movement practices and recipes to support the body’s natural detox process.

Chrysanthemum and Lycium Fruit Tea to Soothe the Liver in Spring

This tea nourishes the liver blood, expels wind, and can cool down the body during warm spring days. It is composed of the following ingredients. This is a common tea enjoyed in China in the springtime, and people sip it throughout the day.

9-10 pieces Dried Lycium Fruit (枸杞子 Gou Qi Zi) or “Goji Berries” 7-8 dried Chrysanthemum Flowers (菊花 Ju Hua)
A pinch of Green Tea (if you avoid caffeine, you can do dandelion tea)

Pour boiling water over the herbs and let them steep for 10 minutes. Yields a large cup of tea. Double or triple the amounts to make a large pot. You can reuse the dregs throughout the day by just adding hot water to the top.

xx

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↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

↪ March 18th @ 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, I am teaching a class on the archetypes of PCOS through the lens of East Asian Medicine on the Earth Body platform. $15 live class, recording will be sent for those who cannot attend live. Sign up and get more info here!

I’ve struggled to come onto Substack and speak about the Lunar New Year, even though it’s deeply relevant to my work. This past year, in particular, has felt especially extractive of Chinese and East Asian culture. Watching white creators claim they’re “in their Chinese era,” aestheticizing traditions and symbols, only to then use them for personal gain, has been unsettling.

It’s even harder to witness, knowing how recently Chinese and East Asian communities were scapegoated and blamed for a global pandemic – facing racism, harassment, and violence. To see the same culture once treated with suspicion or hostility now repackaged as a trend, without accountability or acknowledgment, feels deeply dissonant.

Culturally, I don’t celebrate the Lunar New Year. I celebrate Rosh Hashanah and the Gregorian calendar New Year. I don’t necessarily jive with the New Year starting January 1st and am more aligned with the astrological calendar. The year starting at the onset of Aries season or the spring equinox seems to make the most sense to me.

As a physician and practitioner of East Asian Medicine, I consider the shifts in the seasonal nodes and the Chinese zodiac to be instrumental in understanding my clinical approach and patient education about their health.

There is also a lot of wisdom to be found in this year’s Chinese Zodiac on how to be in community effectively; after all, horses are not solitary animals.

All of the information I’m sharing today is rooted in the teachings and scholarship of Chinese and East Asian medical practitioners, scholars, creators, and knowledge keepers. My career exists because of their generations of study, practice, and preservation. I want to be clear: engaging with this medicine does not mean adopting another culture or claiming an identity that isn’t yours. You are not becoming Chinese by practicing these traditions.

There is a meaningful difference between appreciation and appropriation. Appreciation asks us to acknowledge origin, name our teachers, honor lineage, and stay in right relationship with the communities that have carried this knowledge forward. Appropriation erases context, centers ourselves, and treats culture as something to consume.

It is a profound gift to learn from what Chinese and East Asian communities have chosen to share. Our responsibility is to approach this work with humility, consistently give credit, continue learning about cultural roots, and ensure that participation does not silence, distort, or replace the voices of those to whom this tradition belongs.

Someone recently asked whether they needed to have regular acupuncture as part of their wellness routine. I get asked this a lot, and my answer is usually some form of “it depends.”

Actually, that’s probably my most common answer to anything anybody asks me about TCM. Forgive me, I like to keep a little mystery in the mix. But truthfully, I usually need more context before I can give a meaningful answer – god forbid I give in to brevity.

There is no such thing as TMI in my world. Constitution matters. Environment matters. Seasonality matters. You, as an individual, matter.

Classically, TCM was practiced as a preventative medicine. Preventing illness in communities is ingrained in our medicine. But sociocultural evolution drives our medicine forward. Since the advent of East Asian Medicine, society has continued to expand our approaches to health and healing – developing vaccines, implementing clean water filtration systems, building modern infrastructure, establishing preventative screening programs, and introducing additional modalities such as talk therapy.

These are all forms of preventative care. Preventative care also includes community, nutritional therapy, and lifestyle modifications.

For me, acupuncture will always be a part of my wellness routine. It keeps me in balance, helps me come back into my body, and gives me a good excuse to have a fun conversation with my acupuncturists. When something is out of balance, acupuncture, nutrition, and herbs are my go-to.

I’m also, not to brag, a chronic illness girlie, so I lean on these practices often.

And it's worth repeating: even if you know, acupuncture is just one branch of TCM.

• Acupuncture & Moxibustion

• Herbs

• Cupping

• Nutritional Therapy

• Energetic movement practices

• Tui na (bodywork)

• Gua Sha

Yes, your acupuncturists studied ALL of that, plus biomedicine.

Even if acupuncture isn’t part of your repertoire, that doesn’t mean you can’t practice (and probably do) the modalities within traditional East Asian Medicine.

Many people have discussed the Yang Fire Horse in a broad, big-picture perspective. Please read them! Here are my favs:

Generalized readings of the yang horse illuminate universal truths. Stay hydrated, move with intention, and use rest to fuel you. Over the course of the year, shadows will be unearthed, vigor fuels momentum, connection rekindles joy, and we all become a little more wild.

Think toddler energy – a little unhinged, but fun!, and curious. We have the potential to become completely feral (positive and negative!), to use momentum to seek a new way of being, or burn out ferociously. Without an outlet, a container, or a boundary, fire scorches whatever is in its path. Tending to our energy like a controlled burn clears space, regenerates the ground beneath us, and becomes profoundly generative.

How you decide to wield this energy depends on your constitution, environment, and personal capacity.

There are different ways to diagnose in TCM; for brevity (look mom I’m doing it!), I’ll go back to the basics – Qi, Blood, Yin, Yang.

Different organs, heat, cold, and damp will bring out specific symptoms. For instance, Spleen Qi deficiency will present with more digestive concerns, while Lung Qi deficiency will most likely show up with asthma and immune concerns. But that’s what your local acupuncturists are for! If you want to delve deeper, I HIGHLY recommend working with an acupuncturist who can help explain your specific diagnosis.

(I also want to stress that whenever I say yang, I am saying it like “YAWng” not “YAYng” and you should be too, a hill I will happily perish on)

With all that said, here is a general guide to help you navigate the complexities of being human. You may recognize yourself in several different categories; that’s perfectly normal. We are all complex. The challenge is to bring moderation to our approach.

In the next few weeks, I will delve deeper into these categories, get more into the nitty-gritty of each, and offer you nutritional therapy, recipes, meditations, and movement practices.

Qi Deficiency - chronic fatigue, weakness, sweating, low motivation

The world is about to move quickly, and you may feel like you’re not doing enough. You are. Use the momentum of the year to build routines that nourish the internal before external goals.

Qi Stagnation - irritability, feeling stuck, prone to constipation, generalized pain, mood swings, bloating, constantly gets sick

Move - physically, emotionally, spiritually. Use the generative energy to do things differently. This year, you may feel antsy to start but unable to get going. Where can you invite in space to get going?

