Transcript of Episode #143 Featuring Dr. Felice Chan!  The HEALING Episode!  A deep look into all healing options!   Traditional Chinese Medicine, Eastern vs. Western, Traditional vs. Non-traditional and MORE! New

The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
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00:00:17

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00:01:27

I actually had the pleasure of meeting her and her sister. It's been over a year now, and we actually did a recording, but given the amount of time that went by and transitions I made and the bad audio and it not being in person, I think there was a good reason why we didn't utilize that one. Although it was lovely to interview both of you, I think now that perspectives have changed, and I think things that I've learned and you've learned have changed, and the conversation's going to be far more intricate and in-depth than it was prior. And I think that you represent both of you extremely well, and I think your sister would say the same. So my guest, well, she's multifaceted, so I'm going to try to give her the accolades she deserves, but I, I can only do what I can do. So she is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, she has a neuroscience background, and she bridges Eastern and Western perspectives to help people rethink how they approach health, skin, and emotional well-being. She's the co-founder of Moonbow, which I can you, and you all know that follow me, I'm a skincare snob at heart, and her products are amazing.

00:02:34

She has so many things going on there. She does nervous system regulation and modern applications of traditional Chinese medicine. So I can't say enough, but I'm so thankful to meet you in person finally since we've been talking online forever. My guest, Dr. Felice Chan.

00:02:52

Thank you for having me and thank you for that beautiful introduction.

00:02:55

Well, I get lucky some days on my intros. Thank you for coming.

00:02:59

Yeah, thank you.

00:03:00

You know, I know your sister was unhappy she wasn't able to be here, but like I said, you represent you both extremely well and she would do the same if she were here. She's amazing. But I'm going to utilize all the time I have with you today.

00:03:11

Yeah.

00:03:12

So I know that we have the skincare to talk about, but I want to get into some other stuff first.

00:03:17

Yes, happy to.

00:03:18

You have so many things of interest to me, and I think you're going to be of interest to everybody. I was talking to Queenie before and I said, you know, this is gonna be fun cuz I have so many thoughts. I do so much discussion on medicines, conventional, non-conventional.

00:03:36

Yeah.

00:03:36

Before we get into Chinese and, and Eastern medicine, traditional Chinese medicine versus Western medicine, how they are congruent, how they're opposite, I wanna throw something by you, a thought.

00:03:48

Okay.

00:03:49

I have argued recently The term conventional medicine is really non-conventional. It's non-conventional to me because what I would deem conventional is something natural, something that was put here. Non-conventional stuff is generally derived from something that I would deem conventional, something from the earth. I would like to know, given your astute background in all of this, what are your thoughts on that?

00:04:14

It's interesting you bring that up because There was a time in my life where all I studied was neuroscience and Western medicine, and to me that was the epitome of medicine because it was all I known really from an educational background. I studied it, and so that was my holy grail essentially. And not until I really dove deep into the science of traditional Chinese medicine or even the science of energy medicine or spirituality that I realized that there's so much more. And I agree with you, you know, I think it's interesting to shift the understanding of conventional medicine to what is actually natural. We are nature beings, and where does everything come from? And I think the more that we tie ourselves to how nature runs and rules our bodies, the healthier we get. And when you think about any ancient medicine, whether it's Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, even, you know, South American, Peruvian, Andes, wherever you go to it, it's been there for thousands and thousands and thousands of years and it still exists today. So how do we play that with modern medicine? You know, do they run in parallel and are they unconventional now because it's based off something that we don't understand?

00:05:24

Yeah.

00:05:24

Yeah.

00:05:25

I mean, I always say there's a purpose for some of the medications that are made. I use some of them for my heart, for example. I told you I was in the ER. What do you think helped me stop from throwing up so much? It was, you know, but the misuse and the misguided information.

00:05:42

Yeah.

00:05:43

And the— I say this temperately, but really the brainwashing of students that are in medical school.

00:05:48

Yeah.

00:05:49

They're misled and misguided on a one-track mind without a thought of functional medicine or what it even is. And you bring that up and they don't know. So then that poses traditional Chinese medicine. So when we break that down, what that means, let's break it down easily and then more scientifically on what that means.

00:06:06

Sure. I always like to say traditional Chinese medicine comes in 4 pillars. You know, I say 4 boxes. It's just easier for people to understand it because it's so complex. You know, it's 5,000 years old. So how the heck does someone grasp their mind around it, right?

00:06:19

Yeah.

00:06:19

In our, you know, 100 years of life that we have here, or, you know, however long you want to live. But there's acupuncture, acupressure. Most people find traditional Chinese medicine because of acupuncture. Like, oh, you know, my friend got acupuncture for their back pain and it healed them really well. And that's most of people's introduction here in the West. So acupuncture works with our meridian system. It's an energy system that essentially is in our interstitium. You know, there is actually a recent article in the New York Times and Nat Geo that they were like, we actually found where acupuncture meridians lie in the body, which is fascinating. Then the second pillar is herbal medicine, you know. So in med school, we learned over 300 to 400 herbs and all of the energetics of it, where it goes in your body, what it does for your body. And it's amazing. And there's so many pharmaceuticals that are actually derived from all of these herbs. And it's not just the single herbs, but the formulation of it, right? How do you combine 10 to 15 herbs to then help someone with a flu, to help someone with heart disease, to help someone with high blood pressure or diabetes or miscarriages, whatever it is?

00:07:17

There's always something that you can do with that. And then the fourth pillar is food is medicine. How do you actually eat your way to health? And it is so fundamental in Chinese medicine. And the last pillar is lifestyle that emphasizes mindfulness, you know, making sure that we can regulate our nervous system, that we have the equal amount of yin to our yang, you know, which means our rest to all the go, go, go. Um, and that's just Chinese medicine philosophy.

00:07:38

I love it. So these are some of the things that I've been saying recently, more recently that I've actually come to understand, and I had no idea that the relation to the, the Chinese medicine side of it, the first one that you said immediately was when you said food is medicine. I've been starting to say that in everything that I talk about. When we talk about medicine, what does that mean? What do you mean by that? Because some people are gonna hear that and just not get it.

00:08:03

Food is medicine means that there's always something that you can eat to heal you. For example, we're in Arizona. It is so hot right now, you know, and people are dehydrated. You don't just have to pump yourself with ice cold water, which Chinese medicine doesn't advise anyways. But how can you eat things that nourish yourself? For example, mung beans is a traditional Chinese medicine bean, but it's— we call it in Chinese the natural electrolyte because it's so powerful for your body and it's very cooling for your system. Similar to cucumbers or watermelon, you know, all of these herbs or even dandelion greens, chrysanthemum. They're so cooling, they drain the heat in our body, and they actually help with this thirst that we feel or this dehydration. So that's a good example of, you know, summertime that's coming up.

00:08:43

Awesome. Okay. Yeah, because, you know, when I think of food as healing, I think of Resident Evil or something when you pick up an herb and eat it and heal yourself.

00:08:51

Yes. And that too. Yes. And that exists too. You know, it's so fun going hiking in Los Angeles and I see an herb. I'm like, you could literally eat that and it can heal you from X, Y, Z.

00:09:00

Well, but, and, and see, I said that and now it comes to mind. Why do you think they put that in the video game? Why do you think there's different herbs to heal yourself and so many different mushrooms? Yes, exactly. So they're onto something you can learn from consistently. Okay. So let's take the next step then, because you started to talk about mindfulness.

