March 11, 2025 • 28 mins
On this episode, we will hear from Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Celia Hildebrand about how East Asian medicine understands the impact of trauma on physical, psychological and spiritual levels. This time-tested perspective on trauma gives us a unique opportunity to fully heal from trauma.
Five To Thrive Live is broadcast live Tuesdays at 7PM ET and Music on W4CS Radio – The Cancer Support Network (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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Five To Thrive Live is broadcast live Tuesdays at 7PM ET and Music on W4CS Radio – The Cancer Support Network (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Five To Thrive Live Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guests should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, welcome to five to Thrive Live, a podcast about
thriving for those who have been affected by cancer chronic disease.
I'm doctor Lisa Schuler and I co host with my
good friend Carolyn Gazella. You can find all of our
past podcasts on every major podcast outlet, and you can
also find a schedule on our website, I thriveplan dot com.
(01:03):
So tonight I'm going to be talking with doctor Celia
Hildebrand about the East Asian perspective on trauma. Doctor Hildebrand
earned a master and a doctorate degree in acupuncture oriental medicine.
Doctor Hildebrand has lived with purpose defined by heart, hands, skill,
and intention. She's fellowship faculty with the Andrew Wild Center
(01:24):
for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine,
and she recently developed a full time practice with the
US Veterans Administration, seeing forty to sixty patients a week.
She is the recipient of a Fulbright Award in twenty
nineteen which took her to Ukraine to teach acupuncture for pain,
(01:45):
post traumatic stress disorder, and trauma. And she continues to
expand this curriculum and that's resulted in more than one
hundred and thirty five people using these tools to help
heal through varying degrees of trauma. Much of that kind
of trauma few of us in the US will experience.
But we are going to talk about trauma and how
this East Asian perspective is so relevant. So before we
(02:06):
do that, though, I do want to thank our sponsors. First,
we have Cetria, a patented form of glutathione clinically proven
to raise glutathione levels. Glutathione is the master antioxidant and
the body's primary defense against free radicals. It also helps
to support respiratory health and you can learn more at
(02:26):
Cetria glutathione dot com. We also think cognizance cetcholine, which
is nature's way of keeping the brain of firing on
all cylinders. So if you want to enhance your brain function,
your memory, focus, and attention, look for cognizant on the
label and you can learn more at Cognizant dot com.
And as a matter of fact, pro Thriver's Wellness Brain,
(02:49):
which is part of the pro Thriver's Wellness suite of products,
is a product that contains Cognizant as well as some
other brains supporting nutrients and herbs. And you can find
pro Thriver's Wellness Brain online at pure Formulas dot com.
And doctor Hiras Probiotics, a best selling probiotic for over
thirty years, contains twelve probiotic strains which are shelf stable
(03:12):
without refrigeration due to a unique three year fermentation process,
and you can learn more at doctor Orhira Probiotics dot com.
So with that, Doctor Hildebrand, welcome defid to Thrive Live.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Thank you. I'm so delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Indeed, I'm delighted that you are here as well. So
you know you've been to the Ukraine to offer East
Asian medicine to ease the trauma that's experienced by many there.
Why have you gone there so many times?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, First of all, I am Ukrainian second generation. My
mother and her entire family are from Ukraine. They came
over in the early nineteen hundreds, Slate eighteen hundreds, early
nineteen hundreds. So I was raised in the tradition of
the Ukrainian culture, the language, everything, the practices, the spirituality,
and so I felt a very deep calling. I've been
(04:00):
going back and forth to Ukraine since about two thousand
and four to find my family, meet them, and re
establish bridges with them. So I figured this was a
really good opportunity when I was given the full break, especially,
it was an opportunity to create a program that would
allow kind of a foundation for me to return over
and over again to Ukraine and teach and be part
(04:22):
of the culture there.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, well that's really a beautiful way of giving back. Actually,
So let's talk about this because you're obviously well trained
in East Asian medicine, which for some of our listeners
they may be wondering what is this and if they're
familiar with this space, we used to use the terminology
traditional Chinese medicine, but we've moved to East Asian because
(04:44):
it's actually more than just Chinese. So that's one thing
I wanted to clarify upfront. But so you've had deep
training in East Asian medicine, and so let's start with
the physical impacts of trauma from that East Asian perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, I'm going to kind of go back and forth
between East and Western medicines with this. So trauma comes
in different forms, right, It can be both physiological, but
it can be an emotional It can be a primary
trauma where I am impacted. I'm either falling, I've been hit,
I've had an accident, I've had a bad experience, I've
been emotionally abused, and it can be secondary. So the
(05:23):
secondary trauma is observing something that's happened to another person.
Most of us were impacted, for example, at nine to eleven.
All of us are impacted when we see the visions
on the television shows or on in the movies, when
we see people being hurt or explosions and things like that.