Blood Deficiency - dizziness, fatigue, poor sleep, brittle hair, light or no menstrual cycle, blurred vision

Rest as a strategy. Fire consumes and dries blood. Your pace is not everybody else’s pace. Give yourself permission to do things at your own speed. Protect your nervous system, seek joy without overstimulation.

Yin Deficiency - night sweats, insomnia, anxiety, dryness, restlessness, hot flashes

Your immediate tendencies to juggle everything all at once won’t work this year. You will burn yourself out if you haven’t already. Meditation, alone time, and letting go of control will be your guiding force.

Yang Deficiency - cold limbs, low libido, fatigue, heavy limbs and edema, depression

Hey babe, its your year! You need this yang more than anybody. Take action. Build warmth and confidence, be gentle with yourself, but use the energy of the year to invite the warmth in.

That’s it for now!

xx

Gab

Subscribe now

↪ If you are looking for more in-person or virtual 1:1 support, you can learn more at Third Space Acupuncture.

↪ March 18th @ 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, I am teaching a class on the archetypes of PCOS through the lens of East Asian Medicine on the Earth Body platform. $15 live class, recording will be sent for those who cannot attend live. Sign up and get more info here!

February 3rd at 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, I am teaching a class on the archetypes of PCOS through the lens of East Asian Medicine on the Earth Body platform. $15 live class, recording will be sent for those who cannot attend live. Sign up and get more info here!

Community and preventative care were among the first concepts we learned in Traditional East Asian Medicine School. Our most formative text, the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic), written circa 500 B.C., states that the superior physician diagnoses and prevents illness before it arises. Physicians in the Warring States and the Han Dynasty traveled through their villages, being paid to keep people healthy. In fact, if somebody under their care fell ill, they would not receive payment until the person was healthy again.

In modern times, I often see patients at the end stage of their disorders, fed up with their biomedical care or seeking alternative solutions. Although the care of traditional physicians has shifted over time, I still see care as being both communal and preventive.

My job is to diagnose what has been separated. Heal and repair before it fractures completely. When Qi flows freely, there is harmony and well-being.

Qi is a metaphor for the rhythm of life. Qi cannot flow freely when external forces continuously suppress and disrupt it. No one can truly be well under fascism.

External environments serve internal environments, just as internal structures support the well-being of the community. True wellness requires systems and structures that allow all people to live with dignity and freedom. Relieving the body of disease is not done in isolation. Herd immunity. Teaching the body to return to itself, regulate its nervous system, and express the full range of emotions demands that we create the conditions under which humans can thrive.

It is so hard to take the time to take care of ourselves, and that is why we don’t have to do it in isolation.

One of the most powerful and easy things to do as a community member is to boycott and divest your money from big business. There are lists and Instagram posts aplenty that tell you which companies you should divest from and why.

Alternatives to big corp and private equity

I understand that sometimes we need things quickly or don’t have time to search for alternatives to big box stores. It's not to be perfect, perfection breeds disease, it's to the best you can and choose local, community-facing businesses as often as you can.

I suggest you take an hour or two to compile a list of local businesses that are alternatives to big box stores.

Here is my non-exhaustive list in Northeast Los Angeles:

• Baller Hardware

• DIY hardware

• Harbor Freights

• Costco is your best big box store option!

• Candid Home - https://candidhome.co/

• Counter Space - https://counter-space.com/

• Epicurus Gourmet - https://www.epicurusgourmet.com/

• Cookbook Market - https://www.cookbookla.com/

• Wine + Eggs - https://wineandeggs.com/

• Little Nelly - https://little-nelly.shop/

• Farmers Markets! - https://farmersmarketla.com/

  • Atwater Village farmers market forever

• Re-grocery - https://regrocery.co/

• Potluck Local - https://potlucklocal.com/

• Handy Market

• Remainders Creative Reuse - https://remainderspas.org/

Ways to move your rage

Rage is a perfectly healthy response to what is happening in our world. Letting it fester internally is what makes rage become an illness. Finding healthy outlets for your rage creates momentum and flow. Personally, I express my rage through community discussion and movement practices.

I just found out my favorite dance community from NYC is starting up in LA and I could not be more overjoyed. I cannot wait to create space with Moves Pure Joy !

And as always, you know iykyk - I’m a HUGE Range fan.

If you’re looking for more community and the best yoga teachers try - or Tejal Yoga

The folks at The Body Los Feliz are donating 50% of all revenue from select classes to support Immigrant Justice and Community Relief efforts:

Directly support your community with mutual aid:
Echo Park Vendor Support Fund - mutalaidechopark@gmail.com (zelle), use emojis to donate

Mutual Aid LA - https://mutualaidla.org/

Nourish LA - https://www.nourish.la/

LA Regional Food bank - https://www.lafoodbank.org/

Border Kindness - https://borderkindness.org/

International Institute of Los Angeles - https://iilosangeles.org/

Donate to LA Community Fridge in your area -

Books to read: Knowledge is one of the most powerful and potent ways to participate in society. Critical thinking and collective insight help to drive us forward as a community. Challenge your reading list, is it all white authors? Do you have any books by Disabled folks?

I recommend using Story Graph over Goodreads, as Goodreads is owned by Amazon. Download libby and listen or read, visit your local library, or purchase from locally owned book stores.

These are just some books that have shaped and reshaped the way I engage with the world. This list is definitely non-exhaustive.

• I pre-ordered Ericka Hart’s Nasty Work and I cannot wait to read it.

• Im currently reading Health Communism and am excited to share what I am learning.

• Women, Race, & Class - Angela Davis, this book absolutely changed the way I think and operate in the world.

• The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon

• Caste - Isabel Wilkerson

• Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens

• Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde

Ok, that’s it for now. There are many, many more organizations and mutual aid programs to help support vulnerable communities.

Anything to add to this list?

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Interested in experiencing acupuncture?

Visit my website for more info. I see patients in Los Angeles.

or e-mail me directly at gsacupunctureandherbs@gmail.com & tell me what ails you!

February 3rd at 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, I am teaching a class on the archetypes of PCOS through the lens of East Asian Medicine on the Earth Body platform. $15 live class, recording will be sent for those who cannot attend live. Sign up and get more info here!

HNY!

I hope you, like me, enjoyed the void between the holidays and the new year and are maintaining a slow roll into the year. If you, also like me, abandoned the long list of to-dos for long walks, binging on the couch, and delightful meals, you’re in good company.

This, my friends, is called nourishing your resources.

As a staunch supporter and practitioner of anti-hustle culture (I actually think I might be allergic to the word), this is the perfect time of year to practice your craft.

