E029: How Acupuncture improves digestion while you take a nap!

Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like?

What would that be worth to

you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system, or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call.

Welcome back to The don't wait for your wake up call Podcast. I am Alyssa dealey the host of this show. And I am super excited to have a guest here with us today. Charlene Lawrence. Welcome, Charlene. Hi, Melissa. Thank you. I'm excited. I'm excited. We work together on your podcast several months ago. And I'm super happy to have you here now as a guest on my podcast. And just to introduce Charlene to the listeners. She is the owner and chief executive acupuncturist at Empire Wellness Center in Southern California. She has a master's in traditional oriental medicine and is about to begin her doctoral fellowship in the same field. She helps people improve their physical and mental health using cutting edge technology and ancient tools to balance their mind, body and soul. Charlene is also the founder of the hypno puncture method, which combines the subconscious reprogramming of hypnotherapy with the powerful healing effects of acupuncture. So I love all of that. And particularly the connection to Asia because of course, I was raised in Asia, I've used acupuncture myself in treatments, but I actually, you know, I've never studied it. And so I don't know a lot about it. So I'm super excited to share your wisdom with the audience. But first, I would love you to share how you came to get into this line of work and share your story a little bit.

Yeah, um, I have an uncommon story. Most people who go into acupuncture or even oftentimes other of the more holistic modalities went that route, because they had an experience with it being helpful for their health. That is, yeah, yeah, that is not my story, right. I was studying to be an accountant first, before that I was a musician. And everybody in my life told me that I would not make enough money playing the trombone for the Boston Pops, even if I could make it to the pots. And I, you know, clearly money was important. So I decided to think of whoever it was that made the most money in my life. That was my uncle, and he had a degree in accounting. So I went that path in college, I was so unfulfilled with my accounting program, I worked for a CPA who, you know, does taxes here in the US. And I was I did not love anything about accounting, I didn't like working for the accountant. And so I was about four years into college, I have one year left, and I loved I've always loved the human body. I've always found it so fascinating. But I didn't like pharmaceuticals. And so I thought there were two options to help people's bodies and one would be to be an MD, which I didn't want to do, because I didn't want to do a deal with all the pharmaceuticals. And the other option, I thought the only other option that I thought existed was to become a massage therapist. Right? So I was going to drop out of college a year with a year left and become a massage therapist.

So I told my grand plan here up to you there for one second if you don't mind me asking, What year was this? Where you thought that the only options in you know helping heal the body was mainstream medicine and massage therapy was?

Yeah, it had to have been around 2004 2005 interesting somewhere around there.

Yeah, cuz I just look at all of the holistic modalities that are out there. Today, and obviously every year, we're learning of more, etc. It's something that I want to do with the show more in the future is to introduce more and more of these holistic modalities. So more people know about them. And so that just reconfirms the need to do that. Because as recently as 2004 2005, that was your impression. Right? Yeah.

So keep going. And so around that time, I shared my grand plan with my sister that I was going to be a college dropout. And she suggested that getting my bachelor's in business with accounting would help me run my massage business. So she recommended I stay in school. I'm very grateful to her for that. Yep. And she had been practicing modality called Chi Gong, which is the mother of Tai Chi. For those listeners that don't know most people are familiar with Tai Chi Chi Gong came first. And

all that in case anybody Oh, you

look it up. Google

it. Yeah, so there's two spellings. The the pinyon spelling is q II, and then separate word GE o n g. And then the wave Giles spelling is ch II separate word g u n g. To Gong is how we pronounce it. And she had been practicing with the master to heal some neck issues that she had, she had some discs out of place in her neck, causing her severe pain. And the CI Gong healed her it took a lot of effort. And about six months of hard work, but she did not have to go under the knife, right. So she introduced me to her master because he was about to start teaching a Japanese style of massage a class. And she and I went down together, we enrolled in the class together. The very first day he happened to be an acupuncturist. I had never heard of this before. And on the first day of class, the massage class he was explaining how all of our body all the pieces of our body work together, he explained a lot about the five element theory from Chinese medicine. So how would create fire creates Earth and then to metal and water. And it's just the cyclical thing. It made so much sense to me on that very first day. And I thought, This is what I am meant to do. And so I was introduced to acupuncture for the first time, I still had done it for quite some time, I had never gotten poked, but even from that first day of just kind of learning about the five elements, and that there was a different medical model out there that included the whole body had nothing to do with drugs. And it was basically utilizing the body's own tools for healing. I fell in love and I made a vow that day that I would someday become an acupuncturist. And it took me five years before I took the leap and went to go back to school to get my masters for that. But it was the one of the best decisions I've ever made.