That is a form of secondary trauma. Trauma comes to
(05:45):
us in many layers, in many ways, and mostly in
East Asian medicine, we think about it as coming in
through our weight chi, and that's spelled wi qi weightchi,
which is our protective chi, and that's the chi that
kind of envelops our physical bodies. And some people also
think in terms of our emotional bodies, and that protective
(06:07):
chi is what keeps us safe from even from our
immune system. In other words, it keeps us safe from
the germs, the bacteria, the viruses, the fungus, the things
that enter our body in any way, whether they come
in through an open wound, a cut, or any of
our orifices or if it is important in terms of
(06:27):
trauma things we hear them, we smell them, we taste them,
and each one of those orifices represents a pathway into
our psyche and into our physical body. And East Asian
medicine has a way of looking at that as something
enters our physical body or our emotional body, and how
(06:48):
our psyches and our physical bodies metabolize that, digest it,
and move with it.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So that brings up my next question.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So you mentioned metabolized, which you know, in a truly
sort of physiological sense means you basically take something and
you digest it and then you eliminate it. So when
you say metabolized, like from an East Asian perspective, do
these physical effects that are taken up by the body,
(07:17):
either you know, having physical or psychological components, do they
stay for a long time or does the they just
go through.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
That's a really good question. And I can contextualize that
by talking about yin and yang, which is another concept
construct of East Asian medicine. Yin and Yang represent opposites, dualities, maybe,
but they also represent one within the other, the transformation
of yin to yong and Yong back into yin, and
(07:47):
the fact that there is one element of Yong within
the over the over the larger picture of yin and
there's an element of Yin within the young. And that's
you know, that can sound very confusing the most important
principle is that there's always a transformation. There's always a
phase at which one thing turns into another. That's a transformation,
(08:08):
a cellular metabolism, that's a thought process. That is a
digestive process of life and of food and liquid. So
this entire concept of moving forward, moving through something is
how each one of us, individually and probably collectively move
through trauma. So where I might get stuck in trauma
(08:29):
could be based on in one of my organ systems
or one of my electrical systems, or my nervous system.
Where you might get stuck with something moving through trauma
could be through a physiological thing, maybe through a muscle
or a blood vessel. So we all have these different
ways of how we metabolize it, but also how we
(08:52):
take in an experience and then how we move through it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So what about the psycho logical effects, you know, I
think we would say in the Western science of things
that people have have psychological effects of trauma, particularly say
childhood traumas that really can last a lifetime. So in
many ways they affect how we function in the world,
(09:18):
some of which is physiological, you know, changes the way
our neurological system works, for example, and how we respond
to stressors later and things like that. But from an
East Asian perspective, there's an element, there's a sort of
a philosophical component, the five element theory, which maybe helps us,
(09:39):
doesn't help us to understand how trauma affects us psychologically.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
It does, and thank you for that softball that you
just threw. I mean, that's great softball. So the way
it does is that there are at the five elements
that represent always again like a transformation. So if we
just start with the element for example of fire, so
fire is the element that is best represented or is
(10:04):
represented by the organ systems of the heart and the
small intestine you get. How does fire even become fire?
Is it comes from the element of wood. And wood,
of course is represented is something that can burn it
and there's the quality of the wood that depends on
both the moisture and the nutrition within the wood and
(10:26):
whether it's too dry, in which case the wood will
burn very very hot, or if it's too soft, or
it's if it's too moist then it will take a
slow time, a longer time to burn. Wood is represented
in the element that's represented within the liver and the
gall bladder. So here we have the digestive organs right right,
the ones that actually produce the bio and the enzymes
(10:48):
that would digest and experience or digest food. So how
does wood grow other than so wood comes from the
element before the wood would be water. So wood grows
when there's anough water. Water is represented by the kidney
and the urinary bladder. So can the wood absorb the water?
Can the wood actually use the water once it's absorbed?
(11:11):
What does it do with the water does it is
it oversaturated or is it not saturated enough? And that
comes from the element of earth. So the earth is
represented with the stomach and the spleen, so it's a
stomach and the spleen, or actually these points of If
the earth itself, i should say, is very dry, it
(11:32):
doesn't have enough water inside the earth, so the wood
really cannot hold it cannot draw it up into its fibers,
so when it burns, it burns very very hot. Or
if the earth is muddy, if it's swampy, because the
earth element itself, the fibers of the soil are not
able and capable of really holding onto the water for
(11:53):
whatever reason, then the tree is not or the wood
is not going to be able to pick it up.
It might pick up too much of it and then
it won't burn properly into the fire. So where does
this earth come from? And how does the earth hold
on to these other pieces of it that help it
to have the absorption ability for water comes from the
(12:17):
metallic pieces within the earth, and the metallic piece is
represented by the lung and the large intestine. So these
these elements all feed into each other and they create
a complete cycles. So if you go back to the fire,
the fire is burning the wood that creates the earth
and within the earth. Depending on how good the wood
(12:39):
is to begin with creates the earth, which is holding
onto the minerals, which is part of the digestive process.
And so you can see like this entire system is
one of transformation. You have to be able to get
from one element to the next in a healthy way
so that the entire circle of life, this is called
the co cycle, the generative cycle of life. With any
(13:01):
one of these elements that are weakened, whether it's because
of a physical or an emotional trauma, if there's a
place where you cannot transform to the next level is
where this trauma begins to settle into the body or
into the emotional states. Every organ system has an emotion
related to it, a psychological emotion that can be related
to it. For example, we talk about the emotion that's
(13:25):
related to the heart and the smaller testine that we
think about as being an over abundance, maybe a maniacal
sense or an imbalanced sense of happiness and joy when
people are so joyful, like they're floating, they're just bouncing
off the walls, or that joyful and that we think
of as an imbalance within the heart and the smaller testine.