00:09:18

Yeah.

00:09:18

Now I find that the people that have more gratitude, more appreciation, more positive outlook on life. That aren't stuck in a negative nature, depressive nature, constantly angry. How does that correlate then into what you teach and what Chinese medicine teaches? Because I'm assuming that's a teaching thing. Yep. Right?

00:09:40

Yep. Oh, for sure. I mean, in traditional Chinese medicine, the mind, body, and soul are never separate. It's how we heal. Like, for example, if someone comes into clinic, I'm asking them about their emotions, how they're dealing with stressful situations, and then we look at the physical, right? Because the physical is kind of a downward, you know, part of where emotional, emotional imbalances start, right? We always say emotions are the first part of imbalance, then it leads to something physical in your body. And so to teach it in traditional Chinese medicine is to understand how your body feels regulated, how it feels balanced and relaxed. And it's pretty wild where a lot of people have a difficult time figuring that out because we weren't ever taught to learn how to be relaxed and how to feel like our nervous system is resting, that it's malleable, it's able to bounce back from the fight or flight to the rest and digest.

00:10:29

I have been talking about this now when I really got into the neuroscience side of every— my whole premise on full total health alignment is mind, body, spirit, but it starts at the top with spirit. For me, it's, it's— I firmly believe this without a shadow of a doubt, that if you don't have a connection with God, I can't fully fix you. Spirit, like, start, then we go to mind, then to body. I was always under the premise of everything's fitness and nutrition. That's what I've been doing for 15 years. Then I really came to the understanding, once I got deeper in prayer and deeper in understanding the core of my own problems— constant needless anger, the inability to be compassionate when I want to be, the really restless responses that just doesn't— it's just not what I wanted. And I'd be like, why are you responding like this? And it's just like consistently over time was fix my diet, I feel better, but it's still not right. There's an imbalance. Hormones are great. So what is it? It was the nervous system because I was— I acquired the proper connection to God, but it was something inside.

00:11:35

Yeah, nervous system regulatory. So what's your belief on the tie-in here? Because I, I really understand how the mind controls every aspect of everything. If your mind is messed up, I cannot fix the body.

00:11:48

Yep.

00:11:48

Because the mind controls the body.

00:11:50

Yep.

00:11:50

You tell me if I'm nuts or if I'm onto something.

00:11:52

No, you're onto something. As you're speaking, I'm very visual. I just see 3 buckets of how the nervous system works. And let's give an example. For example, if we are reactive and feeling angry, how does our body physically feel? We aren't breathing into our diaphragm. Everything feels stuck here. And that's the physical feeling we're feeling. Then we're going to bounce to the nervous system aspect of it. We have the vagus nerve that runs from the back of our, you know, head and neck all the way into our abdomen and diaphragm. And if you're not breathing, everything is stuck. The vagus nerve isn't active. The vagus nerve is one of the most important cranial nerves for nervous system reset, of how you actually calm your body down. So when you're angry, that's not activating, that's not working. And then there's another translation to traditional Chinese medicine and what it means. So we always like to say there's something called liver qi stagnation. It might sound like a different language, and it is, right? So in an essence, in Traditional Chinese medicine, the liver is the organ that is all about our anger, our stress. And when you think about it from a Western standpoint, it's the organ that detoxes even emotions, but also physical toxins, right?

00:12:57

And so when we're angry and we aren't processing things, everything is stuck, literally the energy of the liver, which is, you know, under the right rib. And so that is the feeling we feel when we're angry, when we can't breathe, when our stomach hurts, our chest is closing. So that's 3 examples of the spiritual that we felt. That you feel with your nervous system, the Western standpoint of vagus nerve, but also, you know, the liver's involvement. And then there's a Chinese medicine understanding of it and language which existed thousands of years ago. So what you are saying is in fact something that is true and real, but we just have to kind of shift our minds and how we can see it and understand it based on the language that we've developed around it.

00:13:34

So if you have great liver scores, great values, great everything. Yep. But for some reason you have the pain in there. Like if somebody came to test you and gave you that push test.

00:13:45

Yeah.

00:13:46

And it lights you up. Once that's released and you do that same said push test, it's gone because the anger's gone and the negativity's gone. It releases that pain. It's gone.

00:13:55

Correct. And I see that all the time. You know, people come into my clinic with perfect lab results and they're just like, I'm not feeling the way I should be. I feel out of my body. I'm not in control. And after an acupuncture treatment, for example, because it's moving all the energy that needs to move, it's releasing the emotions that you need to release. It's, you know, relaxing all the nerves that need to relax. It's moving all of the blood flow that is stuck, right? And so either, you know, through acupuncture, even through some type of spiritual release, it's doing the same thing. It's making things move that are stagnant.

00:14:25

That was one of the things I experienced.

00:14:27

Yeah.

00:14:28

One of the, I, when I told you I went before this, I went through a big nervous system reset, reset, and he said it's soul surgery, essentially, on what was done.

00:14:38

Okay.

00:14:38

And the, the things that were expelled from me that have been there for years, and the understanding of things that came out of me during this reset— this was very— when I tell you this was intense, and I'm an intense individual, it was on a whole nother level. I'm getting chills talking about because I can picture my experience and then how I came out of it, but it was a removal and things that I did never, never think about, like never would never dream of thinking about. And then during the breathwork and the, the sounds and the things around me and the, the spiritual connection, what came out of me that I said, and I'm like, what the fuck?

00:15:18

Like, what is that person? That's wild.

00:15:20

And then expelling it through prayer and breathwork at the same time. And it was an experience that changed my outlook on everything that I've ever learned science-wise. And it gave me a deeper appreciation of science, God creating science, and how everything is him. I've had people tell me God is energy, God is science. No, no, no, no, no. God is everything that came from him. And then I understand now how this works. When you look at it, that nothing was here before, nothing would be after. That's a gift from him. How are we using it? And then how we use that shapes our life. So the ability to get rid of all of this comes from something that he gave us one way or another, whether it's acupuncture, whether it's discussion on how to get this out through the breathwork. There's means and ways of doing it dependent upon the person, what they're holding in, right, and how severe.

00:16:16

Yep, yep.

00:16:17

So how much does a negative energy really cause a problem? Because it's everywhere. It's everywhere.

00:16:23

Yep.

00:16:24

How do we know and how do we fight it?

00:16:26

I think most people realize that they have some type of heaviness to them when they experience physical symptoms. However, Chinese medicine can recognize it before physical symptoms happen from things like your pulse. We feel your pulse and we can feel different organs. The pulse gives a lot of information, not just the rate, but we feel the quality of it, the depth, the different organs represented on the right and the left hand, such as the right hand, it's You know, we always feel for different organs such as the lungs, the heart, the spleen, the stomach, which is our digestion, our kidneys on both hands. And so we can feel imbalances that way and where that negative emotion or even heaviness is in the body, right? Is it lower in the, what we say, the lower dantian or the bottom regions, which for a lot of people is where we hold trauma. And for a lot of women is where women hold trauma, especially in the reproductive area. Is it held in the lungs if someone's experiencing grief? And if that's the negative energy we're talking about, right? It lives in different areas of the body. And it's pretty incredible when someone releases it, not just through acupuncture, Chinese medicine, whether it's through somatic therapy, whether it's through whatever mode they choose, right?