We are currently in the thick of the Water Phase (aka winter). Water, the earthly manifestation of the beginning and ending stage of the cycle of the Dao, dwells and benefits all living things. It is humble in its action and does not fear ditches and valleys. It seeks the cracks and is therefore close to the Dao.

The movement of the Dao, much like our cycle of life, is born and dies. There is something striking about a life that ends on or near its birthday, as if the Dao has come full circle, completing its cycle in perfect closure.

But morbidity can wait. Between birth and death, we tend to life. Living, although daunting and sometimes haunting, holds the promise of fulfillment. If only we tend toward our resources

In Parts 1 and 2, I discussed the virtue and emotion of Water. If you haven’t read those, I recommend them for a deeper understanding of the archetype of water and its extended metaphor.

It strikes me, over and over again, usually at the turn of the season, that my best and biggest mentor is nature. The practice of biomimicry teaches us to engage with the natural world with awe. Often, there is a deep desire to connect with our surroundings, yet little acknowledgment that it is not only acceptable, but natural, to engage differently as the seasons change.

Willow Defebaugh considers the cercopia moth, asking, “In the arc of this creature’s lifespace, what matters more? The nearly a year it spent in a silken womb, hidden, dissolving, and reforming? Or the mere days after it emerged, its short-lived flight through the night sky.”

Ultimately, this is the question of Winter. Am I only alive if I am participating in life in a specific way (i.e., productive, capitalist)?

To this, I say: capitalism hates that you have the same instincts as a moth, which is exactly why I am having a moth girl winter.

This is not to say don’t leave the house, which is enticing in its own way, tbh, but to reframe what it means to dissolve and reorient in human form.

Ultimately, that requires developing your winter curriculum.

Your Winter Curriculum

Personally, my curriculum involves learning (shock), making space for more alchemy, and preparing myself to participate more within the community – to begin rebuilding the structures that support all of us.

Daunting, sure thing! But that’s why I’m taking this time to resource!

One of the best ways to resource imo (and Chinese Medicine tenements) is to learn how to eat and move seasonally.

** First! It’s important to ask yourself, what nourishes and brings me joy? Am I doing this because I have to or because I want to? How do I feel after I do or eat this thing?

These answers are personal for all of us. But some winter guidelines help us to tend to and cultivate our inner resources more deliberately.

**Second, we must understand the dynamics of winter. It is not revolutionary for me to say that staying warm in winter is important. But would it blow your mind if I said, hot baths are better in the Summertime?

Gao Ling, a poet and medical scholar from the 16th century, states

• Wear padded winter clothes during the coldest time, but add them gradually and not all at once; stop increasing the layers just when you have added enough to not feel cold anymore. Do not warm yourself in front of a roaring fire, since this winter habit may bring about particularly harmful consequences. The hands and feet, namely, have an affinity to the heart network, and should therefore never be toasted over a fire. The fire may otherwise be enticed into the heart and create symptoms of restlessness. For the same reasons, avoid grilling food over an open fire.

No, we don’t live in 16th-century China, but the idea remains the same: extremes bad, balance good.

The first acupuncture point on the Kidney Channel, “Bubbling Well” (located at the bottom of the foot), connects with the frozen earth. Being barefoot, wearing thin socks, or improper footwear can allow cold to ascend the Kidney channel, affecting the groin, low back, and lower abdomen. Hence, why we say warming the feet warms the womb.

My partner (hi, Jack) can attest to my side-eyeing his bare feet in the winter. I have now shamed him into wearing socks or slippers around the house, and he recently admitted he doesn’t like the way the cold feels on his feet now. He also doesn’t complain of the sciatica he had when we first started dating. My work here is done!

During the winter, we are focused on nourishing our Yin (giving your body what it needs to feel nourished, cool in the summer, and deeply supported) and reserving our Yang (vibrance, exuberance, energy) for the days ahead. Exercise should be done later in the day when the sun is out and it is relatively warmer. And the exercise type should be adjusted. More walking, less HIIT. And remember, this is all relative.

Personally, I limit my exposure to HIIT at all costs, but especially in the Winter. I prefer slow weight lifting by candlelight or intentionally pilates-informed exercises (s/o Range Platform), with long walks or a swim when the weather permits.

Psychoemotional

Winter is the time to let the spirit rest, to find itself tucked in the silken cocoon of your thoughts and movement patterns. It’s about tending to what is important and what fits in the moment. Winter IS a great time to be in the beginning or refinement stages of…something!

When we are at the beginning, we don’t always need to share our every desire and expectation. Sometimes it is helpful to behave as if expectations have been met (manifestation 101). When we live in the extremes of constant expectation or chronic fear of moving forward, we risk burning through our Yang Qi. Sometimes the action is to wait.

And listen, I’m not saying to become a goblin who only exposes themselves to sunlight to reach for their DoorDash bag. What I am saying is it’s ok for your priorities to be different right now than they are in the summer.

Alas, we are not the droids the billionaires are looking for.

This is a wonderful time to be an observer, not the time for clarity or growth, but to cultivate trust in what is gestating unseen.

of Holisticism, in a timely fashion, is teaching us just how to begin this dance with observation. On her Substack, she is expanding our “surface area for synchronicities” and helping us to notice the magic we can attune ourselves to.

Attunement is the curriculum in winter.

To tussle with seasonal depression, expose yourself to as much sunlight as possible with mid-morning walks or Qi Gong. Meet up with friends, participate in a workshop that piques your curiosity. If you’re in LA, I highly recommend checking out, Scribble Community, Heavy Manners Library, and Silver Lake Reading Club.

If you can’t leave your house, spend time clearing out and cleaning your house. The subtle act of cracking a window once a day helps to circulate Qi throughout your house.

Stagnant Qi stagnates the mind.

Personally, I love having the windows open a smidge and burning cedar throughout the day to refresh the energy of my house. Especially on days when I am working from home. When I lived in Upstate New York, I would blast the heat and crack open the window a bit on particularly cold, snowy winter days, and it always felt like I was co-existing with my surroundings.

Flowers are an incredible way to address seasonal depression. Remember, most of us are absorbing information through all 5 senses. Scent and color are important. Bring a vase of Geraniums into your bedroom to combat insomnia. Or decorate throughout your home with winter flowers, like Plum Blossoms.

Foods for winter

The Water element is directly linked to the Kidney organs. Salty foods are said to nourish the kidneys. Salt consolidates Qi, blood, and body fluid.

Of course, everything in moderation. It is also important to balance salty foods with bitter foods that reduce inflammation and drain off excess heat.

Bitter foods are home to the Fire Elements (Heart/Small Intestine) and can therefore help keep the body and mind calm and grounded. This is especially important for those who experience over-taxation.

Think congee with bitter greens or daikon.

Your winter cure for bloating – daikon radish with tangerine peel (chen pi) soup. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that states, if you don’t want to see the doctor, eat radish in the winter and ginger in the summer. This is the sum of all that East Asian Medicine practices – balance is the key to health.