(13:46):
On the other side of that is this idea of
sadness which is embedded within the element of meatow, which
is the lungs and the large intestine. We talk about
that because we often think about the sound of grief
that's wearing out of a person who's sobbing. We think
about that in terms of the lungs. So when we
hear somebody who's always with this this kind of very
(14:08):
very sobbing kind of voice, or somebody who breaks into
tears a lot, we might think about a lung imbalance.
Somebody is that's that's kind of stuck within grief and
can't move beyond something that's happened to them in the past.
The element of the earth is more of it's more
of the grounding, and it's more the sound of kind
(14:29):
of of a sing song voice. There's this this extra
sweetness that maybe is not not being well digested within
within this within the stomach and the spleene itself. And
then when we get to the element of liver, so
we're in the wood phase now. We think about people
that are just where the wood is burning too hot
(14:50):
or it's not burning hard enough, and it just creates
this anger, this frustration. We can't get it out. We can't.
We can't move it forward. We can't grow. Our roots
aren't deep enough from the soil, can't reach up to
the sky. We can't grow. We're really too dry to
be able to bend when the winds have change come
to hit us. So that's how we think of people
who are kind of stuck within any emotional or psychological stage.
(15:12):
We'll look at we'll do a process of a diagnosis
which will take us to look at which element might
they be stuck and based on their psychological or their
emotional responses to events that are happening.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So yeah, I mean, that was an amazing summary of
a system that people take many, many months years to learn.
So good job. And I'm wondering if I can just
add that there's you know, you guys who are really
well trained in these Asian medicine also take pulse and
look at tongue and you can help figure out which
(15:48):
elements are imbalanced and how that's all showing up in somebody.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, exactly. I forgot to mention the element of the
kidney and the urinary bladder, which is really important in
terms of people being in try and especially people that
cannot let go of anxiety in fear, because this is
the type of person who will also have an incredible response,
a startle response. And when you think about adrenaline and cortisol,
(16:13):
which are produced by the adrenal glancting on top of
the kidney, it's not hard to imagine somebody who is
stuck in this heightened state of anxiety all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Right right, Okay, So with all of that, you have
a very elegant, elegant way of understanding how trauma is
received and then in turn, how it affects the body,
which in turn affects the physiology of the body and
has sort of predictable patterns that are going to play
(16:43):
out from that, which I would imagine then leads you
to be able to figure out how to best support
that person in resolving the trauma. So let's talk a
little bit about treatment, and maybe let's start with a
regular acupuncture. I know that's a bit of a odd
place to start, but I think it's important because I
know you do that a lot in the Ukraine, and
it's something that's portable, it's very accessible for people. So
(17:06):
for people listening auricular acupuncture it's using various needle, tiny
little needles or even little balls that are taped to
various acupuncture points in the ear on the ear lobe
is what we're talking about. So describe kind of do
better than I did, describe what that is and how
it helps people who have experienced trauma.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
One of the beautiful things about the ear is that
the tissues of the ear are developing. The ear is
being i should say created as a fetus in the
womb between weeks five and twenty. It's the same time
that all the other organ systems are being developed within
the fetus. But importantly, the ear actually has tissues from
(17:49):
all of the organ systems in the whole body. It
also is innervated by nerves that are developing at the
same time as the ear is so the ear represents
a somatotopic map of the entire body. We found this
out only recently, like in the nineteen fifties, when there
was a famous a doctor of French, doctor MD, who
(18:12):
was studying a regular acupuncture in China and realized that
what he was being taught reminded him of an upside
down upside down or an inverted fetus. And so based
on this very odd theory of placement of aurricular points
in the ear. As he was visualizing a fetus. He
created a hypothesis of thinking about and testing actually testing.
(18:39):
If I think that the lobe, for example, represents the
head or the inverted the head and therefore the brain
of this fetus, then if I if I kind of
crawl up through the cartilage in the inner ear, will
I find the spine in the spinal cord. And in fact,
after decades of research, we now know that the year
(19:00):
really is a very solid and very reliable map of
the entire body, from from the structure, from the bones
and muscles to the nerves and the internal organs, including
the function as well as the the kind of the
the movement of energy through the whole body is represented
(19:22):
within the ear. So that's why we use it, that's
why it's become so powerful, and it's been so well
studied now by the Department of Defense and universities around
the world as well as researchers around the world to
how how is it that we can use the ear
to help people's bodies harmonize, to harmonize the nervous system
(19:43):
and also the function of different organs.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, okay, so maybe an example would be good.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Can you just you have so many because I've heard
you talk about some of this, but maybe just give
us an example, maybe from the Ukraine of how impactful
this can be for people.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's humbling, really humbling. There are different protocols that we
can use when we work on the ear, and we've
also been teaching it for pediatric acupunctures while our acupressure,
So it's extremely useful for children as well as for
people who are immobilized for any reason. Maybe they're immobilized
because they've had a stroke, or they've had they're in
(20:23):
the hospital, they're in recovery, or they're in a rehab center.