00:17:35

But there is a release and people feel it. And I think that's the transformation that we have to tune into, that healing isn't just the physical pain we release, but it's the emotional, the processing of it. And I always say that if, you know, a patient comes in and they don't actually tune into their emotions and they don't process their emotions, they're not going to get better, right?

00:17:53

Yeah.

00:17:53

And so it's a, it's a holistic view of medicine. You come in, you get, you get primed by acupuncture, by the herbs, but a lot of the healing is done outside of the treatment room and they have to want it, right?

00:18:04

I want to talk about acupuncture a little bit.

00:18:06

Yeah.

00:18:06

Because people look at it and I think they don't understand. Yep. What it does, but, and, and tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think potentially it's because the people doing it may not know exactly what they're doing properly. I'm not saying that they're ignorant to, to how to do it, but they may not be doing it in the manner of which somebody that's a little bit more understanding of maybe Chinese medicine or what's supposed to happen with it. Is there more intricacy to it than just like doing it?

00:18:34

Like, yeah, so acupuncture, what, what's exactly happening, let's say, when you put a needle in a point on the leg? You're entering the energy system of your body. And then you can say they can seem woo-woo, or, you know, we call it chi, we call it this life force. But imagine almost like a river flowing of energy that exists in your body. It's what gives us life. We get life from two forms, you know, food and air, right? And when it's transferred into your body, has to go somewhere. And, you know, what I mentioned earlier in this podcast, how they actually can see where this interstitium, where the meridians lie, you know. There was a 2019 article about dye that was put in the body, and it followed the pericardium channel, which is, you know, on the hands and goes all the way to the heart. It exists, and people are finally realizing that, right? So when you put a needle in, it's entering this energy well and this flow of meridian system. It's, you know, from toe to hand to head. And so when you put it in there, it's where most of the energy lies.

00:19:27

And each meridian— there is, you know, 12 main meridians have, you know, dozens of points in them. And so each point will do something else to the body, and it's targeted in terms of where the path is. It's almost like a river flowing, right? And so when a stream is blocked, for example, back to when we feel stagnant, angry, that is blocked. And so all of the river and the water that's trying to flow elsewhere is stuck. Yeah. And that's just what the energy is. So that's what acupuncture does, it unblocks all the blockages.

00:19:58

So energy gets stuck, this releases the energy that's stuck.

00:20:01

Correct.

00:20:01

So I'm assuming if you bound up energy, especially if it's negative, that's—

00:20:05

yeah, it's just gonna stay there, right? Unless you do something to release it.

00:20:09

Okay. What other ways can you expel negative energy?

00:20:13

Besides acupuncture? Yeah. Breathwork, dance, movement, somatic therapy, talk therapy. It really depends per person, right? Yeah. It depends how your body actually feels safe enough to release. And I think it's how you find that safety.

00:20:27

What I just experienced when I was talking to you before, there are ways then to put negative energy into someone through sound, through like waves and through different modalities, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. So just as it could be used as good, it could also be used as bad, especially if someone doesn't know what they're doing.

00:20:49

Yeah. And I mean, I always say there's yin and yang in our life, right? In Chinese medicine, the yin is the dormant, the quiet, the nighttime, the moon. Yeah. The more feminine. The yang is the sun, the heat, the more masculine. Um, but it's also to show that there's polarities in the world. You know, as much lightness as there is, there is as much darkness. But it's how do we approach keeping ourselves as light as possible, right? Whether you protect yourself, whether it's the intention behind it. So huge thing about acupuncture, and you know, when you see a physician, it's a partnership at the end of the day.

00:21:22

Yeah.

00:21:23

And sometimes you'll meet someone who doesn't vibe with you. It's like any Western doctor out there, and maybe they're not right for you, but maybe they're right for someone else. And so how does that energetic connection as a partner then make you also heal? Because there's intention behind everything. For example, when I'm treating someone, I'm not just, you know, saying I'm putting it in here because I learned that this point is great for 'Period cramps,' you know, 'I'm putting this point in here because I have the intention that I want to also heal them from these period cramps.' And then through the science of acupuncture, through, you know, this toolbox of information we learned in med school, right, plus the energetic attunement you have for the medicine, that is what creates healing for someone.

00:21:59

Yeah. So you're treating somebody and you are exuding a certain kind of energy, which is in turn going to help speed up or help the process that they're going through because it's going to feed into their, their energy system along with what you're doing. Yeah.

00:22:12

100%.

00:22:13

And you'll have a better understanding of what they're going through as well, because you have a different kind of connection.

00:22:17

Yeah.

00:22:17

Okay, perfect. All right, so vagus nerve stimulation.

00:22:20

Yeah.

00:22:21

Now I talk about modalities that help with vagus nerve stimulation, like the Apollo Neuros one, you know, and that— those are great. How do we do it without a wearable or a technology? How do we stimulate vagus nerve naturally with food, with the way we feel, what are some ways to do that?

00:22:40

Yeah, I love to activate it in 3 ways that is very simple, right? You can tap certain parts of your body. I always like to tap like down what we say our ren channel, which is down the center of our body. Yeah. Or the back, right? Because it goes into our abdomen. And so there's points that you can start to tap, you know, where your throat is, your throat chakra down kind of the chest into the belly. And there is, you know, right underneath the ribs, you can press really, really hard too. And that activates it. Whenever I feel stressed and I press this point. It's actually an acupuncture point called Ren 12. It's so effective. It dissipates this tightness in my throat. And I love to do that, you know, just self-massage or tapping. Humming is one of the best things to activate the vagus nerve. Why singing is great, why, you know, people find that singing calms them down, as funny as it is. And to activate it sometimes, especially if you're in the fight or flight, you know, panic mode state, is shocking the system with, you know, cold therapy, cold showers.

00:23:29

That's amazing for vagus nerve activation.

00:23:31

Okay. I don't know about the singing part. If you got a voice only a mother could love, I don't know if you're helping people around you. You might be helping yourself.

00:23:38

Oh my gosh, I know. This is quiet, private humming in your shower, not meant for anyone else except for your own healing.

00:23:45

That's awesome. Okay, good. It's too funny because I don't think people realize how often they're stuck in fight or flight mode. Yeah, it's like sympathetic all day long. Yeah, right.

00:23:56

Yeah, and that's how we're running all day long.

00:23:58

Yeah, and your body acclimates to that, and then it just thinks that that's the norm.

00:24:02

Yeah.

00:24:02

So we want to wake up not in that state, right? Or at least if we are, balance ourselves out early, right away. I, I feel— you tell me— my morning ritual is start with prayer, I do my walk, and then after I walk and I've got myself going, I go right into the pool for breathwork. Now, I never did that.

00:24:22

Oh, lovely.

00:24:22

Never.

00:24:23

Sounds awesome.

00:24:23

I feel— this is why I feel— I feel like I start by relaxing myself in the prayer. Then I go do something that's not high intensity but is getting me ready, and then I come right back down and build myself back up. So the music starts slow and it's— it works its way up into a crescendo. Exactly.

00:24:43

Yeah.

00:24:44

And that's— yeah, I just figured that out and it's working.