My favorite pear ginger tea is the perfect solution to a cough and nourishes your yin while warming the body.

There are whole lists online about which foods to eat from an East Asian Medicine perspective and when to eat them, so visit those for more ideas.

If cooking isn’t your thing, Cookma offers incredibly nourishing, minimal-effort meals. I recommend them to both my postpartum patients and those who are not postpartum. The meals are satisfying, flavorful, and deeply nourishing. They also make a thoughtful gift for postpartum friends.

I actually have a code which gets you 20% off your order with my code: gsacupuncture

Some of my personal curriculum

I’m curious by nature (nosy), and I love to see what others are reading, how they do their tasks, and how they make their money. So, I thought I would share a bit about what I am up to this winter…

In October 2025, I quit my Acupuncture job at a VC-funded health care start-up to start my own practice. It has been a slow rollout, mostly my choice as I navigate exactly what I want my career to look like. And, come out of a year-long burnout from 3 years of seeing 15 patients a day in a 6 hr period. Most of what I am tending to is building my patient base, as I worked on the west side previously and opened my practice in Northeast LA. In some sense, it meant starting over, not from scratch, but in a way.

The burnout from my job flared up my autoimmune disorders, so it has been a lot of nourishing myself back to health already. So I will maintain that for winter.

What that means to me:

Just an FYI - This is very “I” heavy and reads a bit more like a journal entry and quite unedited.

• Notebook ecosystem

  • Building out my analog notebook ecosystem. I took to substack like a moth to a flame. As somebody who has ADHD, I’ve always had a plethora of note-taking systems and notebooks, most of which have been started and stopped over and over. My goal is to maintain my ecosystem as part of a system to aid my personal and professional projects. With a little internal pressure and a lot of figuring out what works for me, I’ve been diligently using my notebook ecosystem for about 3 weeks now. To me, this is a win.

• Cooking more!

  • Self-explanatory, but I LOVE cooking for myself and others. It is something that brings me full joy. For NYE, I spent 2 days cooking the most exquisite brisket for myself and some friends. Of course, it brought me immense joy when one friend later asked me for a recipe, and the other texted to tell me they were still talking about my brisket. To me, that was time well spent, and I plan to continue these types of things into winter (life).

• More Intentional movement:

  • I fell head over heels in love with movement on Range—and, of course, is an absolute gift of a human to learn from. As someone who is hypermobile, gets exercise-induced migraines, and navigates a handful of other complicated health issues, Range is the perfect platform for me.

    I grew up as an athlete, which means I still have very athlete-coded tendencies: I want to go fast and hard. That workout style no longer works for me—at all. Kara constantly brings us back to grounding into the body we actually live in, making each movement intentional and supportive of our human body, not some abstract ideal.

    And don’t get me wrong—we’re absolutely lifting (up to 25-lb weights if you choose) and sweating to ambient sound, so it still satisfies my reptilian brain. It’s just smarter, more sustainable, and infinitely more respectful of where my body is now.

• Reading and researching are second nature to me.

  • As an East Asian Medicine physician, research is deeply ingrained in my work—I’ve spent countless hours studying herbs, symptoms, and a wide range of lifestyle interventions. My goal now is to bring the other research I’ve done—the work that has mostly lived only in my brain—together with my clinical practice, so it can actually be shared, applied, and useful beyond the treatment room. One way I am doing so is organizing my are.na page and actually utilizing my notion dashboard (shock).

A few things I’m interested in:

https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/16866/best-books-of-2026-new-releases-constance-debre-mieko-kawakami-ben-lerner

https://substack.com/home/post/p-181077776

https://atmos.earth/ecological-wisdom/a-living-map/

https://lithub.com/escape-the-early-january-doldrums-by-letting-j-r-r-tolkien-read-to-you/

https://nautil.us/the-nautilus-winter-reading-list-2025-1255744/

I’m also sewing, thinking about getting back into knitting and embroidery, and going to my pottery studio. These are more of a constant, but I’m getting organized in how I do my projects with them!

OK, that’s enough for now. Xx

Interested in experiencing acupuncture?

Visit my website for more info. I see patients in Los Angeles.

or e-mail me directly at gsacupunctureandherbs@gmail.com & tell me what ails you!

The subtext: Let’s avoid talking about this long enough that it either fades out or magically becomes a relationship, as if things simply… happen. The fear of outing your desires or facing consequences was just too much.

Whenever I was gifted this bit of laissez-faire philosophy, I’d always ask, “And how exactly do you think things flow?”

You’ve seen a river, an ocean...any body of water. It only moves with purpose because it has boundaries. Remove the boundaries, and its nature is to become entropic - all-consuming, reckless.

This unfettered expression of water is fear. It’s frozen, paranoid, and destructive.

With a container, water is wise. Reflective, buoyant, life-giving, and driven.

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From the moment we are born, we begin to form our own interpretation of life. Shaped by our constitution, social and societal upbringings, and environment, we come to embody this interpretation as pathology. The lens through which we view the world distorts our natural virtues.

• Benevolence becomes anger

• Joy becomes mania

• Thoughtfulness becomes excessive worry

• Hope becomes grief

• Wisdom becomes fear

The role of Water – its life thesis – is to birth potential and steward resources so we can move through life’s cycles with will and determination. When we use our resources well, we cultivate wisdom.

In excess, we burn through our reserves without consequence to ourselves or others; in deficiency, we become acutely aware of our failings, beholden to the whims of fate. Both reflect habitual fear.

​

My fascination with water started at a very young age. My human design environment is artificial shores, my North Node is in Pisces, my 10th House is in Cancer, and as mentioned, my dominant element is Water. In other words, I was destined for this curriculum.

I grew up swimming competitively, surfing, and skiing/snowboarding. The rush of catching my first wave at eight, the wind and snow hissing beneath my skis as I flew down the hill in my fuchsia onesie - live in my bones.

So do the injuries: broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, the moments under the waves where I couldn’t tell which way was up.

And, as Water tends to do, fear seeped in. It expanded, consumed, and froze me.

Reckless with my health, my financial resources, and my life path – my twenties were surely fun, but I became frozen in the cycle of life. Work projects that would excite me were quickly abandoned when things got hard or I needed to be perceived. I was SO afraid of being perceived - I couldn’t even look at my own reflection. I developed chronic fatigue, battled autoimmunity, and was chronically sick.

I was trying to fight Water with Fire.

But wisdom is a virtue that lives in all of us. Over many years of therapy and self-study, my fear finally found containers. I began to ask myself, but what if I did things differently?

‘What if I do look confused when entering a new situation? What if I allowed myself to be vulnerable and push/pull the door the wrong way? What if I sat with this question for a little longer instead of moving on from it?’ ‘What if I did things for myself and not for the validation of others?’