You can almost always ninety nine percent of the time
you can actually get to the ear, and so you
can treat the whole body by using the ear in
this somatotropic mapping. So one really profound experience for me
in Ukraine was working on somebody who had just come
(20:43):
back from the war and he was a commander, had
been a commander for years and had been just discharged
because he was found to be beating up his beating
up his soldiers. This is not unusual for people that
have severe PTSDs A wartime where there's a snap, you know,
an emotional snapping that happens, and in his case, he
(21:06):
just became violent and a little bit paranoid about what
was happening around him, and so he started beating on
his own soldiers. He was immediately discharged, and the day
he was discharged, he was brought to me for treatment.
A little bit frightening, right, So one of the first
things I did is I just established trust with him,
(21:27):
you know, in small ways. He was with people that
trusted me as well, so that helped quite a bit.
And I put he hadn't slept for almost seventy two hours,
so he was maniacal. He was, you know, he had
that look about him that was just both terror but
also rage. And I placed these five needles in both
of his ears, and he went to sleep immediately. I
(21:49):
took the needles out. About an hour later. He barely
woke up. When I took the needles out, it's so
calmed down his central nervous system immediately. It went directly
to the points that impact the sympathetic and the parasympathetic
nervous system. So he went his heart rate immediately decreased,
his oxygen levels increased, the endorphins increased, adrenaline and cortisol
(22:10):
were reduced, and he was able to fall into a
deep sleep. He slept that night for twelve hours. The
next day he found me again and he wanted a
treatment again. We were in a bar. We were already
having dinner in a bar. He joined us at the bar.
I treated him on a bench in the bar, in
a noisy bar. Because he knew the owners of the bar,
(22:32):
they allowed this to happen. He fell asleep in the
middle of the bar. I slept for another two hours,
and then went home, slept for another eight hours. And
then the third day he came back and he wanted
treatment again, and he was already a changed person. And
I met him again a year later, and he was
a completely changed person. He was meditating, doing yoga daily
(22:54):
and had really recovered himself.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
To himself, yea beautiful Ye. I mean it's great. I
mean it's just yeah, so helpful. And I'm looking at
our time because I want to ask a few of
the questions in here. So you've talked about a regular acupuncture,
which is incredibly powerful. I'm just wondering if you want
to make a case for full body acupuncture or maybe
(23:17):
for our listeners if they feel like they've had some
trauma and they'd like to explore an East Asian perspective
on it, how they would maybe make a decision or
should they even have to make a decision between say
a regular acupuncture, full body acupuncture, something else.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Our regular acupuncture is extremely good for trauma. There's a protocol,
it's called the National Aci Detox Association NADA protocol which
has been used, which was used in nine eleven. It
was actually begun on September twelfth after the explosions at
the World Trade Center. There was a hospital down down
the corner that started its program to treat first responders
(23:57):
and community members. Two years later they treated forty thousand
patients using only the five needle. Not a protocol for trauma.
It's actually usually used for substance abuse, which is the
same neuropathways as trauma. So finding a community community acupuncture
clinic that is working with not a protocol would be
very useful for anyone who would like to move forward
(24:19):
with this. And the National Acidtalks Association has a list
of trainers as well as a list of providers on
its website.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Great that's super helpful for people.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So kind of along those lines, is there something that
people should look for when they're exploring this East Asian
approach again, you know, through the lens of trauma. What
should they look for in a practitioner an acupuncturist if
they really want to drill down into addressing their trauma.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
There are two ways. One is the nomenclature of capital
l capital A small c LAC represents somebody who has
been through usually a four year training program for to
become a licensed acupuncturist. Those we often also do a
regular acupuncture, so you'd be pretty in pretty good hands
(25:17):
for full body as well as a regular acupuncture. Medical
doctors are trained sometimes to do the irregular Trauma protocol,
which is often through another protocol from the Helm's Medical Institute.
The Arigular Trauma protocol works extremely well for people in
trauma physical as well as emotional, and those are done
by some medical providers. Not all full body acupuncture works.
(25:41):
Wonders also just to help release the trauma and the
stress throughout the body.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah sure, okay, well, gosh, this has been great. We
just have enough time for you to know answer my
last question. Which is is there anything else that you
feel like our listeners should know.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I regular acupuncture produces some amazing results. I encourage anybody
who's experiencing trauma from whether it's PTSD, whether it's physical,
whether it's emotional, to find somebody in your community that
can work with you on it. It's silent, It's often
delivered in a silent space without need to talk. Once
(26:22):
you are accessing your nervous system, your nervous system knows
where to take you and knows how to help you heal.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Great, it's great. Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So with that, where can our listeners find you? Do
you have a website or anything to share?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I do. My website is called Polaris Institute of East
West Medical Studies, but you can find us on Polarismedicalinstitute
dot org.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Okay, wonderful, Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time, expertise,
and your spirit and you know, the actual giving that
you do of yourself to people in need. And that
wraps up this episode of five to Thrive Live Again.
We thank our sponsors Cetria Glutathione, the superior glutathione to
(27:08):
support liver and immune health cognizanceticoline to help enhance memory, focus,
and attention. Doctor Hira's Probiotics award winning pre and probramotic
formulas and pro thrivers wellness supplements designed specifically for thrivers.