00:24:47

That's awesome. Yeah, it's really in line with Chinese medicine energetics. Okay. Of how your body's waking up, which also aligns with neuroscience and hormones and how cortisol spikes, right? You know, in Chinese medicine, when we wake up ideally to sunrise, right, the sun we say is the most yang, is the most stimulating part of the day. It's what gives us energy, gives us light. And so when we wake up during the sunrise, and you know, not that you have to, we slowly kind of ease our way into it, you know. And so the way that you talk about how you, you know, go into prayer, go for a walk, it's very similar in Chinese medicine where we like to just activate our chi. Sometimes I shake my body, I do qigong, which is energy movement. I like to journal, I drink a hot cup of water, and then I have my breakfast, then I go for, you know, a short walk, and then I like to work out, right? And that's like the biggest yang of the day, the most energy that I exert. And that's kind of like peak of noon, for example, you know.

00:25:40

And as the sun rises, noon is the hottest, and then it goes back down later in the day. So how does your body kind of go in the flow of this, you know, crescendo and then a decrescendo, kind of in a fluid motion rather than spikes up and down.

00:25:53

I have a different question for you, because what I've noticed that is extremely calming to me personally, and this is why I do the breathwork in there, is the water and being in the pool and the water surrounding me. I mean, if you think about it, our bodies are made up mostly of water. We rely on water, and there's a soothing feeling to it when it's not chemically contaminated. And I just switched from chlorine to salt water, and it's like It's transformative. Yeah, I don't know how to explain because not— and I'm not just talking about how the skin feels when you come out, I'm talking about internally. Does that have a certain effect nervous system-wise, being in water?

00:26:29

Yes, 100%. There's a lot of studies that talk about how ocean water, because of the saltiness of it, because of the polarities and just like the hypotonic-hypertonic state, how salt attracts our body. It's moving, everything is energy, right? And so that's why water is so calming. And in Chinese medicine, especially this year, we always say, you know, it's the year of the fire horse. It's the most energy and intense time of, you know, the year, especially now that summer is approaching. And water is the exact opposite of that. Water is cooling, it's calming, it's grounding. And I'm, you know, I'm an Aries, so anything water is calming to me, right? And it makes sense.

00:27:03

I think I got the wrong degree. I need a Chinese medicine degree because it seems like everything I'm saying falls right in line.

00:27:09

Yeah, but it's also your understanding and, you know, You're finding it in your own way.

00:27:12

Yeah.

00:27:13

You know, with your own type of education. And Chinese medicine is just one type of language to understand it.

00:27:17

The real world experience, the education is phenomenal, but I, I really always want to apply it on real world experience.

00:27:25

Yes.

00:27:25

What I observe, what I feel, what I see. Yeah. Books are great, but books don't really give you wisdom.

00:27:31

Correct.

00:27:31

They give you knowledge.

00:27:32

Yep.

00:27:33

Right.

00:27:33

Yep.

00:27:33

Where does the wisdom come from?

00:27:34

Yeah. So it, it's interesting you ask this and I'm so grateful that you dig, you know, let's say I, I went to post-grad med school, I did a 4-year master's degree and a 1-year doctorate to get a Chinese medicine degree to actually practice and to be in clinic and to be certified. And so everyone going through that education again is given this toolbox. You know, it's a textbook that's given to us. It's a lot of translated texts, first of all, from what was translated in China to English. So there's also a gap of information there. There's also a gap of information that was passed down through traditions, through the Cultural Revolution, what was kept or not. So wisdom is actually passed down by what we say, all the masters or the professors that taught us. So it's interesting, we're in school, half of that schooling we were in clinic under supervisors who practice the medicine. And so you start to learn from all the different clinicians and what they do. And because acupuncture, everyone's individual, it's such a creative medicine, you start to pick up different things from each supervisor or each of your masters.

00:28:30

Then you create your own way of healing. Where, you know, I've seen so many acupuncturists. I have 4 clinicians who work for me too in my clinic, and we all treat differently, yet it's all equally effective.

00:28:40

Yeah.

00:28:40

So what does that mean for the body, right? Like, what does that actually mean for the medicine? Um, I think that's why it was so hard, or it is so hard for science to quantify it, because science is so stringent to making things fit in, you know, one set of rules. But what's even more incredible is that the decades worth of research for acupuncture, herbs, shows that it works, right?

00:28:58

Yeah.

00:28:59

Yeah.

00:28:59

So when you're talking about stuff getting passed down, we don't know who was in control of passing it down.

00:29:04

Yeah.

00:29:05

That's why the experience you're talking about and the ones I'm talking about are the ones that, that I value the most.

00:29:10

Yeah. Fascinating.

00:29:11

Well, 7,500 letters after your name doesn't prove shit to me. What proves something to me is all of the thousands of people you have experience with and what you've done and what you've come up with.

00:29:20

Yeah. Oh, 100%. I mean, I'm constantly learning every day. I'm constantly being challenged. You know, I learn so much from my clinicians. And I think there's a part of the medicine where in my lifetime I'm not gonna know most of it, right? But what I can do is translate a portion that I know of it to then help people realize that there's more to health and life. And I think that's the beauty of it, right? You know, I, most people find Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbs, the lifestyle, the food of it because they've tried everything and nothing works. And so they're at a place where they're the most vulnerable. And so as a clinician, it's, you know, my job to kind of share, okay, there's another mode of medicine and even one shift. You know, if anything, you know, they'll remember one daily habit, whether it's, for example, you know, drinking hot water instead of ice water when you have period cramps, right? Which is transformative. And that changes their body. It makes them happier. It gives them more space to do what they want to do. You know, they're not writhing in bed in pain.

00:30:13

So like, even those small shifts mean everything, right, to someone. And that's all that matters.

00:30:18

There's so many things now that go on that screw with our nervous system that were never around before.

00:30:24

Yeah.

00:30:25

Stresses that we have, but toxins that never existed, right? So I would like to discuss with you then, when it comes to a lot of the toxins we experience now, like we know of a lot, and I'm sure you deal with mold being one of the worst. Oh my gosh, right? But aluminum, mercury, all the heavy metals. Yeah, glyphosate, chemicals. I mean, shit, I— there's probably so many things I've never heard of that you've never heard of that are out there too that are going on. It's like taking another college course to learn the terms. So when it comes to your type of healing that you've encountered through Chinese medicine, as opposed to what we know, like detoxes that, that are done here— and I'm not saying those are bad— binders and things— what is a, like, a traditional Chinese way of cleaning up some of the things that, you know, you see?

00:31:16

Yep. Again, it's individualistic.

00:31:19

Sure, sure.

00:31:20

For example, if someone comes into my clinic and I have a patient who comes in weekly because she exists— she was exposed to black mold over a 4-year period living in an apartment and all her tests came back positive, right? Likely she's working with a functional to work with binders and purges. And so in Chinese medicine, we have herbs that do that, right? We have herbs that are meant for mold, for parasites, to purge you. But at the end of the day, it's balance, right?

00:31:42

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00:32:34

So check out the link in the show notes and start taking control of your health In Chinese medicine, you, if you drain someone and purge, you have to boost them up. And when someone comes in and they're so weak, let's, you know, I'm saying person A, this is their predisposition. They're exhausted. They have no energy to do anything. Purging them is going to make them feel weaker. So my job and responsibility is how do I boost their energy? How do I keep them strong enough so that all of the purging supplements are okay with them, for them, and that they don't get worse, right? That's just one example. There's other examples where someone comes in, they're on nothing. They're just like, I want to do it the Chinese medicine route. There's acupuncture points that help expel. There's a lot of herbs that help expel the dampness, the toxins. And so there's protocols. But again, it's one treatment, they'll come in and I want to drain everything. One treatment, they'll come in, I need to boost them because they're coming in 2 weeks. So what are they feeling at that moment? So it's really about how are they feeling day to day.