The whirling, overbearing feeling of fear slowly (WIP) turned into a sense of safety, clarity, and wisdom.

Water’s fullest capacity is to endure. Our will to survive is encoded in the bones, brain, and spinal cord, the tissues governed by Water.

Winter begs the question of us:

Do I have enough stored? Do I have enough fuel?

Can I survive the cold?

(from The Tao of Trauma, Alaine D. Duncan)

While we are meant to endure hardships, we are not built to live within them. When water is neglected, it dries up or becomes contaminated.

The bones of our society have endured leadership conditioned to react habitually with fear. Our resources –personal and collective – are finite, and we are stretched thin.

As a culture, we hoard what we have, resigned to the whims of fate.

It is imperative that we start building structures that support the flow of water, for water without a container has the potential to be a tsunami.

Part 3 will explore how to integrate these ideas into the community, along with resources to help you build your reserves this winter.

Interested in experiencing acupuncture?

Visit my website for more info. I see patients in Los Angeles.

or e-mail me directly at gsacupunctureandherbs@gmail.com & tell me what ails you!

“The highest good is like water.
Water benefits the ten thousand things
and yet does not contend with them.
It dwells in places the multitudes detest;
therefore, it is close to the Dao.”
—Dao De Jing

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I recently discovered that my primary constitutional element is Water, which, not to be dramatic, changed my entire dynamic with myself. At first, I was aghast. I had always identified as (and been identified as) more of a Wood/Earth type because of my pathologies, deficiencies, tendencies, and even body type. And maybe at some point, those pathologies were shaping my constitutional awareness.

When I found this out, I shared the information with my acupuncturist, feeling ashamed or maybe even afraid. As I cringed, he simply said, “That’s great — Water is what all acupuncturists hope they are in school, but really, we’re all more Wood, Fire, and Earth.”
“Well,” I responded, “my secondary element is Wood…”— still so afraid to stand in my own archetype.

You see, fear is the emotion of the Water element. The metaphorical — and quite literal — freezing of water stops motion in its tracks. Fear becomes so focused on how it will be reflected that it inhibits its natural flow. If Water doesn’t cultivate its capacity to reflect, it remains unable to move — frozen in time, space, and place.

And if this all feels foreign to you, another word for element is archetype.

The characteristics and expressions found in nature are metaphors for the qualities of each element within the human experience. Just as we move through (or should be moving through) archetypes in life, career, and relationships, we embody different elements at different times in our lives.

Don’t worry, my Wood and Earth people — I’ll link the element quiz below.

The five elements, much like our astrological cycles, represent the endless cycle of the Dao. And just as Pisces, a water sign, reflects the ending of a cycle, so too does the Water element. It holds both the death of something and the conception of something new.

In East Asian Medicine, we call this inherited potential our “Jing.” While Water creates the vision of destiny, our Jing holds our capacity to unfold and participate in it. How we allocate and utilize our resources is mostly up to us.

Which is exactly why winter is the time to slow down and reflect. During winter, the earth becomes a shell of itself. Teeming with potential for life’s varied manifestations, a seed must sit and build an internal warmth. At the risk of damaging its healthy function, it must use only the energy it has to nourish itself, becoming its own internal furnace, waiting to break out and erupt from its shell.

When we neglect our inner warmth, we risk freezing. And as the world thaws around us, our potential stays hidden, waiting for the warmth to find us.

Lonny Jarrett, author and senior acupuncturist, tells us that habitual reactions to fear have the capacity to keep us frozen for so long that we indulge in fantasy and orthodoxy. “Orthodoxy is the state in which evolution is hampered. It keeps us from changing our minds. Habitual fantasy hampers evolution because the overactive mind and nervous system fail to concentrate our will adequately on our resources in a realistic way.”

Habitual fear invades our being and suppresses the impulse for growth. It fights to preserve the past and fears the work required to reach the future. In this way, it becomes stuck in a cycle of rebirth and death—without ever sprouting a new seed.

Just as the bottom of the ocean and river remain a mystery from the surface, so too does the virtue1 associated with Water— wisdom (or zhi (智)). What lies beneath the surface, in the primordial realms of our subconscious, is wisdom, if we are brave enough to tend to and face our fears.

But we do not simply emerge with wisdom; wisdom is the resolution of our fears. It demands that we sit and reflect on ourselves; it demands the flexibility of Wood, the passion of Fire, and the groundedness of Earth. It demands the deep, trudging-through-the-snow kind of work.

“Wisdom is the virtue that empowers us to stand firmly in the face of the unknown and chart a steady course through uncertain waters. Wisdom empowers us to take the right action instinctively in a way that is presided over largely by the innate knowing in our primordial endowment, which lies beyond the reach of conscious knowing.” - Lonny Jarrett in Nourishing Destiny - The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine

Because after all, the nature of Water is to flow — but in order to flow, it must create the conditions and the boundaries to reside within.

In Part 2, I’ll dive into the life thesis of Water and offer some prompts to sit with. In Part 3, we’ll explore action-oriented items, and I’ll share my winter must-haves—a gift guide for the season, if you will.

Five Elements Quiz link!

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“Over and again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit. Yet still we refuse them. The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Winter is always something I dread and something I long for. Like any complicated relationship, it requires time to sit with, look at from different angles, perhaps even pathologise, and ultimately (or not) glean a bit of wisdom from.

One of the first relationships we learned about, outside of Yin and Yang theory, in Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine school, was the relationship between and within the Five Elements (or Phases).

Broken down into tables of corresponding organs, tissue, sounds, colors, emotions, virtue, etc., we all did our best to memorize what was in front of us. It felt like learning an entirely new language, which in many ways it was. As I committed those tables to memory, I’m not sure I could have told you how blue, wisdom, fear, and water were connected, or why they belonged to the same constellation.

Which is just my long-winded way of saying that after six years of diligently working with patients, I want to share what these teachings look like in real life—not just on a table of correspondences.

The irony is that we don’t need new lessons in how to live with nature—we need to unlearn the patterns that have taught us to stand in opposition to it.

So really, you could stop reading here, put on some socks, wrap a scarf around your neck, and thrive, because honestly, that’s some of the best advice the internet has to offer.

But if you’re anything like me, and your follow-up to most things is, but why?! pull up a seat, we’re about to get esoteric with it. **shoulder shimmy**

In this three-part series, my mission, if you choose to accept (had to, sorry!)...is to leave you feeling so confident in what it means to embody the archetype of the Water, that it becomes a second nature (no pun intended) for you to carry forward.

Parts 1 and 2 will analyze the functional dynamics of the Water Element, with particular attention to its associations with organ systems, primary emotional states, and corresponding virtues. Part 3 offers evidence-informed resources and practices intended to support regulation and facilitate embodiment of this elemental archetype.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the beloved 5 Elements Chart…

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Interested in experiencing acupuncture?