That's awesome. I love that story and how it's, you know, your sister was guiding you and she's absolutely right. And having your business degree will have set you up very well for you know, being the owner and chief executive acupuncturist of empire wellness, right? And also, you know, from Qigong to massage and into acupuncture, and, and that wonderful feeling of knowing when you've absolutely landed in that space of what you're meant to do. Yes, so 100% Yeah, I absolutely love that. And there may be listeners because you said it was quite a while until he got poked, and there may be listeners were like, Oh, I don't know if I can never do acupuncture because it's needles and it's, you know, they hurt right? Or that's our impression, but I want to assure the listeners that with acupuncture, the the little prick is so absolutely miniscule. And in fact, it was one of the modalities that I used with my oldest daughter and helping her heal from her concussion and she is needle phobic for vaccination type needles, right absolutely terrified. I as a child, when I had to take her to get needles, I literally had to sit on her. And she was still squirm so much that every once in a while I thought I was getting end up getting poked instead of her. But she knew that she needed to heal, she wanted to heal and we were trying different modalities, and she ended up going for three or four acupuncture treatments during her healing from her concussion, which says a lot, because, you know, she went to the first one terrified and realized it's really not that bad and then chose to go back because she, you know, notice the benefits from the tree.

Yeah, so I actually, I really think it's an injustice to the medicine, to call them needles. I, in my practice, I prefer to call them pins, which is even still too big. But we have made a scary word out of the word needle. Yes. And acupuncture needles or acupuncture pins are about as fine as a human hair, if they are so so tiny. And most practitioners, when they're skilled enough, even by the time they get out of school, they'd have treated enough bodies, they have put pins in enough people that you don't feel them at all. And most of my patients, especially the first time, I'll have about four or five pins in them, before you even ask, how are you doing? And they go, yeah, did you start yet?

Yes, I experienced that as well. Yes, yeah. It's

nothing to be afraid of. And it's not what we are used to when we think of a hypodermic needle, those hollow needles that either inject something into us or draw our blood out of us, is a very different experience.

Yes. 100%. So I would love you to actually elaborate a little bit more on how acupuncture is helping heal the body. Yeah, that is the $64,000 question. Really hard to do in like a 45 minute interview, but I thought maybe the overview.

without going into too much history and foundation. There, there are many thought processes that kind of go into how acupuncture helps the body heal. And one big misconception that people have is that me as the practitioner is healing the patient. That's not it, I am facilitating the body's own natural healing methods.

And I think that's really true of almost all if not all practitioners on the holistic side. Absolutely. Right there, the the the person that is doing the healing Bay, their body is doing the healing, and they are in partnership with the practitioner on their healing journey.

Right. So with acupuncture, and this is a common question people have to well what's in the needles or what's on the needles, right? Nothing? Yes, a. And I'm sure it's the same in Canada, I know in the US, they are stainless steel, sterile, want single use, you put it in once it goes into the shot, sharps container, never to be used again. There's nothing in or on them. The body is healing itself. So from a Chinese medicine explanation, we have pathways channels in our body, oftentimes referred to as meridians