00:33:25

I have multiple experiences, younger days of— I remember I bartended when I was very young, too young. I did it illegally. But there was a guy in there that was dying. He had cancer. And I remember he started to—

00:33:38

the—

00:33:39

I still remember vividly. And he said that was called China One, and they gave him like a month to live, and he ended up living like 15 more years taking this. And I remember, so when I moved to Maui, my parents had lived there, and my mom had this little store. And every time I got sick, she didn't let me take anything anymore. And I'd take a— it was a I'd have to ask for the name of it. I can picture it. It was like a cylinder. And I took these all at once. They were very hard to swallow.

00:34:05

Are they little, little pills? They're like little tiny, tiny. Like, were they like red?

00:34:10

And there are discs like this.

00:34:12

Oh, yes.

00:34:12

And I swallowed the whole thing. And I mean, I'm telling you, I would be like— it would be like a day. And then she had these little things she called BBs, and I don't know what they were for your stomach.

00:34:20

Yes. Oh my God. I think you're talking about po chai pills. I might have them in my purse. Oh, we have to unpack this after. Wait, I love that.

00:34:27

Yes.

00:34:27

Yes.

00:34:28

I'll ask her because there was a little health store in Hawaii and she would call there to try to get them when we moved, like to get these specifically. But the point is, is there's so many things that I know exist that work, that work fast.

00:34:42

Yeah.

00:34:43

And you don't have to deal with any of this nonsense and all these side effects and all this crap, you know. And that's all natural.

00:34:50

It's all natural. I mean, there's Chinese medicine, herbal therapy for a stomach flu, a stomach bug.

00:34:55

Yes.

00:34:56

For food poisoning. For a sinus infection, for a cold. But each stage of a cold, from a sore throat to a cough and phlegm to the fatigue you feel after, the formulas you take are so specific to what you're feeling at the time. That's why it acts, you know, very quickly.

00:35:10

Be careful. We're not supposed to say that. The fact that people don't want you to know about stuff like that is what kills me the most. Sell all your crap. I don't care. Do whatever you want. If you want to take that shit bite, do it all day long. I'm not your dad, but I want people to at least know there's alternatives and they don't have to just do that. Do whatever the hell you want. It's your life. The thing that gets me, yes, is the people that get so angry. And it's like, listen, if you go to Baskin-Robbins, do I get mad at you if you don't like mint chocolate chip? Because I do.

00:35:39

Yeah, I mean, it's exactly what you were saying. It's about options and alternatives and essentially laying everything out for someone. It's just like, okay, you are— example, you have a cold, here's X, Y, and Z. You know, you can take DayQuil and NyQuil, you can take these Chinese herbs, you can get acupuncture, you can jump in a sauna, whatever you want. You pick what feels right to you. But I think these options aren't really shared to people where they have the whole alphabet of options, right? Yeah, because people are desperate when they're sick, and so they take whatever's offered to them.

00:36:09

Well, and that's just it. And then what happens is, is with a lot of conditions, like I have some heart stuff, and it's like they want me to take this, I have a side effect, then they want me to take something to counter that. And before you know it, you're countering so many side effects.

00:36:22

Yes.

00:36:23

And created 10 new problems.

00:36:24

Yep.

00:36:25

That you didn't ever have.

00:36:26

Yep. Yep. And a lot of the times I'm in clinic and I, you know, see someone who's on 15 medications and, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, you know, but there's a shift in whether that was that person's choice and whether it was given to them because they're taking this medication for this and X, Y, and Z. And so my job is to almost like undo that puzzle. I'm like, okay, you're coming in for help, but what is the most pressing issue? Yeah. You know, I had someone with a neck torsion, for example, because of a medication, a side effect for PTSD. But I'm, you know, on top of so many different things. So I'm like, okay, the one thing I can do right now is relieve your pain because that is the most, you know, debilitating part of your body. You can't look straight, you have nausea, you can't sleep because of this pain. So let's unwind that, right? And it just takes time. And I think, you know, the goal is to get a person where they're balanced enough where if they need medication, fine, and it keeps you centered, but potentially they can live a life without it, you know?

00:37:17

And I think that's a lot of people's goals. I'm—

00:37:20

another nervous system question. So when I was going through what I was going through, and I told you a couple things that came out, and he said to me, where do you feel it? And sometimes it would be an immediate— I could, I could say, I can feel this right here. And a couple times I'd have to sit there and let it resonate, and then I, I'd understand where it was coming from, and there was a meaning on what it was. And I remember one of the biggest burdens I had, and I have— oh, I've had back trouble for 20 years, and we released it because I immediately said, I feel it in my back, like the stress. And we released it. And I had gotten down on doing breathwork, and I said, dude, I haven't jumped up this fast off the floor in like 10 years, the way I snapped up and popped up and the alleviation of the pain that I had. How much does our pain that we think is maybe an injury or arthritis or whatever term we want to use How much of that is nervous system related? And if we fix whatever's bogging us down, energy that's held within or something negative there, can't that ultimately heal it?

00:38:22

Yeah, it's a one-to-one correlation. Absolutely. I mean, when we think about our nervous system, we only heal in the rest and digest phase, right? There's only two parts our nervous system can live. It's the rest and digest or the fight and fight, which is parasympathetic versus sympathetic. And so when someone's stuck in sympathetic and they're in pain, whether it's back pain, whether it's from a disc injury, whether it's fibromyalgia, whether it's rheumatoid arthritis, you know, even something more systemic, systemic or autoimmune, their body isn't healing. And there's a reason for that. So if they're able to switch back to the rest and digest, to the parasympathetic mode, their body starts to heal, their pain reduces. And so if you can crack that, whether it is through ancient Chinese medicine, whether it is through breathwork, you're going to feel better.

00:39:02

It's wild. And you know, I do so much cardio and I did a test It was a Pinot test. I don't know if you've heard of it.

00:39:09

I don't know what that is, but so please enlighten me.

00:39:11

Well, they, they test your breath.

00:39:14

Okay.

00:39:14

And I was doing it more on the fact of I want to see how much like I'm burning of carbohydrates and fats. I was doing it more— yeah, for the nutrition side of things. But within that test, it was showing my breath and oxygen intake and everything. And I assume, dude, I'm in such phenomenal condition. I mean, my resting blood pressure is like 99 over 60 because of all the cardio. And I'm assuming— and then he says, your, your breath is horrible, like your ability to breathe and everything. And I just— yeah, and I'm just like, whatever, dude, like, you know, at the time. And then when I went through this breathwork and I, I realized he was telling me, your breath is not great, meaning you aren't breathing deep enough. No, it's— and I'm having trouble taking, you know, come in 8 seconds, up, release it for 8 seconds. When I went through that and started doing this now I can do that. Like, it's so simple. It's like, it's like my windpipe was clogged and somebody went down and just jammed something in there and took whatever was in there out.