Visit my website for more info. I see patients in Los Angeles.

or e-mail me directly at gsacupunctureandherbs@gmail.com & tell me what ails you!

Many moons ago (around 2011!), I worked in PR. One of our clients was a locally owned coffee roaster that was very well-known in the coffee industry. Truthfully, I hated working in PR; I didn’t understand networking, was incredibly shy, and struggled to convince people to buy things they didn’t need. However, in the midst of navigating an industry I didn’t love, I found a surprising connection to others through coffee - a cherished ritual of community and sharing.

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This coffee company was my favorite client. They had an incredible product and were super down-to-earth. One afternoon, they asked me to film some content(although I don’t think we called it content back then) for them and also offered to teach me how to make the perfect cup of coffee. My roommates and I at the time had a well-loved, but misunderstood, French press, so I asked if they could teach me how to use it, since they mostly did pour-overs.

This skill is one of my most cherished skills. I love sharing a good cup of coffee with someone and gabbing about what we are into, pulling tarot cards, and waxing poetic about life choices. Some of my favorite memories are from my Venice apartment. I can still smell the freshly ground beans mingling with the crisp morning air and lingering smoke from a shared joint. This ritual has accompanied me from LA to New York, Australia, and back to LA.

I wanted to share this skill because, for me, coffee is about community: grandmas making a pot when visitors arrive, sitting at a diner with strangers in a small upstate town, meeting for coffee on a first date or with someone new. To me, this is caretaking, tenderness, and love.

What you’ll need

Bean Type:

First and foremost, the quality and grind of the coffee matter. However, I’m also a ‘use what you’ve got’ kind of gal, so don’t let that stop you. I am also exclusively a dark roast lover, so I will speak from that perspective.

To grind your own beans or not? This widely depends on your time, patience, and preference. I grind my own beans because I have a grinder and have several different types of coffee accoutrements, which all need different types of grinds. Right now, I’m very into my stovetop Gemini espresso maker.

They say the best type of grind for a French press is a coarse grind, which cuts down the bitterness and prevents sediment from settling and turning into sludge, iykyk. However, dark roasts tend not to be as dark anymore - this is an observation, not a fact - so I find that a finer grind actually creates a better/stronger taste for me. However, this is dependent on your bean and its freshness and color. I now accept the sludge for what it is.

A scale:

I have made many a delicious cup of coffee eyeballing the ratios. In my older age, I’m persnickety and happen to have a scale for baking, so I use that. I mention this because the ratio does matter, but you can still get a really great cup of coffee by just eyeballing and trusting your instincts.

Time:

French press is so enjoyable to me because of the time it takes to make. Slowing down and enjoying the process is part of the fun, and it’s also the time that you can teach your friend, roommate, or loved one how to do this themselves!

You’ll need time to boil the water, 4 min after you pour before pressing down the piston, and an additional 2 min post-push.

Kettle:

Water temp matters. 195 -200 °F. We have a countertop electric kettle, which makes this process easier. However, the temperature right before it boils is essentially the same as the boiling point, so if you have a stovetop, remove it just before it starts to boil or let it cool down a bit before pouring in.

How to:

The ideal ratio is approximately 60 grams of coffee per 750ml of water, which translates to a ratio of about 1:13. This typically corresponds to about 2 cups of coffee; you can adjust the amount based on the number of cups and the size of your French press. If you’re eyeballing it, it’s about 1.5 inches of ground coffee on the bottom; fill the water to the top.

You can adjust these ratios based on the type of bean, your preference for the strength of your coffee, and the type of roast, but this is a good starting point.

1. Grind beans, place french press on the scale, and measure out 60 grams of beans

2. Heat the water to 195-200°F.

3. Tare scale, change from grams to ml.

4. Pour 750ml of water (I prefer to do this in concentric circles, as I was taught, but a simple pour is also effective).

5. Place the piston (at the top of the French press) and let it sit for 4 minutes.

6. Remove the piston, then stir in the grinds at the top with a wooden spoon or chopstick.

7. push down the piston to the ground, press to the floor of the French press body, let sit for 2 min

8. Enjoy!

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Interested in working together 1:1? I see patients in Atwater & Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Visit gsacupunctureandherbs.com for more info or e-mail me directly at gsacupunctureandherbs@gmail.com

In my last post, I raged on about my disdain for individualism in the wellness world. Today, I want to offer an ongoing antidote: skill-sharing in the community.

I love a good rage. It’s vital to express fear, anger, and sadness - for your own health and for the well-being of those around you. But as a clinician, I also find joy in identifying the pattern beneath the emotion or feeling - and finding a way through it.

The antidote to the individualized focus, as you may have guessed, is community. And community can be found in countless ways, through myriad things. For me, even working from a coffee shop feels like a small act of participation in the broader community.

One of my favorite things to do, perhaps this is the Libra in me, is to gather friends who don’t yet know each other and help them connect. Hang out without me, puh-lease (my social battery couldn’t handle otherwise), but keep me in your mind.

My ADHD loves acquiring new skills, for better or worse. And if you’re still reading, I’d bet that resonates with you.

The Plan

So, the plan: biweekly (this is open to change). I want to highlight skills worth sharing (which really is any skill).

“Skill,” as defined by me, can be pretty much anything:

• Learning how to research → a skill.
  
  

• Techniques for calming the mind → a skill.
  
  

• Woodworking, pottery, embroidery → obvious skills.
  
  

My hope is that by presenting these skills to the broader community, we can begin to share and apply them in the “real” world.

• Your friend, the mother, business owner, and household manager, has a pair of pants that need mending? Be the one who mends them.

• Your neighbor has a cold? Cook them something nourishing.

• Someone asks a question you don’t know? Research it and report back.
  

To me, that’s how community grows - small, often repetitive, and sometimes inconvenient acts of shared care.

And by the way, the point isn’t mastery; it’s exchange.

Skill of the week

I’ll start us off this week with a simple Qi Gong meditation, which is more of a tool than a skill. It’s my personal belief that learning to use the tools you have in your toolbox is a skill in and of itself, so here I am, sharing a skill on how to use a tool.

My Qi Gong and Tai Ji teacher taught me this eight years ago in class, and it has been invaluable to me professionally and personally.

You can try this sitting or lying down. Try it before bed to calm a busy mind, prepare for meditation, or reconnect with your body midday.

I start this recording by introducing you to the concept and some of the language or meridians and East Asian medicine, so if you are familiar with these concepts, you can skip ahead to 2min 50sec.

Let me know how you feel! Will you share this meditation with a friend/parent/lover who could benefit from it?

Do you have a skill you’d like to share with the broader community? Reach out - I’d love to feature it.

Can I be honest with you? I hate the wellness industry, and I hate that my field of work is part of it. I’ve fallen down and tripped on many a wellness rabbit hole in my time. I’ve been there - convinced that seed oils were the root of all evil, that aluminum in my deodorant was causing my hormonal issues, that if I just ate “clean enough,” I could sidestep the decay of modernity itself.