Thank you all for joining us. May you each experience joy,
(27:28):
laughter and love. It's time to thrive. Everyone, have a
great night.
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guests should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, welcome to five to Thrive Live, a podcast about
thriving for those who have been affected by cancer chronic disease.
I'm doctor Lisa Schuler and I co host with my
good friend Carolyn Gazella. You can find all of our
past podcasts on every major podcast outlet, and you can
also find a schedule on our website, I thriveplan dot com.
(01:03):
So tonight I'm going to be talking with doctor Celia
Hildebrand about the East Asian perspective on trauma. Doctor Hildebrand
earned a master and a doctorate degree in acupuncture oriental medicine.
Doctor Hildebrand has lived with purpose defined by heart, hands, skill,
and intention. She's fellowship faculty with the Andrew Wild Center
(01:24):
for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine,
and she recently developed a full time practice with the
US Veterans Administration, seeing forty to sixty patients a week.
She is the recipient of a Fulbright Award in twenty
nineteen which took her to Ukraine to teach acupuncture for pain,
(01:45):
post traumatic stress disorder, and trauma. And she continues to
expand this curriculum and that's resulted in more than one
hundred and thirty five people using these tools to help
heal through varying degrees of trauma. Much of that kind
of trauma few of us in the US will experience.
But we are going to talk about trauma and how
this East Asian perspective is so relevant. So before we
(02:06):
do that, though, I do want to thank our sponsors. First,
we have Cetria, a patented form of glutathione clinically proven
to raise glutathione levels. Glutathione is the master antioxidant and
the body's primary defense against free radicals. It also helps
to support respiratory health and you can learn more at
(02:26):
Cetria glutathione dot com. We also think cognizance cetcholine, which
is nature's way of keeping the brain of firing on
all cylinders. So if you want to enhance your brain function,
your memory, focus, and attention, look for cognizant on the
label and you can learn more at Cognizant dot com.
And as a matter of fact, pro Thriver's Wellness Brain,
(02:49):
which is part of the pro Thriver's Wellness suite of products,
is a product that contains Cognizant as well as some
other brains supporting nutrients and herbs. And you can find
pro Thriver's Wellness Brain online at pure Formulas dot com.
And doctor Hiras Probiotics, a best selling probiotic for over
thirty years, contains twelve probiotic strains which are shelf stable
(03:12):
without refrigeration due to a unique three year fermentation process,
and you can learn more at doctor Orhira Probiotics dot com.
So with that, Doctor Hildebrand, welcome defid to Thrive Live.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Thank you. I'm so delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Indeed, I'm delighted that you are here as well. So
you know you've been to the Ukraine to offer East
Asian medicine to ease the trauma that's experienced by many there.
Why have you gone there so many times?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, First of all, I am Ukrainian second generation. My
mother and her entire family are from Ukraine. They came
over in the early nineteen hundreds, Slate eighteen hundreds, early
nineteen hundreds. So I was raised in the tradition of
the Ukrainian culture, the language, everything, the practices, the spirituality,
and so I felt a very deep calling. I've been
(04:00):
going back and forth to Ukraine since about two thousand
and four to find my family, meet them, and re
establish bridges with them. So I figured this was a
really good opportunity when I was given the full break, especially,
it was an opportunity to create a program that would
allow kind of a foundation for me to return over
and over again to Ukraine and teach and be part
(04:22):
of the culture there.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, well that's really a beautiful way of giving back. Actually,
So let's talk about this because you're obviously well trained
in East Asian medicine, which for some of our listeners
they may be wondering what is this and if they're
familiar with this space, we used to use the terminology
traditional Chinese medicine, but we've moved to East Asian because
(04:44):
it's actually more than just Chinese. So that's one thing
I wanted to clarify upfront. But so you've had deep
training in East Asian medicine, and so let's start with
the physical impacts of trauma from that East Asian perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, I'm going to kind of go back and forth
between East and Western medicines with this. So trauma comes
in different forms, right, It can be both physiological, but
it can be an emotional It can be a primary
trauma where I am impacted. I'm either falling, I've been hit,
I've had an accident, I've had a bad experience, I've
been emotionally abused, and it can be secondary. So the
(05:23):
secondary trauma is observing something that's happened to another person.
Most of us were impacted, for example, at nine to eleven.
All of us are impacted when we see the visions
on the television shows or on in the movies, when
we see people being hurt or explosions and things like that.