00:40:10

That's, that's amazing that you were able to release that. It's interesting, you know, when a, when I get a new patient in clinic and they're laying on the table and I'm doing some diagnostics, I always check their breath. You know, I'd put their hand on their belly. I'm like, can you breathe into the belly for 5 slow counts? Most people can't do that. You know? And the proper way to breathe is to breathe in our belly. And as we breathe in, it expands because that means the diaphragm expands. You know, but because we're in this constant fight or flight, our diaphragm is stuck. You know, we aren't actually breathing. We're not sending all the oxygen to the lungs, to the alveoli. You know, it's not actually being spread the way it needs to. So we're not getting enough oxygen, so we're not healing, right? Yeah. So breath is medicine.

00:40:46

So how— okay, so if your breath is not great, like your ability to breathe well, to hold your breath, to, to take in that kind of inhale, release How bad of an effect does that have on you, just hormonally, mentally, physically, everything?

00:41:02

Everything. I mean, it's tied to hormonal dysregulation, nervous system dysregulation, gut issues, right? Because even with SIBO and breath, it's all connected, um, to pain. You know, I'm— I don't know if you know the book, you know, uh, Breathe by James Nestor, right? It's all about breathing. And even for patients with scoliosis, like debilitating, bad, bad angles of scoliosis where breathwork over a certain amount of time was able to shift that too, because it changes, changes the way that the muscles relax. It opens up the lungs in ways that we haven't before, hence why it's great for pain.

00:41:34

This, this is amazing. This, this is like the key. So many doctors that do this idiopathic and can't figure out, and some, even for me, I can admit some of the times where I was stuck fixing someone hormonally, I never ever, ever went to the nervous system route or the mind route. Never. Now I realize that that's the actual— the, the big piece of the puzzle. It's not just the missing piece, it's the core piece.

00:41:59

It's like the root. Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the first texts I ever read in school was literally about how all physical ailments come from emotional imbalance. Yeah. And every organ in our body in Chinese medicine has an associated emotion. Heart is joy, but joy can be overabundant, which leads to anxiety, right? Too much excitement. Our lungs is grief. And I can tell when someone isn't breathing, or, you know, when they're waking up between 3 and 5, which is the lung time, it's when it's most active. They're waking up at that point, so I'm like, okay, are you experiencing some type of loss or change? You know, what is it? Our liver is the anger and stress, and that's why it's so tied to our emotions and liver enzymes spiking.

00:42:37

Yeah.

00:42:38

Um, our spleen or stomach, which is our digestion, is overthinking and worry. So when we overthink and worry, it affects digestion. It's almost thought and digestive issues, which is IBS. It's stress-related or stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome, right? That's what it is. Our kidneys is fear, and I see it a lot with people who suffer from anxiety and are fearful for a lot of things. Their kidneys are weak, they have low back pain, they have knee pain, but, you know, other things where they have urination issues, all related to the kidneys. Even graying hair, for example, because in Chinese medicine, our kidney vitality or Jing, even the blood and how it processes, all tied to that. So there's So many different symptoms and signals that we see in patterns in Chinese medicine that show us what the root cause is of emotional imbalance as well.

00:43:21

Wow, that explains a lot. Do you have texts that explain this or books that you can recommend?

00:43:28

Oh, 100%, yes.

00:43:29

Okay.

00:43:30

I— it's so funny, I was telling my husband I have to clean out my study because there's so many textbooks, some that I don't touch, some that were given to me in clinic or as a student. But you know, when you open up a page, you're just like, this explains everything. And it's been translated by, you know, people over the past century, from Chinese to English, from Chinese texts. And it's amazing. And I have some Chinese texts too, which I used to be able to read, not anymore, but there's a lot of English books out there.

00:43:54

I would be extremely blessed and thankful. Yeah.

00:43:57

Oh, I will send that to you.

00:43:58

Especially the correlation between the emotional side of things and how it correlates to problems with the organs and internally, because that's like the, the big ticket that if I had an understanding of that, and I think if everybody did, they'd know how to correct things a hell of a lot easier. Than going and looking for some sort of cure that's going to make things worse. Yeah, that's the treatment.

00:44:18

Yeah.

00:44:19

Oh, I had elevated liver values for so long, I couldn't figure why. Perfect fiber scans, stop drinking, no, perfect diet, everything, all of these things. Just the stress, the frustrating everything, you know, all of that built-up anger that I can't figure out why, and all of that. Clearly that was a correlation.

00:44:36

Yeah. Yes.

00:44:38

Oh, shit.

00:44:39

It's interesting.

00:44:40

Okay, this is a lot. I'm overwhelmed, but in the best way. I need acupuncture. But I think that what we're getting to here is the core root problem that so many people have.

00:44:54

Yeah.

00:44:54

And they're looking for answers in the wrong places, and this is going to give them the ability to look in the right ones.

00:45:00

Yep. And I always like to say, you know, everyone's journey is their own journey.

00:45:03

Yeah.

00:45:04

But hopefully We can help them find shortcuts along the way so they suffer less.

00:45:08

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Before I get to the skin, something's telling me I gotta cover something else first. Yeah. And I'm, I'm a listener to Holy Spirit guidance. So what I wanna talk to you about is using and comparing traditional Chinese medicine to our medicine here. We call it Western medicine, whatever the hell you wanna call it. I don't care. Let's just say healthcare system. How does that go hand in hand and how does that not go together?

00:45:34

Yeah, it was my entire doctoral to understand how integrated it can be. I mean, the, my whole thesis and the whole argument with all of my students is, can they coexist and does it need to coexist? Right. I believe that optimal health is where Eastern medicine and Western medicine is integrated in the right way. Western medicine for compartmentalized medicine, for emergency medicine. Yeah. And Chinese medicine and Eastern medicine for everything else, for preventative medicine. You know, it's not just a preventative medicine, but it's also retroactive medicine. So it can heal, but it also prevents anything. It's interesting because the way that it kind of came to the US, it was, you know, first approved in the '70s through some bills and through, you know, Chinese culture coming over. The college I went to was the first college that ever started teaching Chinese medicine. But at the end of the day, How can it be integrated when there's not enough money behind it and backing? It's interesting because a part of education was all about lobbying. Yeah, you know, as acupuncturists, we have to speak up for this amazing medicine. But we go through, you know, 4 to 6 years of med school, and we go out into the world, and you have to be an entrepreneur and a doctor.

00:46:44

You don't get integrated into the Western system where you have residency and you have a career set for you, you know. Yes, some hospitals have acupuncture positions, but not easy. You know, they look for acupuncturists who've been practicing for 20, 30 years. Not to say that, you know, they're better than someone who just got out of school because they have different perspective, right? So how do we integrate it back into a system that actually pays back the energy that they put into this medicine to then help people, right? For example, I don't take insurance in my clinic in Los Angeles because insurance systems will pay me $20 a patient, and I can't sustain a clinic on $20 a patient. So how do I Heal. How do I give back to the community in ways that make sense to me? And every acupuncturist is going through this, you know. I remember when I was graduating, one of my professors told me, he's just like, by the way, it's cutthroat. Like, dropout rates for acupuncturists is 30%. It's really high because they realize they can make a living and make more money elsewhere. And it's sad to see because it's such a beautiful medicine.

00:47:36

Yeah.

00:47:37

So is it the money behind it? You know, everything that I know in successful acupuncture, it's run through private practices solely, you know. And yes, there are acupuncturists that work in hospitals, but it's one position in a massive hospital system. And so yes, we can lobby, we can pass bills, but then we also have to convince acupuncture— or sorry, insurance— to accept us. But does insurance want to accept us because it's preventative medicine?