that are ci, the energy the life force flows through, and that ci actually flows in our blood. So many of the acupuncture points are right around either major blood vessels or nerve bundles. So we're able to increase blood flow, and nerve conduction. And so that's why it's really great at treating pain is by increasing the blood flow, getting anything that stuck pain is something that stuck, like a wreck on the freeway moving, taking the tow truck moving that wreck off to the side of the road, and then traffic can flow smoothly once again. That's how it gets rid of pain. Now there are many scientific reasons that we've been able to find in more recent years with the technology we now have in science to know that it regulates the neurotransmitters in the brain, which is why it's so effective in treating mental health issues. It regulates the neurotransmitters in the gut, again, regulating digestion, and I'll explain in a little bit because I know we're gonna dive deeper into the digestive part, just how acupuncture works with the digestion specifically, but it regulates the autonomic nervous system that fight or flight response that we have when we're stressed. It increases endorphins, if you remember, oh gosh, I can never remember the name of this movie with I need my Internet Movie Database right now. She says, um, you know, and Harry Met Sally. No, no, okay. Oh, goodness, She's the girl who goes off to be a lawyer. But anyway, she says, um, and working out increases endorphins, endorphins make you happy, happy people don't kill their husbands. That's always her job. Right. And so again, acupuncture increases those endorphins, just like exercise does the endorphins make us happy. And then there's also something called the gate control theories. So we actually have this kind of gatekeeper in our body that allows pain signals to go to the brain, from an injury site to the brain and back, indicating that there's a problem. And we also know that acupuncture can shut that gate. So that's why it can also be very effective in treating pain. Because somebody has an injury, or let's say, a chronic pain issue. And we block using acupuncture, were able to block that nerve conduction between the body to the brain shutting down for a short period of time, that pain receptors so that a person can get relief, right. And it may not be long term relief, in some cases, especially if there's a structural problem. But what it does is for people who have chronic pain, and they are just in absolute agony, nine out of 10, pain 24 hours a day, they can't get narcotics easily anymore, they don't want them they're not healthy, they're not great, they do all sorts of stuff to throw off our digestive system, yes, if they can get an hour of relief, and maybe get a little bit better sleep that night, sometimes I've had people in tears, because they're just so grateful of that, to me, that seemingly short period of time, but they finally get some relief.

And in that relief, it's getting the body out of the stress state as well, which means a little bit of healing can start happening. And the more that we can get them out of that stress state, the more their body can heal, and they can overcome that chronic pain. I love all of this. And you know, Chinese medicine is something that I've followed I use sometimes in in my work, and of course, it goes back 1000s of years, right? Just like a Vedic medicine. There are some people who think, Oh, it's not first world medicine. So it's not as good. But what we're really finding now with the latest scientific research, etc, is that this is really valuable, you know, medicine, right, there's no one perfect medicine, but we can take from all the different types of medicines in order to help people heal from whatever it is that they're struggling with. And so it's it's very powerful work. And like I said, You know, I used it with my daughter to help in her concussion healing journey and have used it myself. And, you know, there's a time for everything. And if it's something that you haven't tried, and you're struggling with something, I highly recommend that you, you know, seek out an acupuncturist in your area and, and see if you know, they can help you with what's going on.

Yeah, so I have a recommendation based on what you just said. And you're right, there's, there's no one perfect medicine. However, a lot these old modalities, ai or Vedic medicine, Chinese medicine, even natural herbal medicine from North America. They have been around for 1000s of years and stood the test of time. Yeah. And if they weren't effective, they wouldn't have lasted

that long. Exactly. And you've used on 1000s and 1000s, if not millions of people over that all of those years,

right. And so my recommendation, especially when it comes to acupuncture, and also many of these other modalities that you dabble in and from your other podcast guests, is to if you have a chronic condition, that's where these ancient medicines are really effective. Because we are able to look at the body in such a different way than let's say you have a chronic rheumatoid arthritis condition. So it's autoimmune. It's rheumatic, you have to go to your primary doctor, they have to send you to a rheumatologist, they have to do labs, that person doesn't help you. You see another rheumatologist and it's just this vicious cycle then they want to send you to an endocrinologist. conventional medicine is not always as effective at treating the chronic conditions. However, if you have something acute if you break your ankle or a bone, please don't come see me. I, I know that in Chinese medicine, there are ancient bone setting techniques, but I would be passed out on the floor because you're screaming and agony, I would not be able to help you go to the emergency department. If you are having a heart attack. Yes, I can boil some ginseng for you for 45 minutes and have you drink it to help improve the contractility of your heart. However, during the 45 minutes that I'm boiling the ginseng, you're going to die, please go to the emergency room and don't come to an acupuncturist for those types of things.