That is a form of secondary trauma. Trauma comes to
(05:45):
us in many layers, in many ways, and mostly in
East Asian medicine, we think about it as coming in
through our weight chi, and that's spelled wi qi weightchi,
which is our protective chi, and that's the chi that
kind of envelops our physical bodies. And some people also
think in terms of our emotional bodies, and that protective
(06:07):
chi is what keeps us safe from even from our
immune system. In other words, it keeps us safe from
the germs, the bacteria, the viruses, the fungus, the things
that enter our body in any way, whether they come
in through an open wound, a cut, or any of
our orifices or if it is important in terms of
(06:27):
trauma things we hear them, we smell them, we taste them,
and each one of those orifices represents a pathway into
our psyche and into our physical body. And East Asian
medicine has a way of looking at that as something
enters our physical body or our emotional body, and how
(06:48):
our psyches and our physical bodies metabolize that, digest it,
and move with it.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So that brings up my next question.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So you mentioned metabolized, which you know, in a truly
sort of physiological sense means you basically take something and
you digest it and then you eliminate it. So when
you say metabolized, like from an East Asian perspective, do
these physical effects that are taken up by the body,
(07:17):
either you know, having physical or psychological components, do they
stay for a long time or does the they just
go through.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
That's a really good question. And I can contextualize that
by talking about yin and yang, which is another concept
construct of East Asian medicine. Yin and Yang represent opposites, dualities, maybe,
but they also represent one within the other, the transformation
of yin to yong and Yong back into yin, and
(07:47):
the fact that there is one element of Yong within
the over the over the larger picture of yin and
there's an element of Yin within the young. And that's
you know, that can sound very confusing the most important
principle is that there's always a transformation. There's always a
phase at which one thing turns into another. That's a transformation,
(08:08):
a cellular metabolism, that's a thought process. That is a
digestive process of life and of food and liquid. So
this entire concept of moving forward, moving through something is
how each one of us, individually and probably collectively move
through trauma. So where I might get stuck in trauma
(08:29):
could be based on in one of my organ systems
or one of my electrical systems, or my nervous system.
Where you might get stuck with something moving through trauma
could be through a physiological thing, maybe through a muscle
or a blood vessel. So we all have these different
ways of how we metabolize it, but also how we
(08:52):
take in an experience and then how we move through it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So what about the psycho logical effects, you know, I
think we would say in the Western science of things
that people have have psychological effects of trauma, particularly say
childhood traumas that really can last a lifetime. So in
many ways they affect how we function in the world,
(09:18):
some of which is physiological, you know, changes the way
our neurological system works, for example, and how we respond
to stressors later and things like that. But from an
East Asian perspective, there's an element, there's a sort of
a philosophical component, the five element theory, which maybe helps us,
(09:39):
doesn't help us to understand how trauma affects us psychologically.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
It does, and thank you for that softball that you
just threw. I mean, that's great softball. So the way
it does is that there are at the five elements
that represent always again like a transformation. So if we
just start with the element for example of fire, so
fire is the element that is best represented or is
(10:04):
represented by the organ systems of the heart and the
small intestine you get. How does fire even become fire?
Is it comes from the element of wood. And wood,
of course is represented is something that can burn it
and there's the quality of the wood that depends on
both the moisture and the nutrition within the wood and
(10:26):
whether it's too dry, in which case the wood will
burn very very hot, or if it's too soft, or
it's if it's too moist then it will take a
slow time, a longer time to burn. Wood is represented
in the element that's represented within the liver and the
gall bladder. So here we have the digestive organs right right,
the ones that actually produce the bio and the enzymes
(10:48):
that would digest and experience or digest food. So how
does wood grow other than so wood comes from the
element before the wood would be water. So wood grows
when there's anough water. Water is represented by the kidney
and the urinary bladder. So can the wood absorb the water?
Can the wood actually use the water once it's absorbed?
(11:11):
What does it do with the water does it is
it oversaturated or is it not saturated enough? And that
comes from the element of earth. So the earth is
represented with the stomach and the spleen, so it's a
stomach and the spleen, or actually these points of If
the earth itself, i should say, is very dry, it
(11:32):
doesn't have enough water inside the earth, so the wood
really cannot hold it cannot draw it up into its fibers,
so when it burns, it burns very very hot. Or
if the earth is muddy, if it's swampy, because the
earth element itself, the fibers of the soil are not
able and capable of really holding onto the water for
(11:53):
whatever reason, then the tree is not or the wood
is not going to be able to pick it up.
It might pick up too much of it and then
it won't burn properly into the fire. So where does
this earth come from? And how does the earth hold
on to these other pieces of it that help it
to have the absorption ability for water comes from the
(12:17):
metallic pieces within the earth, and the metallic piece is
represented by the lung and the large intestine. So these
these elements all feed into each other and they create
a complete cycles. So if you go back to the fire,
the fire is burning the wood that creates the earth
and within the earth. Depending on how good the wood
(12:39):
is to begin with creates the earth, which is holding
onto the minerals, which is part of the digestive process.
And so you can see like this entire system is
one of transformation. You have to be able to get
from one element to the next in a healthy way
so that the entire circle of life, this is called
the co cycle, the generative cycle of life. With any
(13:01):
one of these elements that are weakened, whether it's because
of a physical or an emotional trauma, if there's a
place where you cannot transform to the next level is
where this trauma begins to settle into the body or
into the emotional states. Every organ system has an emotion
related to it, a psychological emotion that can be related
to it. For example, we talk about the emotion that's
(13:25):
related to the heart and the smaller testine that we
think about as being an over abundance, maybe a maniacal
sense or an imbalanced sense of happiness and joy when
people are so joyful, like they're floating, they're just bouncing
off the walls, or that joyful and that we think
of as an imbalance within the heart and the smaller testine.