00:48:00

Yeah.

00:48:00

Do they want people to be sick? Do they want to heal them in certain ways that, you know, Eastern medicine likes to? And then there's the money and the pharmaceuticals, and it gets complex. And politics is something I don't like to touch, but it's very integrated in how it is in the Western world.

00:48:14

It runs everything. Yeah, that's why everything's so screwed up. I don't give a shit who doesn't like it or not. I'll say it. I don't do sides or anything because they're all the same. Everybody's got a bad motive. The people like us, our goal is to fix that and to just get everybody the help they need.

00:48:31

Yeah.

00:48:31

And give them the understanding of the help they need.

00:48:35

It's the understanding, it's education. I always say if everyone in the world were to get acupuncture, oh my goodness. Or just, you know, let's focus on the US, let's say the nation, we would be running on a whole different level. Everyone would be calmer, kinder, but also more effective at what they want to do. They'll have more space for what gives them joy, for family, for running businesses. You know, it transforms people. You know, I have business owners who are just like, the one thing that I will never give up is acupuncture once a week because it gives me and allows me space to be a badass entrepreneur, but also give back to my family and also be the person I want to be. Like it's that core value, you know?

00:49:10

Well, less inflammation, better energy.

00:49:12

Yes.

00:49:13

Better clarity.

00:49:14

Exactly.

00:49:15

When you have cleaner energy and good energy makes you more vibrant, I'm assuming helps with your skin.

00:49:21

Yes.

00:49:22

And awareness when we're gonna transition to skin. Last question on the acupuncture. So you said, do you, is once a week a good, I understand it's different for everybody, but is that a good maintenance?

00:49:32

I would say here in the US because of our schedule.

00:49:34

Uh-huh.

00:49:35

You know, let's say a new patient comes in. It's either once or twice a week for at least, you know, like a couple months. Yeah, it takes time, and that's why it's expensive because you pay per treatment, right? Yeah, sometimes there's treatment plans, sometimes insurance covers it, sometimes, you know, they, you know, cover a portion of the bill. Yeah, um, but it does take time, whereas sometimes in China you go every day, you know. Let's say you're sick and you have a cold, go every day for 3 days, it'll knock you— knock it out, it'll take out this cold and flu. Even with herbs, you know, I had a cold 3 days ago in New York City and I took herbs for 2 days and I was able to fly. I'm now here. Like, I wouldn't have been able to do that without Chinese medicine.

00:50:08

Yeah, I'm booking appointments, man. I'm gonna make them mainstays now. Yeah, you got me.

00:50:13

Whenever you're in LA or here, you know, send me 5 acupuncturists near you. I'll look at them. Yeah, I refer them for sure.

00:50:19

That would be great. Yeah, I'll— I'm gonna actually send those to you. Yes, because I want to do it.

00:50:24

Happy to help.

00:50:25

All right, are those like hour-long sessions? Is that about—

00:50:28

for the most part, yeah.

00:50:29

Okay, sweet. Okay. Let's touch on the skincare.

00:50:31

Yes.

00:50:32

So you have Moonbow. Now, I remember when you guys didn't even have it released yet.

00:50:37

Yeah.

00:50:37

And I got to try it early. And well, the first thing is, is I have used the most expensive shit on the market. And I, you know this from my background, I started modeling in my early 20s. I've been using skincare for 20 years.

00:50:53

Yeah.

00:50:54

And I have used everything. And I mean everything. And yours, like, like the face wash especially made me feel good. Some of these don't make you feel good. They're really expensive and you don't feel much of anything. I want that experience of the feeling. What is the premise of why you started the— because obviously you're doing other things. Why skincare and what makes yours special or different?

00:51:22

Well, first of all, I'm so grateful that you love it.

00:51:25

I do.

00:51:25

It's— I mean, as soon as Heather, my twin sister who co-founded this with me, and I started it and ideating it, I was actually suffering from acne. I was, you know, off of— I just got off 10 years of birth control. This is in my late 20s. And believe it or not, I had, you know, like 8 to 10 months of debilitating acne. And of course, I chose to do it right before my wedding. So I was scrambling to get better. But Chinese medicine did it, right? Yeah. And the reason why we chose skincare was because our goal was to share Chinese medicine with the world. We grew up in Hong Kong. It was something that was part of our life— how we ate the food, the mindfulness, how we saw our grandmother and mom and dad just kind of live life, you know. It's so integrated in Asian culture. And we moved here for college, and we've been here since. And we both suffered from our, you know, illnesses. I actually had an anaphylactic reaction because of nothing, you know, post-college. That's a whole other story, but my body was inflamed. Also this acne stint.

00:52:15

Heather had IBS and digestive issues because she was stressed. We were you know, new to American food and everything here.

00:52:21

Yeah.

00:52:22

And we went back to Chinese medicine, to acupuncture, to herbs, to calming nervous system down, and we healed our body. So that was our own personal journey. We saw it with, you know, our friends and family back home. So we're like, how do we translate it? It's why I shifted from neuroscience to studying Chinese medicine, because I'm like, how do I learn it deeper to keep sharing with people? And so we decided skincare, because skin is the biggest organ in our body, right?

00:52:42

Yeah.

00:52:43

Skin is a reflection of how our internal system is, not just emotion, but physically. Our hormone regulation, our toxins, everything. And as much as acupuncture and herbs and getting a, you know, gonad Chinese medicine doctor is one of the most effective, it's not easily accessible for most people because it's expensive, it takes time. So in this modern world, for someone to carve that out takes a lot, right? Yeah. So skincare, creating a product around it, but also sharing the philosophy behind Chinese medicine, it made sense. It was the vehicle that we wanted to share it through. And so through Moonbow, it is a skincare company that we mix 5 to 8 traditional Chinese medicine herbs together to enhance, you know, certain benefits. And we mix it with Western innovation. It's about East and West merging. It's about the polarities coexisting to find balance.

00:53:28

Okay.

00:53:28

And so, for example, our moisturizer, which I love, it's, you know, a mix of many herbs such as pearl powder. It's literally crushed up pearls. You know, growing up, you can take pearl powder to calm the nervous system, but also to detox your body, also to help with acne. But of course, taking a short amount of time when you need it because they're have some, you know, metals in it that we don't want in our system for long. So there's pearl powder used externally, which is much safer. Then we have chrysanthemum, which is our— you know, our wild chrysanthemum. It's our main hero ingredient. Chrysanthemum is something that we drank during dim sum all the time. It's a cooling herb. It detoxes. It calms the liver, calms our stress. But externally, we used to put on our eyes to clear eye styes, to put on our face for dermatitis. And so we're like, okay, how do we embed that into skincare? How do we work with a lab that actually gets all the bioactive ingredients?

00:54:12

Yeah.

00:54:13

And then you mix it with Western innovation like niacinamide or hyaluronic acid. So it's almost like a 1 1 3, you know, it's the combination that hasn't existed before. So people can actually feel good when they use it.

00:54:26

I love it. And the packaging and everything was awesome. Yeah, I remember how cool that was. And see, we transitioned properly because we compared Eastern and Western and now we tied it into how you make your skincare. So a lot of the skincare ingredients that I see, it's like reading a Cheesecake Factory menu. Yes, it's, it's literally like a chapter out of a book.

00:54:46

Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:48

How many ingredients do you have per product?