My saving grace - I’m a double Libra with a fire-y Aries Moon, have ADHD and a strong sense of social justice, which is basically just a long-winded way of saying - I’d never actually join a cult. I’ve never been dogmatic in my life; it goes against my very nature, trust me, I’ve tried! But let me tell you, my whole life path could have easily swerved to become someone I’m proud to say I’ll never be. And one thing I’ll never waver on is mistaking personal purity for systemic change.

The wellness industry convinces you that personal optimization is activism. It thrives on your insecurities, your chronic diseases, your inkling that the world could be a hell of a lot different. It creates a world of chaos, so it can be the answer to your panic. But the crux of it all - and I think we all know this - is that it’s just creating a problem to sell you a solution that inevitably creates another problem.

And listen, wellness is a deeply seductive narrative, especially for people like me who were chronically sick, tired, and trying to make sense of a crumbling healthcare system that wouldn’t help me.

self-care for whom?

Don’t get me wrong - I BELIEVE that more care toward self is inevitably going to create a healthier human. We need rest, nourishment, and gentleness. But self-care that never extends beyond the self isn’t care. It’s maintenance for the machine.

When “wellness” becomes an individual or moral pursuit, it stops being about healing and starts being about discipline and purity. We’re told that if we just avoid seed oils, exercise at sunrise, and buy the right adaptogens, we can “opt out” of sickness - as if sickness were a personal failure, not a collective condition.

Meanwhile, the real forces shaping our health, such as policy, pollution, housing, racism, and labor, remain unaddressed. Have you read about the communities affected by the large data centers? Many residents are literally having to deal with their taps running dry. Is that the American dream to make america healthy again by limiting access to fresh running water? This is just another example that illustrates systemic neglect perpetuating struggles and furthering health problems. Demonizing processed foods while ignoring systems like these that make unhealthy options a necessity isn’t the liberation you think it is; it’s exactly the distraction that keeps us as the cogs that wellness promises you it’s fighting against.

And this promise of purity...it’s the most profitable form of control.

between scientism and mysticism: can we just get some goddamn nuance?

What I hate most is that we’ve lost the nuance. You’re either the type who believes in randomized controlled trials and nothing else, or the type who thinks Big Pharma is hiding “the truth” about everything.

There’s no room for conversation, for learning, for expanding. Maybe the way we measure science doesn’t capture everything, or the Western framework for knowledge, thought, medicine, etc., doesn’t either.

And even in saying this, I’m scared people will think that means I’m anti-science. I’m not! I love vaccines, I love pharmaceutical intervention when needed, I love life-saving medicine, and I love advancements in human knowledge.

Chinese medicine gets caught in the crossfire: dismissed by the biomedical establishment as superstition, and co-opted by the wellness industry as mysticism. The concepts of Chinese Medicine, while ancient, resonate with modern ideas of interconnectedness in our physiology, though they are often misunderstood or reduced to ‘witchcraft’ or ‘alternative’ in oversimplified representations.

Even people I treat call me a witch (which is very cool cause I claim that), because the medicine I practice is othered, and the results are... sometimes so amazing they are unexplainable.

I practice a medicine that has helped countless people - but I constantly have to prove its worth because it’s been othered, stripped of context, and sold as a vibe - an alternative medicine. Alternative to WHO, to WHAT?

It’s exhausting to stand in a field where colleagues include both thoughtful practitioners and full-blown anti-vaxxers who think a spoonful of beef fat can outsmart modern epidemiology.

what wellness culture left to rot amongst the seed oils: community care

Before it was “Traditional Chinese Medicine,” Chinese medicine was just… medicine. It was a living practice, deeply intertwined with spirituality, community, ecology, and politics.

In the 1970s, figures like Miriam Lee were arrested for providing affordable acupuncture to working-class people in California - often women, immigrants, and the elderly - who had no access to healthcare. Around the same time, the Black Panther Party used acupuncture as part of their free health clinics, incorporating what would later become the NADA protocol for addiction and trauma recovery.

These were radical acts. They used Chinese medicine not as a luxury or lifestyle, but as a tool of solidarity. Healing wasn’t something you bought, a commodity to be earned; it was something that was included in your humanity. It’s literally part of your biological structure.

When Mao restructured Chinese medicine under the name Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the 1950s, it was an attempt to modernize and codify centuries of practice, but it also flattened regional diversity and made it legible to the western mind. This codification facilitated global exports by creating a uniform system that was easily understood and adopted internationally. However, the trade-off was that what was once plural, adaptive, and community-based became standardized, exportable, and eventually marketable.

That’s the version the wellness industry inherited: the sterilized, aestheticized, easily branded version.

And yet, beneath all that - beneath the adaptogens, the infographics, the “ancient wisdom” branding - there’s still something alive. Something that refuses to be a part of the structure that keeps us NEEDING the wellness industry.

That same refusal puts many practitioners in precarious positions,at high and often inaccessible price points. Hi, that’s me. My prices are not for everyone, but I need to make a living, feed myself, enjoy my life, and THRIVE under capitalism in order to serve my community.

so anyway,

I hate the wellness industry. I hate its moral theater, its obsession with purity, its habit of turning care into consumption. I hate that it’s made me complicit - that to practice Chinese medicine in the modern world often means participating in the very industry that distorts it.

But I also know that healing has always been a messy act of resistance. That care is political, even when it’s imperfect.

So maybe the task isn’t to escape the wellness industry, but to contaminate it, with my goddamn radical leftist thoughts of equality and care as a human right. To smuggle community, solidarity, and structural awareness back into spaces that have forgotten what care actually means.

Self-care was never meant to end with the self.

when i’m sick, i spiral. i think about the life i could be living, the unlived part of my current existence, all the ways i feel stuck. and that spiral makes sense - through both an eastern lens, phlegm misting my mind, and a mind shaped by capitalism. a fever dream of the life i should be living.

the thing i’ve been thinking about most - besides how much i took for granted being able to breathe and why am i coughing so hard, im peeing - is this:

what if health is a shared responsibility?

we’re told that health is something you earn, not something you deserve. a scale of purity. a moral condition.

if you’re sick, it must be your fault - and it’s your job alone to fix it. eat the right thing. take the right supplement. follow the right protocol.

and i’m 100% guilty of this. personally, professionally.

but my training - and my body - remind me:

health doesn’t exist in a silo. it’s not a solo project, a grind, or a brand.

it’s something we learn in community. something we do together. (hello, herd immunity.)

nothing exists on its own. this is a foundational tenet of chinese medicine.every relationship shapes the body:

the heart and kidney live on an axis, influencing our blood, our spirit, and our sense of being.

the kidney and lung dictate the exchange of breath.