(13:46):
On the other side of that is this idea of
sadness which is embedded within the element of meatow, which
is the lungs and the large intestine. We talk about
that because we often think about the sound of grief
that's wearing out of a person who's sobbing. We think
about that in terms of the lungs. So when we
hear somebody who's always with this this kind of very
(14:08):
very sobbing kind of voice, or somebody who breaks into
tears a lot, we might think about a lung imbalance.
Somebody is that's that's kind of stuck within grief and
can't move beyond something that's happened to them in the past.
The element of the earth is more of it's more
of the grounding, and it's more the sound of kind
(14:29):
of of a sing song voice. There's this this extra
sweetness that maybe is not not being well digested within
within this within the stomach and the spleene itself. And
then when we get to the element of liver, so
we're in the wood phase now. We think about people
that are just where the wood is burning too hot
(14:50):
or it's not burning hard enough, and it just creates
this anger, this frustration. We can't get it out. We can't.
We can't move it forward. We can't grow. Our roots
aren't deep enough from the soil, can't reach up to
the sky. We can't grow. We're really too dry to
be able to bend when the winds have change come
to hit us. So that's how we think of people
who are kind of stuck within any emotional or psychological stage.
(15:12):
We'll look at we'll do a process of a diagnosis
which will take us to look at which element might
they be stuck and based on their psychological or their
emotional responses to events that are happening.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So yeah, I mean, that was an amazing summary of
a system that people take many, many months years to learn.
So good job. And I'm wondering if I can just
add that there's you know, you guys who are really
well trained in these Asian medicine also take pulse and
look at tongue and you can help figure out which
(15:48):
elements are imbalanced and how that's all showing up in somebody.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, exactly. I forgot to mention the element of the
kidney and the urinary bladder, which is really important in
terms of people being in try and especially people that
cannot let go of anxiety in fear, because this is
the type of person who will also have an incredible response,
a startle response. And when you think about adrenaline and cortisol,
(16:13):
which are produced by the adrenal glancting on top of
the kidney, it's not hard to imagine somebody who is
stuck in this heightened state of anxiety all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Right right, Okay, So with all of that, you have
a very elegant, elegant way of understanding how trauma is
received and then in turn, how it affects the body,
which in turn affects the physiology of the body and
has sort of predictable patterns that are going to play
(16:43):
out from that, which I would imagine then leads you
to be able to figure out how to best support
that person in resolving the trauma. So let's talk a
little bit about treatment, and maybe let's start with a
regular acupuncture. I know that's a bit of a odd
place to start, but I think it's important because I
know you do that a lot in the Ukraine, and
it's something that's portable, it's very accessible for people. So
(17:06):
for people listening auricular acupuncture it's using various needle, tiny
little needles or even little balls that are taped to
various acupuncture points in the ear on the ear lobe
is what we're talking about. So describe kind of do
better than I did, describe what that is and how
it helps people who have experienced trauma.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
One of the beautiful things about the ear is that
the tissues of the ear are developing. The ear is
being i should say created as a fetus in the
womb between weeks five and twenty. It's the same time
that all the other organ systems are being developed within
the fetus. But importantly, the ear actually has tissues from
(17:49):
all of the organ systems in the whole body. It
also is innervated by nerves that are developing at the
same time as the ear is so the ear represents
a somatotopic map of the entire body. We found this
out only recently, like in the nineteen fifties, when there
was a famous a doctor of French, doctor MD, who
(18:12):
was studying a regular acupuncture in China and realized that
what he was being taught reminded him of an upside
down upside down or an inverted fetus. And so based
on this very odd theory of placement of aurricular points
in the ear. As he was visualizing a fetus. He
created a hypothesis of thinking about and testing actually testing.
(18:39):
If I think that the lobe, for example, represents the
head or the inverted the head and therefore the brain
of this fetus, then if I if I kind of
crawl up through the cartilage in the inner ear, will
I find the spine in the spinal cord. And in fact,
after decades of research, we now know that the year
(19:00):
really is a very solid and very reliable map of
the entire body, from from the structure, from the bones
and muscles to the nerves and the internal organs, including
the function as well as the the kind of the
the movement of energy through the whole body is represented
(19:22):
within the ear. So that's why we use it, that's
why it's become so powerful, and it's been so well
studied now by the Department of Defense and universities around
the world as well as researchers around the world to
how how is it that we can use the ear
to help people's bodies harmonize, to harmonize the nervous system
(19:43):
and also the function of different organs.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, okay, so maybe an example would be good.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Can you just you have so many because I've heard
you talk about some of this, but maybe just give
us an example, maybe from the Ukraine of how impactful
this can be for people.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's humbling, really humbling. There are different protocols that we
can use when we work on the ear, and we've
also been teaching it for pediatric acupunctures while our acupressure,
So it's extremely useful for children as well as for
people who are immobilized for any reason. Maybe they're immobilized
because they've had a stroke, or they've had they're in
(20:23):
the hospital, they're in recovery, or they're in a rehab center.