00:54:51

So we have 5 to 8 Chinese medicine ingredients, but we do have a lot of other ingredients, right? Because in all, there's so many other ingredients that we need, such as water. It's always the main ingredient. You need a lot of binders. You need things that actually emulsify things. You need oils. So, you know, we probably have, you know, 15 ingredients, 20 ingredients, but not to say that they're not bad and that they're clean. Everything is clean, but it's understanding what is needed to then make it shelf life stable. Yeah, but to also make it absorb in the skin. Yeah. So I always like to say, and people have this mindset where less ingredients is better.

00:55:23

Not always.

00:55:23

Not always.

00:55:24

Exactly.

00:55:24

And it just depends. And we wanted to create the perfect balance.

00:55:27

Sometimes there's things that, that are made that require that for specific reasons, like you said, but it's what they pick.

00:55:33

Yeah, what they pick.

00:55:35

Right. Because to go the cheaper route, oftentimes it's harmful stuff that they put in there. Yeah. Yeah, so it, it just depends. So, okay, you have the moisturizer.

00:55:44

Yeah, so we have the cleanser, the serum, moisturizer. So that's our 3 main skincare SKUs. And then we have a gua sha tool and an ear seed kit to kind of bring in together the holistic aspect of Chinese medicine.

00:55:54

So since release then, how has it been going?

00:55:57

It's been awesome. We are a little over a year. Yeah, Heather and I— and I'm sure this is going to come out this time— but we're actually completely rebranding. We're keeping our name, we're keeping our logo, but we're changing our color system to reflect longevity of the brand. We, you know, spent the past 6 months really tuning into what this company is and, you know, the skincare line we want to come out with, but even expanding through potentially, you know, such as our easy kit and gua sha, but whether ingestibles make sense, whether teas make sense, like something that makes sense inside and outside because Chinese medicine is holistic. So we didn't want to bucket ourselves to having you know, each of our SKUs a different color. Yeah. So we're just changing it to a main color.

00:56:37

Awesome. Are you adding any other products of any kind at all?

00:56:41

Yeah. So we're actually launching with a lip treatment later this year. Okay. Like a yin and yang lip treatment. I mean, as a girl, I have like in my purse right now probably 5 different lip treatments. It's, you know, and all my purses have a different one. And every time I take out a new purse, I'm like, I forgot about this. How fun. But it's something you use all the time. But this is purely Chinese medicine ingredients. It's you know, oil-based. It's so amazing.

00:57:02

Awesome.

00:57:03

It's something that hydrates my lips 24/7. I can use it during the day. It's a gloss, but I can use it at nighttime as a treatment. It's amazing.

00:57:10

Yeah, that's great. That's great. I'm so happy for you guys. You deserve it. The work and the effort. And I, I know the passion behind it.

00:57:18

Thank you.

00:57:18

It shines the world. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. Well, I am very thankful that you came and we got to do this again because this was like as good as what we talked about before. That's not even close to this. You know that. Yeah, this was on a whole different level.

00:57:32

And also in person, it's so different. Well, you get so much more from it.

00:57:36

That goes without saying. But I think because I was able to learn so much more, I was able to extrapolate more from you.

00:57:42

Yeah.

00:57:42

And dig into more of what you're so good at. And you got to show some, you know, high-level versatility. And that's my goal— share people but in a way that they don't often get shared.

00:57:55

Yeah, but I really, really also appreciate you taking the time, asking the right questions, but also allowing me that space. I mean, it's been over a year since we last spoke, and there's so much I've learned since then, right? Yeah, and you too. So, you know, it's elevated the conversation the way it was meant to be.

00:58:09

That's right, and that's, that's how it always works. Well, tell everybody the best places to follow you and where to come and do some work with you in person too.

00:58:18

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on socials, TikTok, Instagram, Substack, my website, Dr. Felice Chen, or drfelicechen.com. For Moonbo, it's moonboskin.com on all socials and websites, and you'll find all tips about skincare there. And so we're so education forward on my, you know, channel. It's all Chinese medicine education. Moonbo's all skincare education. And my clinic is Felice Acupuncture. We obviously are in Los Angeles and Culver City, but we also offer virtual consultations.

00:58:44

You do?

00:58:45

Because there's so much, right, that's the 3 out of the 4 pillars, but even without acupuncture, you can do acupressure. You can activate these channels by massaging your body. And so we work off, you know, 3-month and 6-month plan and we work with patients all over the world.

00:58:57

Awesome. That's great. Beyond fascinating and helpful and enlightening. I don't have all of the words to throw, but it was, it was, it overexceeded expectations. So thank you for sharing everything.

00:59:10

Of course.

00:59:10

We miss you, Heather.

00:59:11

Yeah. Yeah, I know she's thinking about us now.

00:59:14

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again for coming to see me. I'm always humbled by people coming to see me and feeling that it's worth it to, to come and share their time with me. So, all right everybody, that wraps up another one. So let's work on getting yourself right. Mind, body, spirit, soul, it all comes together. And I think that the more we understand that and tie that together, the healthier and happier Everybody's going to be.

00:59:38

Yeah, absolutely.

00:59:39

So that being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli signing off.

Episode description

Episode #143 Featuring Dr. Felice Chan!  The HEALING Episode!  A deep look into all healing options!   Traditional Chinese Medicine, Eastern vs. Western, Traditional vs. Non-traditional and MORE! 
 
My episode with Dr. Felice Chan is the type of discussion I THRIVE on!  Her ability to intertwine all the different aspects of healing, with a non bias and deep explanation on all of the pros and cons was enlightening but even more so, ENCOURAGING.  To have someone so thoughtful and insightful that covers all the bases and carries the level of ethical foundation that Dr. Felice has is a breath of fresh air to say the least!!  Her delivery and soothing voice enthralls you into wanting to hear more!! 
 
We start off the conversation going right into the polarizing topic of Conventional vs. Non Conventional medicine and treatments.  Dr. Felice breaks down many different aspects of both options, how we can combine them together and times where one option may be better or preferred over the other.  Her attention to detail as well as providing credible insight is what everyone needs to hear!  We then shift to Traditional Chinese Medicine and she provides the FOUR PILLARS of TCM with a deep discussion on all four.  This transitions into a discussion on mindfulness and the mind and body connection.  Felice provides different insight than most on this topic that adds a deeper understanding and knowledge base than from conventional scientists so it showcases a nice comparison of thought as well as different ways to stimulate our vagus nerve!   We move into the benefits of acupuncture and receive a strong understanding of the many facets and areas of aide that it  provides!  One of my favorite parts of the interview was the next portion focusing on the healing power of WATER!  There are so many highlights of the conversation but this was one of the deepest.  We have an eye opening talk on the connection between pain and the nervous that will change the way you view and understand pain.  We then move forward to a deeper discussion on integrating eastern and western medicine and we conclude with talking about Dr. Felice's skincare brand that her and her sister Heather have launched called Moonbow skin!  I have used her skin care and it is a top tier quality!  
 
This interview is eye opening, through the lens of a Dr. who is well educated in ALL facets of medicine and healing and has an approach that is fair, down the middle and open to all methodologies.  You will be enthralled from start to end!  DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE!! 
 
 
 
Check out Dr. Felice Chan's Homepage:
https://drfelicechan.com/
 
 
 
Follow Dr. Felice on Instagram:
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Check out the Moonbow Skin Care Line:
 
https://moonbowskin.com/
 
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