yin and yang mutually transform - one disappears, and the other becomes unruly or loses meaning entirely.

when we treat health as individual, we turn care into competition.blame and shame become internalized manifestos.a fast track to burnout.

but what if we treated health as relation instead? what if symptoms were signals of disconnection - not discipline failure?

i don’t have all the answers. i’m still figuring it out.how to make care communal. how to make it accessible. how to make it visible.

maybe it starts with building rituals and circles. speaking up when others can’t.creating seasonal rhythms, not regimes. gathering. resting. practicing restorative creativity.

we must demand equal pay. a living wage. food access. better regulation.we must build a living, breathing model of care.

maybe the only way to make care visible again is through small, consistent acts:

cook soup for a friend.

drive someone to their appointment.

text someone just to ask how they’re doing.

start by rejecting the myth that resilience is individual - it’s always been collective.

this is just the beginning of something i’m building:

a collective care model rooted in east asian medicine, anti-capitalism, and mutual responsibility.

i don’t have it all figured out—and i never will. that’s the gift of community.

and honestly? i’m burnt out. trying to help give the tools to individuals to find health, while healing myself, is a losing game.

so this coming together - this is as much about me as it is about you.

my offering here as i rebuild immunity, energy, and lung health post-covid, are finding ways to take care. here are some things i’m leaning into.

+ daily elderberry syrup. i make my own with cinnamon, white peony, astragalus. but you don’t have to.

+ medical Qi Gong, for my lungs and my liver.

+ hydration: multiple glasses of warm water with lemon, herbal infusions with herbs like magnolia that clear phlegm

+ rest

+ healthy fats

+ molly baz’s version of hainanenese chicken: poached chicken over brothy rice with cilantro scallion.

+accepting care from others

+knowing when ive done enough for the day, respecting my limitations.

i hope they support you too. if they do, share them.

(excuse the typos, i have ADHD. i read it 16 times, i just didn’t see it.)

sometimes I feel it in my body before I can name it. a tightness under my ribs. a rising heat behind my eyes, a slight tremor of my head. the sense that something isn’t right—not just around me, but through me. I try to meditate, I become enraged. I try to stay soft, I want to crawl out of my own skin. a gripping and clench that stirs and won’t go away.

in East Asian medicine, this is the domain of the Liver. it governs the smooth flow of qi—the vital energy that animates thought, movement, desire. it plans. it coordinates. it makes space for vision. but when it’s constrained (and often it is), energy stagnates. we get stuck. we get sharp. we internalize. we stew and we become “hot with anger.”

we have learned to pathologize this feeling. but East Asian Medicine does not. it doesn't say “calm down.” it asks: what’s in the way? what needs to move?

i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately—how we live under systems that don’t want us to feel anger. systems that want us compliant, grateful, numbed. authoritarianism doesn't begin with jackboots and flags. it begins with self-surveillance. with a quiet silencing of instinct. with the idea that wanting more—for ourselves, for others—is somehow dangerous.

but the Liver holds a different truth. it reminds us that anger is a form of intelligence. it’s the stagnancy, heat, and wind that stirs that says: this isn’t working. anger is not chaos. it’s clarity.

it’s hard to talk about clarity in a fog. sometimes I only know what I need by naming what I’m desperate to escape: the flatness of resignation, the endless scrolling, the constant feeling that life is almost, but not quite right. that’s how I start to recognize what clarity might feel like—not a lightning strike, but a slow refusal to put up with the bullshit, a stubborn intolerance of the daily injustices. a quiet movement toward life, not away.

the spirit of the Liver, the Hun, acts as a tool of self-preservation—guiding us on when to advance and when to retreat, when to fight and when to flee. under suppression, our body stagnates. we hold ourselves back from advancing, even when it’s in our best interest. it’s like our Liver is shouting, move forward! and our body is responding, I can’t!

this is the moment where anger becomes rage and rage breaks into grief. when the path is blocked again and again, the Hun dims. the vision blurs—not because we don’t have one, but because it hurts to see it and not be able to act. the system says: stay small. stay still. don’t make waves. and so we turn the anger inward. we fold it into headaches, jaw tension, chest tightness, hormone imbalances, and insomnia. the body tries to metabolize what the world will not let us express.

the body goes stiff—and with it, we retreat. but the Hun, residing in the eyes, supports a vision of the future. it is said to give us connection to the collective—a way to experience and call upon knowledge handed down to us. a collective knowing, without really knowing.

even when we retreat, the Hun keeps watching. from behind tired eyes, it holds the thread. the vision may feel distant, but it doesn’t disappear. it waits—quiet, intact—until we are ready. and maybe that’s the gift inside the constraint: it forces us to turn inward, to listen more carefully, to remember that we are not alone. this is not just my anger, my stifled voice. it’s part of something older. something that has always stirred under control: a collective memory that knows how to break silence, how to move, how to try again.

what if anger isn’t a storm to be weathered, but a current to be steered? not every movement needs to be a rupture. sometimes it’s enough to notice where the tension lives in the body and ask it what it wants. sometimes the most radical act is letting ourselves want at all.

forward motion can look like making art. like experiencing fleeting joy. like choosing rest when everything demands productivity. it can look like refusing to go numb. like daring to hold a vision, even if you don’t yet know how to reach it.

this is the gift of the Liver, the Hun, the anger that isn’t rage but direction. It’s the push toward justice, even in small ways.

it’s the part of us that says: i will not harden. i will not disappear. i am still here. i still see what could be.

and even when we can’t move all at once, we can start with a breath. a stretch. a word. a seed.

tell me—what’s your relationship to anger?
do you hold virtue in shoving it down?
when’s the last time you let it propel you forward?

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…or don’t, because honestly, that’s what this space is about.

I’ve been meaning to create a space like this for a long time. A space for reflection, for slowness, for the deep and sometimes infuriating work of being human.

I’m an acupuncturist, herbalist, & functional medicine practitioner , a writer, a non linear thinker (clinically adhd), a lover of rituals and rhythms and real, often tangential, conversations. I live for mornings that stretch long, for time spent around big dinner tables, and for the kind of questions that don’t have quick answers.

I’ve created this space to talk about the things that move through my life and body: the medicine I practice, the systems I’m unlearning, and the cycles I’m learning to honor. I’ll be exploring the intersection of East Asian medicine, astrology, neurodivergence, capitalism, rest, productivity, grief, joy, and everything in between.

Sometimes I’ll share stories from my own experience. Sometimes I’ll share what the classical texts say. Often, it’ll be a mix of both.

This isn’t a space for advice or quick fixes. It’s a space for unraveling, remembering, and reconnecting to a deeper rhythm. What some call the third space, a space for the in between. One that’s quieter, slower, and often much more honest.

If you’ve been holding it all together for too long, longing to reconnect with your body’s wisdom, and craving something softer and more real. well, you’re in the right space.

xx gab

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