"What made you want to be an acupuncturist?" [Part 1]

Story time.

One of the most common questions I get asked from clients, colleagues, and just people I meet (other than “can you help with ____” and “do the needles hurt?” lol) is “What made you want to be an acupuncturist?” 

Even though I've answered that 100's of times in the last 20 years, the question still makes me pause…..there are so many threads, events, people, choices that brought be to that moment as a 19 year-old who, life freshly changed forever, said “Now I HAVE to become an acupuncturist!!”.

What version of the answer do I give? The long version? The part that includes my childhood, my family culture, being jaded by the system of allopathic medicine by the time I was in middle school? the medical trauma? the disordered eating that led me to a Bachelor's in Nutrition (as a 16 year old looking at colleges, my logic was “Welp. I already have all the nutrition labels memorized….so might as well go in to Nutrition” 🤷‍♀️)

…..or the shortest possible version “I had asthma as a kid, got way worse in college, saw an acupuncturist, changed my life” ahahahah (that's the version for the person just asking but not listening. Maybe for those people I should just make things up, lol, see what happens. tbd)

Over on Instagram, I started an Origin Story Series. Acupuncture, NET, QNRT, how I got to only seeing clients who understand their emotions are inextricably linked to their current experience of their body….these stories are all being added over there in video form. If you prefer that format- click for the acu origin story!)

Anyway- here is a medium length version of the story for you ;)

I was diagnosed with Asthma at 9 years old (which we know means the symptoms had begun long before that) and, for the next 10 years, lived in 2 worlds: Allopathic Medicine and Holistic Medicine.

On the Allopathic side: allergy shots, inhalers on inhalers on inhalers on inhalers on top of pills, a home supply of Z paks because I had so many sinus infections, the “Asthma and Allergy Specialist” doctor said I ‘knew what to look for', so if I had the symptoms, just start another round, a drug trial, hospital stays…..you get the gist.

Simultaneously, both of my parents, because of their own health emergencies shortly after I was born, had each whole-heartedly began their own holistic health journey, which of course meant a FAMILY holistic health journey (something I sincerely praise God for regularly).

Because of this, while we had one foot in the Allopathic world (by the way, “Allopathy” is the system of medicine focused on the treatment of disease….hold this in contrast to a system of medicine focused on the health and healing of a whole being. Not the same. Focus on the human and everything that they are and how that created the environment for the conditions they are now experiencing? OR just focus on the “disease”?)

…and one foot in the holistic world: chiros, muscle testing docs, supplements, diet changes….

To college-age where my breathing was pretty well-maintained. 

Yes, I had my daily-use inhalers and my “emergency” inhaler, but it'd probably been 2 years since a full-on asthma attack (terrifying, if you've ever experienced one or been with someone experiencing one, you know. You literally physically cannot breathe, even as your body tries.)

I think this has gotten long enough. Let's call this Part 1: Setting the Stage and I'll be back next week with Part 2: An Acupuncturist is Born  (haha, that has a nice ring to it ;)

Till the next post!