100% Yes, I agree that our Acute Care Health Care in the first world is absolutely excellent. But when it comes to their chronic conditions that people are struggling with in today's age, as a result of a high toxic load, and, you know, or nutrition and high stress and poor sleep, that they're they don't necessarily have the best solutions, because very often those solutions are, as you say, passing people around different specialists, which is time consuming and frustrating and stressful for the person, as well as very often it's well here you need to take this prescription medicine and then have it for the rest of your life because we don't we can't help you, as their training is not in the realm of what is needed for these particular conditions. Whereas on the holistic side, it is so yeah, very, very valid point. Thank you for sharing. So let's dive into digestion. Because this is the final episode in my theme on digestion. And so many people out there are struggling with digestive issues, you know, I have clients coming to me that eat less and less and less foods because everything is upsetting their stomach, well, that's not fun when you eat three times a day for energy. And there's others that you know, have gas and bloating or constipation and diarrhea or dealing with acid reflux and popping and acids, etc. These are all very, very common issues around digestion today. So I would love for you to talk about that connection between digestive issues and acupuncture.

Yes, so it's actually a really simple reason why acupuncture is so effective in treating digestive disorders, anything on that spectrum that you just talked about, even to really chronic inflammatory conditions, like the autoimmune conditions colitis, or ulcerative, excuse me ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's. And the simplistic nature of it is that I talked about acupuncture regulating the autonomic nervous system, which is split into two parts. One we hear about all of the time called the sympathetic nervous system, that's what we call the fighter flight. The flip side to that is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest. We have scientific research. Now that proves time and time again, that acupuncture puts our body into the parasympathetic mode where you're able to rest and digest. It's funny because I specialize in digestive disorders. And part of me feels like that's almost I shouldn't say that, because it's really not even me, having the greatest understanding of the digestive digestive system, even though I do, it's really the acupuncture, just simply putting the body into the parasympathetic mode. And so it gets us out of that stress state when we're chronically stressed all the time. It's literally literally like we have a ball of twine or yarn wound up tight in us and we just can't move everything through the digestive tract like we should you lay on the acupuncture table, somebody pokes you a few times, you take a nap for 30 minutes, and all of a sudden you get up I've had people with chronic constipation, who immediately get off the table and are like, Oh, I need to use your bathroom because they're ready to go. It just gave their body that simple little bit of time to finally unwind that ball of yarn, let everything process through and take a little nap get the rest that we all need.

That's awesome and so important because I always say the world is the most stressed out has ever been. And the problem is is that you know there's so many expectations on all of us. Whether It's, you know, just getting your job done every day and then getting home to life if your parents and you're also trying to get your job done and look after the kids and pick them up from daycare and get the grocery shopping done and get them to soccer and swimming, and all their other sports, it's always this doo doo doo world that we're living in. And we're trying to do it all, we're trying to be the best parent that we can be be the best employee or business owner that we can be be the best spouse that we can be, et cetera. And we look around and we see everyone else stressed out as well. And we normalize it and keep doing it. And one of the reasons for this podcast and I did a whole theme on stress is to highlight the education around the way we live our day, our days, every day, and how that's negatively impacting our health. And we don't realize it because we've never been taught it right. So most people haven't been taught how stress is affecting their internal organs. Mm hmm. And therefore, when they look around and see everyone else stressed out, they know they feel stressed, but it's like, oh, well keep going. Right? Not understanding what that is doing to those internal organs, and therefore, their longevity, right. And so this is something where, you know, people listening to this podcast that they've heard me harp on about the importance of getting out of sympathetic nervous system into the parasympathetic nervous system. And that's when all of our enzymes are switched on to boost digestion and our stomach acid, etc, etc. They've heard me talk about it in a lot of episodes, because it does affect so many aspects of our lives. But here's a another alternative to what I've been offering so far in terms of helping the body drop out of the sympathetic nervous system and into the parasympathetic nervous system. And that's treating yourself to some acupuncture.

