Where does your passion for TCM come from?
I’m Malaysian Chinese. Both my first-generation great-grandparents were born in Malaysia, but originally from China, so this tradition is practically in my blood. I also grew up with Chinese medicine. My mother always treated me with herbs, with chicken broth, from an early age. I’ve never been bothered by the taste of herbs; rather, it makes me feel nostalgic. When I left home to discover myself, to explore, I worked for a while in a corporate company, but I wasn’t thinking of training as a Chinese medicine doctor. What really drew me back to this world was when I was 27 and taking birth control pills for over 10 years, and got to a stage where I just felt numb and I knew I had to do something about it. At the time, I was taking a yoga teacher training course, and one of my fellow students suggested I see a TCM doctor who was an expert in women’s health. I took the herbs, and my menstrual cycle returned, much more regular and better than I’d ever had. It was truly powerful.
It makes much more sense to take something natural rather than something chemical to heal your body that comes from nature and yet the West has a completely different view.
I can understand this point of view. Valerio, my husband, takes pills as soon as he feels any kind of pain. In the world he was raised in, he’s accustomed to the idea that as soon as he feels discomfort, he has to find something to get him out of it. Many Western people don’t want to endure physical discomfort because they’re used to it. But it’s also important to understand the severity of the pain when you feel it and then stay with it for a moment, listen to it, and don’t immediately try to suppress it. You can tell if something is serious or not… When I don’t feel well, it’s okay for me to rest, drink lots of water, and not take anything, even listening to what’s really wrong. If I had a fever, my mother didn’t give me paracetamol or other baby fluids, but she took blood from my ear, which is quicker than paracetamol. They extract the blood with the small needle they also use for diabetes when they extract blood with a finger prick, and it all goes away. The fever goes away. The effect is almost instantaneous.
How can TCM help achieve hormonal balance and a healthy life?
Chinese medicine takes into account many aspects of a human being and their environment: their constitution, their mood, their emotional, energetic, spiritual, and physical state. Every single imbalance we observe in a person has a specific cause. It’s as if every single human being were a different puzzle. But the symptom isn’t a single piece separate from the others; it’s all interconnected. We know that behind a symptom there’s always an emotion. We treat symptoms by seeking their causes within this holistic perspective. We can treat any symptom, except for emergencies like a heart attack, a broken arm, or even cancer. This type of diagnosis is beyond our understanding; there is no technical diagnosis of cancer according to Chinese medicine. In conclusion, every human being is different, and each person must be treated differently. We can work uniquely with each individual, bringing a positive impact on their entirety, both physically and emotionally and energetically.
I, too, have undergone treatment for pre- and post-menstrual symptoms with you and have seen incredible results. It’s impossible to turn away from the evidence, yet there are still many skeptics, reluctant to approach Chinese Medicine.
There are ever-increasing studies and scientific evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. It’s becoming increasingly accepted and popular. In Australia and America, for example, they’re very strict and highly regulated, so much so that Chinese medicine doctors must have a very high level of knowledge. More and more people are realizing that long-term use of Western medications can cause side effects. They realize that sometimes they feel worse than when they started. There are also people who approach acupuncture after trying everything else and not seeing the desired results, so they try this path and become more open-minded. There’s also the issue of acupuncture. Not everyone enjoys dealing with needles. In any case, I believe that with time, more and more people will embrace this vision of life, and more and more governments will support it.
I know that in Japanese hospitals you can choose between Western and Chinese medicine. Having both options and being able to choose based on a doctor’s opinion is truly a blessing. What do you think?
Integrative medicine is the way of the future, in my opinion. In India, they’ve integrated Western medicine with Ayurveda, and they’re doing it in China and Taiwan with Chinese medicine… when you go to the hospital and get treated, it’s truly inspiring. And there are many more integrative medicine doctors. One of my favourite integrative medicine doctors is Dr Daniel Keown, and he wove together and realised so many connections between both Western and Eastern Medicine, such as the Triple Burner and Fascia. The Triple Burner was an abstract idea that there are three parts of the body—the upper body, the middle body, and the lower body—connected by a highway, something mystical, which we’ve tried to describe in Western medicine, but now we know it’s the fascia. And Chinese medicine has been talking about it for millennia. It had already been identified in classical texts, and today Western medicine has given it a name, and recognized it.
You are also a yoga teacher so do you think Yin Yoga connected with TCM can works to help the meridians and body?
Yin Yoga is based on the meridian theory of the chines medicine and it can effect the triple burn, the San Jiao And uses fascia to reshape the body and be connected with the channels of the body. The yin yoga classes that I like to go based you use postures 90 second to 5-6 minutes in postures that effects one or more meridian. Meridians are allocated in our system. There are external meridian that we activate with acupuncture. To effect the internal one. When we effect the fascia we can definitely we can effect the organs. When you try Tin Yoga you feel different human and the end. Yin aspect of our body tends ligaments, fascia organs instead of muscles, skin ear.
Sometimes we fail to understand what’s truly good for us, so we follow trends or external influences. How can we learn, especially as women, to create our own space to think about ourselves and listen more deeply?
Since women are generally more Yin, more introspective than men, we need a space all to ourselves, a place of quiet and listening. We’ve always been trained to be busy, to do a thousand things, but by nature we are more introspective, more curious about our dark side, more reflective. Recognizing this nature of ours, which can obviously vary from person to person, is also important for learning to express this part of ourselves more freely without forcing ourselves to be what we’re not or what others would like us to be. For me, it’s more important to create space. If we don’t stop, we don’t create this kind of nourishing space, of inner listening, a space in which to be still, life becomes stressful, unsustainable. Many illnesses also stem from this. Meditation is another wonderful starting point. It doesn’t take any skill, just be still and listen. You can begin to notice your breathing, how your emotions move, and learn to become more aware, and even more confident in yourself and your body. Sometimes all we need is rest. Open yourself up enough to discover new things and see if something works or not. The only way is to try.
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