Hi. I’m Angie, and I believe you are more than your diagnosis. Much more. And that you have an innate ability to heal.
One of the things I love about Chinese diagnostics is that they focus on you, a real live person, rather than just your illness. They take a wide range of information into account: seasonal influences, the time of day your symptoms are worse, and your sleep and work patterns, for example. They consider the climate you live in, the geography in your area, your social and cultural groups, your emotional life, and your spirituality.
They aim to understand you as a physical, emotional, and spiritual being and in your relationship with the larger world.
This is because the early Chinese believed the human body had been formed from vital breaths that resembled the wind or external breaths of the universe. They organized the vital breaths to flow along twelve main pathways, or meridians, which run throughout the body. The meridians were connected to and influenced by the musculoskeletal system, the organ system, the emotions, and the mind. They were similarly influenced by the climate, the seasons, and the physical environment of the larger world.
In other words, the early Chinese believed that we were inextricably linked to the natural world.
When I first read this, I remember thinking, ‘If we are nature, and I have personally experienced the healing power of nature more times than I can count, then how can we not have an innate ability to heal?’
I believe my work as a Chinese medicine practitioner is to remind the body of this ability: to assess the movement of the vital breaths, understand the stressors that influence their movement, and insert needles and prescribe herbs to remind the body that it innately knows how to adapt to these stressors and restore balance.
At first blush, my recent interests in neurobiology and somatic trauma therapies seemed loosely related to my work as a Chinese medicine practitioner. As I began interacting with the material and the instructors in the Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Program at The Embody Lab, however, I discovered that stressors and nervous system dysregulation and trauma are all facts of life. Our bodies are designed to move energy from our core out to our extremities in response to a stressor we feel that we can do something about, and pull energy from our extremities and return it to our core when there’s a stressor we feel that we can’t do anything about. Illness and trauma occur when we get stuck and are no longer able to naturally move our energy.
My work as a somatic trauma therapies practitioner, then, has the same aim as my work as a Chinese medicine practitioner: to bring awareness to dysregulation and remind the body that it innately knows the pathways back into regulation.
My own experience living with a chronic illness has also highlighted the importance of being here with what’s here. Since we can’t process what we can’t be here with, creating the time, space, and permission to be with whatever is presenting itself has become fundamental in my life and my practice and I look forward to sharing it with you soon!
Angie is an Oregon State Licensed Acupuncturist as overseen by the Oregon State Medical Board and nationally certified as a Diplomate in Oriental Medicine, which includes credentials for acupuncture and herbal medicine, through the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM).
Angie is a Volunteer Health Provider with the Returning Veterans Project, a nonprofit organization that connects veterans, service members, and their military families with free, confidential mental and physical health services.
Angie recently began training to become a Somatic Trauma Therapies Practitioner through The Embody Lab.
Angie earned her Master of Science degree from the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM), graduating with highest honors after completing four years of study in classical Chinese medicine. Her education at NUNM included extensive exploration of anatomy, physiology, and pathology (all from both a western and Chinese medical perspective), acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, shiatsu, qigong, and nutrition.
While in school, Angie completed a year-long mentorship with Brandt Stickley, LAc, which involved exploring the work of Dr. John H.F. Shen and Dr. Leon Hammer, including extensive study of pulse diagnosis and Chinese medical psychology based on Dr. Hammer’s Dragon Rises Red Bird Flies.
In addition, Angie completed two years of herbal training with world-renowned scholar of Chinese medicine and herbal therapy, Heiner Fruehauf PhD, LAc, founder of the Classical Chinese Medicine program from which she graduated at NUNM, the Hai Shan Center, and Classical Pearls Herbal Formulas.
Since then, her continuing education has focused on the use and efficacy of acupuncture and other somatic therapies in areas including: trauma relief and recovery; chronic pain management; and women’s health.
When she’s not studying or practicing Chinese medicine, Angie loves hiking, sharing meals with friends, dreaming up her next fly fishing or camping adventure, getting lost in a good book, and practicing yoga and Pilates.
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Angie Jackson, LAc
Licensed Acupuncturist