Yeah, we call it we in the industry, we like to call it an Accu nap, where you come in, and you shut your phone off. And you don't worry about the boss, or the business or the kids or those things for 30 minutes, it's just 30 minutes. And most people, let's not say most people, some people, it may be the best rest that they're getting all week. And taking that self care and of course, connecting with other professionals like you who are helping people tap into the other stress reducing options out there. And your acupuncturist will probably bring up meditation or deep breathing with you and give you recommendations on ways to incorporate that into your life. And if you have an acupuncturist, who does not recommend those things, then fire them and find some

Actually, I was working with a client and she has an acupuncturist, who had said to her last October, I think that her liver was struggling. And then she and I started working together and I had her do my detox, which of course helps the liver right. And it's not uncommon to have a liver that is struggling in our highly toxic world with our, you know, depleted soil systems, not even giving the liver the nutrients, it needs to function properly. And she went back to see because of COVID, of course, things were shut down, etc. But she went back about two months later, maybe three and didn't tell the acupuncture anything about shouldn't even think about it, really. But she was so shocked when the acupuncturist started working on her and said, Oh, my God, your liver is cleared, what have you done? And she was just so impressed that the acupuncturist could pick up on that.

Yeah, that's that's a wonderful story. And we're all trained in different ways. We all use different tools. There, of course, are ancient tools out there that we use, where we didn't have computers and the technology we have. Now there's also other tools, like something that I love to use in my office. It's called the Accu graph where it allows me to actually see the imbalances in the acupuncture channels. And then I'm able to explain to my patient what that means. Sometimes I don't even ask them what's going on. I just graphed them. And then I'm like, oh, are your allergies bad right now? Do you have some neck and shoulder tension? How about, Oh, where are you at in your cycle? It looks like your hormones are off. And it's just such a wonderful tool that we have nowadays to have a visual for our patients. Before I had to try to explain from a different language all of this crazy stuff. Feeling their pulse? Asking them weird questions will now they get this visual that they get to see. And like I said, not every acupuncturist uses that tool, maybe they use the pulse or the tongue reading like we did 1000s of years ago. But we have, we are trained to feel and look at the body in a very different way. We're not using echocardiograms and stuff like that. And so it's that's a wonderful story that the acupuncturist was able to pick up on that shift in her energy and that the detox you provided her was so effective.

Yeah. And it's, it's also lovely, that we can all work together, right? If there's never in someone's healing journey, there's never just one thing, right. So working and being able to refer people to different practitioners and working alongside to help people fully heal. When we are looking at not only the mind, body spirit, but looking at the body as one, right? I feel in mainstream medicine, we're looking at the heart, or we're looking at, or we're looking at, you know, something else, right? It's everything in isolation. But the reality is, is the body is so interconnected, that we need to look at everything together, and bring all of these tools together, because it is a different path for every single person.

Absolutely. And bringing it back to digestion, we've learned so much, especially in maybe the last only one to two decades, which is such a minimal amount of time in human history, as well as medical history, that our gut is so important in our brain health, and our immune health. And that honestly, all those amazing little gut bugs, the the probiotics that live in our digestive system, there's a theory out there and I don't necessarily disagree with that, that we are really just hosts that they are the powerful beings on the planet, and we're just a vehicle for them to do their thing. And so getting the gut in shape. Nowadays, especially since Coronavirus through our whole planet into a really, you know, terrible situation with everything that it's done. It's so important to get our digestive system on track, make sure everything is working properly. Because we need that immune system to be boosted from having a healthy GI tract, we need to have our brains healthy. So we can come up with all of the right tools to fight this thing and get, you know, get everybody taken care of. And so supporting the gut is, in my opinion, the number one place to start.

I agree with you 100%. And you know, just some stats. 70% of our immune system is housed in our gut. So when our gut is unhappy, as you said, the immune system isn't functioning optimally. earlier about neurotransmitters, well, we know that 90% of serotonin is made in the gut. And if the gut isn't happy, and it can't produce that serotonin to that level, then we're not going to feel as happy. And then that's when so many people are going to doctors and being prescribed antidepressants or anti anxiety drugs. And really we need to be looking at what are those imbalances in the gut. And I find it so fascinating that Hippocrates said, and this is like he lived like 3000 years ago, at least 2000. Anyway, more than 2021 anyway, that he said all disease starts in the gut. Yep. And it as you said, it's only in the last one to two decades of modern science that we're even coming around to agreeing with what he somehow knew way back then, yes blows my mind.