You can almost always ninety nine percent of the time
you can actually get to the ear, and so you
can treat the whole body by using the ear in
this somatotropic mapping. So one really profound experience for me
in Ukraine was working on somebody who had just come
(20:43):
back from the war and he was a commander, had
been a commander for years and had been just discharged
because he was found to be beating up his beating
up his soldiers. This is not unusual for people that
have severe PTSDs A wartime where there's a snap, you know,
an emotional snapping that happens, and in his case, he
(21:06):
just became violent and a little bit paranoid about what
was happening around him, and so he started beating on
his own soldiers. He was immediately discharged, and the day
he was discharged, he was brought to me for treatment.
A little bit frightening, right, So one of the first
things I did is I just established trust with him,
(21:27):
you know, in small ways. He was with people that
trusted me as well, so that helped quite a bit.
And I put he hadn't slept for almost seventy two hours,
so he was maniacal. He was, you know, he had
that look about him that was just both terror but
also rage. And I placed these five needles in both
of his ears, and he went to sleep immediately. I
(21:49):
took the needles out. About an hour later. He barely
woke up. When I took the needles out, it's so
calmed down his central nervous system immediately. It went directly
to the points that impact the sympathetic and the parasympathetic
nervous system. So he went his heart rate immediately decreased,
his oxygen levels increased, the endorphins increased, adrenaline and cortisol
(22:10):
were reduced, and he was able to fall into a
deep sleep. He slept that night for twelve hours. The
next day he found me again and he wanted a
treatment again. We were in a bar. We were already
having dinner in a bar. He joined us at the bar.
I treated him on a bench in the bar, in
a noisy bar. Because he knew the owners of the bar,
(22:32):
they allowed this to happen. He fell asleep in the
middle of the bar. I slept for another two hours,
and then went home, slept for another eight hours. And
then the third day he came back and he wanted
treatment again, and he was already a changed person. And
I met him again a year later, and he was
a completely changed person. He was meditating, doing yoga daily
(22:54):
and had really recovered himself.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
To himself, yea beautiful Ye. I mean it's great. I
mean it's just yeah, so helpful. And I'm looking at
our time because I want to ask a few of
the questions in here. So you've talked about a regular acupuncture,
which is incredibly powerful. I'm just wondering if you want
to make a case for full body acupuncture or maybe
(23:17):
for our listeners if they feel like they've had some
trauma and they'd like to explore an East Asian perspective
on it, how they would maybe make a decision or
should they even have to make a decision between say
a regular acupuncture, full body acupuncture, something else.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Our regular acupuncture is extremely good for trauma. There's a protocol,
it's called the National Aci Detox Association NADA protocol which
has been used, which was used in nine eleven. It
was actually begun on September twelfth after the explosions at
the World Trade Center. There was a hospital down down
the corner that started its program to treat first responders
(23:57):
and community members. Two years later they treated forty thousand
patients using only the five needle. Not a protocol for trauma.
It's actually usually used for substance abuse, which is the
same neuropathways as trauma. So finding a community community acupuncture
clinic that is working with not a protocol would be
very useful for anyone who would like to move forward
(24:19):
with this. And the National Acidtalks Association has a list
of trainers as well as a list of providers on
its website.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Great that's super helpful for people.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So kind of along those lines, is there something that
people should look for when they're exploring this East Asian
approach again, you know, through the lens of trauma. What
should they look for in a practitioner an acupuncturist if
they really want to drill down into addressing their trauma.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
There are two ways. One is the nomenclature of capital
l capital A small c LAC represents somebody who has
been through usually a four year training program for to
become a licensed acupuncturist. Those we often also do a
regular acupuncture, so you'd be pretty in pretty good hands
(25:17):
for full body as well as a regular acupuncture. Medical
doctors are trained sometimes to do the irregular Trauma protocol,
which is often through another protocol from the Helm's Medical Institute.
The Arigular Trauma protocol works extremely well for people in
trauma physical as well as emotional, and those are done
by some medical providers. Not all full body acupuncture works.
(25:41):
Wonders also just to help release the trauma and the
stress throughout the body.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah sure, okay, well, gosh, this has been great. We
just have enough time for you to know answer my
last question. Which is is there anything else that you
feel like our listeners should know.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I regular acupuncture produces some amazing results. I encourage anybody
who's experiencing trauma from whether it's PTSD, whether it's physical,
whether it's emotional, to find somebody in your community that
can work with you on it. It's silent, It's often
delivered in a silent space without need to talk. Once
(26:22):
you are accessing your nervous system, your nervous system knows
where to take you and knows how to help you heal.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Great, it's great. Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So with that, where can our listeners find you? Do
you have a website or anything to share?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I do. My website is called Polaris Institute of East
West Medical Studies, but you can find us on Polarismedicalinstitute
dot org.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Okay, wonderful, Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time, expertise,
and your spirit and you know, the actual giving that
you do of yourself to people in need. And that
wraps up this episode of five to Thrive Live Again.
We thank our sponsors Cetria Glutathione, the superior glutathione to
(27:08):
support liver and immune health cognizanceticoline to help enhance memory, focus,
and attention. Doctor Hira's Probiotics award winning pre and probramotic
formulas and pro thrivers wellness supplements designed specifically for thrivers.
Thank you all for joining us. May you each experience joy,
(27:28):
laughter and love. It's time to thrive. Everyone, have a
great night.
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