There's a there are several schools of thought that come out of our ancient Chinese medicine texts. There's one in particular, which is the one that I follow, and bring him back to kind of that five elements that first little bit of traditional Chinese medicine that I fell in love with, where we have wood that turns to fire turns to Earth turns to metal turns to water and recycles back into wood. So the earth element is our digestive system according to Chinese medicine. And if you support the earth, everything else will be supported as well. And then we could go on another tangent and talk about that from a more literal perspective.

The environmental aspect Yes.

But we, after we're born, we are no longer getting our tea from our parents, we call it prenatal or postnatal HCE. Once we're born, that prenatal tea goes away, our parents are not giving us that anymore. So we have to get our tea or energy from our food. And so if we're not supporting that digestive system, because that's what processes all of the food, if we're not supporting it by putting Cheetos in there all the time, and soda, we're not supporting that digestive system for not supporting our earth. And so that's what's going to throw off all of the other four elements, because we're not supporting, you know, the Mother Earth basically.

Exactly. I agree. And it's a I'm revamping my website right now, I'm really happy to be launching that soon. And one of the comments is, is that, first of all, our body is the only place we have to live, whether we're the host for all of those trillions of microbes in us, or I like to say that they synergistically work for us every single day. But it's the only place we have to live. So we have to look after it. And yet many of us look after our cars better than we look after our own body. And we take our car for regular services and oil changes, etc. And we don't put sludge in our car, I actually found an image to use on the website of somebody putting a two liter bottle of Coke into their car as an experiment. And what do you think happened? It drove for about 100 meters because there was still gas in the fuel lines, and then it died. So what happens when we do that to our own body, right. And unfortunately, again, the education just hasn't been there around the intricacies of our body, and how easy it is to look after it when we know how. But what is made available to us also has us going off track so easily. Because we have a food industry that doesn't care about our health. And we have a health care industry that doesn't care about our food in the sense that our doctors aren't trained in nutrition and lifestyle healing modalities. So the more we can educate people around this, the more we can start to bring people's health back on track. And then they can share that with their loved ones. And once you have this knowledge, it is foundational knowledge that will last you for life that you can build upon.

Absolutely, I completely agree. All of the nutrition study that I do these days, and nutrition is one of my biggest passions, I love learning the new things that come out. And it's ever changing what we know now, maybe disproven 10 years from now. But all we can do is our best. And so as long as you're eating close to nature, and like we did 100 or 200 years ago, before the invention of processed foods, if you're able to eat that way, you will have health, it's as simple as that. And convincing somebody to make those changes might be a little bit more difficult. But really the model is very simple. Eat as best you can take supplements, unfortunately, that's what we have to do these days, because you brought it up earlier, the soil is depleted of many of the nutrients, the minerals that we need. And so supplementation at this time is still very important. But just eat, eat close to nature. That's always my big my big recommendation. Yeah, and I know we've talked about this before shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, right.

So I just also would love you to talk a little bit about your hypno puncture method. I'm just really interested in learning about that if you could share a little bit more about it.

Yeah, absolutely. I came up with this idea about three years ago. Pardon me. And I was listening to a podcast, friend of mine at the time was doing her it's called the rise higher podcast. And it was really about you know, just taking our lives to another level. So she had a lot of guests who had a lot of struggles in their life and then they were able to overcome and it wasn't necessarily health struggles, but she was interviewing the director of the documentary heal, which at the time of this recording, by the way, if people are listening to this close to when it releases then I No, it's free. The documentary is free on Amazon Prime right now. So if you're a Prime member, you can go watch it for free. And it follows several people with chronic health conditions, who are using mostly unconventional healing methods. And my friend who has the podcast is hypnotherapist and she and I actually she had done hypnotherapy on me the first time I was ever hypnotized, it was her. And it was life changing. For me, it was absolutely life changing. And I watched the documentary, which they did not talk about hypnotherapy in the documentary. But there was just so much about how powerful our minds are talking about the placebo effect. One of the guests on the documentary is a former chemical engineer for one of the major pharmaceutical companies. And he said his job was to make new drugs, test them and test subjects and collect the data. And he said they would have a drug that was effective 75% of the time, but the people on the placebo, had the same effects that the drug was supposed to do 74% of the time. So why are we giving toxic chemicals to people when we could give them a tiny sugar pill and it's still going to be just as effective, right. And this thought just occurred to me one night, I was actually laying in bed, I had just watched the documentary, I had recently been hypnotized by my friend. And I just sat bolt upright in bed and thought, what if I combined hypnotherapy? with acupuncture, I could help people heal their bodies using their minds, and still utilizing their own healing processes that I am able to do with acupuncture. I immediately enrolled in a therapy training program that took me about 18 months. And as soon as I got the foundations from the courses that I were was taking, I started asking my patients if they were willing to give this a try. And let me hypnotize them and give them positive suggestions on how their own mind can help them heal. And it's the most powerful tool that I have in my arsenal now is sharing this with other patients, I have had people with terrible addiction issues addictions to like methamphetamine, who weren't even ready to admit that they had a problem. And so I'm not there to tell them, oh, you have to get clean, you have to do this. No, we just did some hypno puncture, I use some specific points that helped kind of block some of those areas in the brain that caused cravings for unhealthy addictive substances, gave him some positive suggestions on how he can improve his life and achieve the success that he wants. And the next day, he turned around and came to me and told me that he was ready to admit he had a problem and checked himself into rehab. It's amazing what we've done. I've helped people heal from trauma that they've experienced with their family members as children, who the family members have passed on. And they will never be able to have that closure with the person, we're able to go and do inner child work and allow them to heal from that trauma, teaching people simple things on how to anchor into calm, relaxed feelings so that when, when they're in a stressful situation, they can simply use an anchor, like by squeezing their fingers together gently. And it reminds them to be calm and relaxed. It's just the most powerful tool I have. I really love it.

That's awesome. And I love how it was like that sit bolt up right in the middle of the night. It was a download to you that this is what you needed to be doing. Yes, absolutely. And then of course, it's incredibly powerful as a result. So I love that. So just as we wrap up, I want to ask you what is don't wait for your wake up call mean to you.

I love the name of your podcast. And it really means get on track with your health. Right now when you still feel good or semi good. Don't wait for the stroke or the cancer or the diabetes. Are those horrible diagnoses that are gonna require Western medications for you to survive. Don't wait for that to come do it now, teach your kids how to do it now so that that generation will live longer. Sadly, this is the first time in human history where the younger generations are not projected to live as long as their parents, which is horrible. We need to fix that. So this is the wake up call, that statistic is a wake up call. Don't wait for your individual one, let's do this together and get the whole planet. Yes healthier.

And what it comes down to I fully agree with what you're saying. And I think what it comes down to is, for generations, we've been basically taught that if you get sick, you go to the doctor, and they'll make you better. First of all, you're giving up your power to someone else. And secondly, you're not taking responsibility for your health. And so we have to turn that on its head and recognize that our health is actually our greatest asset.

Without our

health, we can't live the life that we want to live, run our business, you know, generate an income, raise our family. But to your point, if we can teach our kids to take responsibility for their health now and respect it as their greatest asset, recognize their body is the only place they have to live, then we can change those outcomes for them. So I love what you said. And I've heard that statistic. And it is scary to think that our children will live as long as what we are today. So how can people get hold of you if they would like to reach out? And part? Second part of that is I'm wondering if any of your work can be done virtually? And

do you do it virtually?

Yes. So the first question is, people can find me on social media. I'm not on every single social media channel. I'm not on tik tok. I'm too old for that guy. Um, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, if you want to find me, I'm at EW c health that stands for Empire Wellness Center health. So he WC health. And then you can always find me on my website. It's Empire Wellness Center calm? And to answer your second question, yes, I can do a lot of this virtually some of my options are going to be restricted to the United States. So I can run bloodwork on a lot of patients review that kind of stuff, recommend supplements, just like you do. So that is restricted to the US, which is great, because if somebody is in Canada, they have access to you. There you go. Yeah. So I do a lot of functional medicine, which is a lot of what you do, Melissa, and I'm sure you've talked about it and all of your guests know what it is. So I do that in the US. If your us listeners don't have access to you, they can have access to that for me, I also have options for the hypno puncture, I'm not going to send you any acupuncture needles and tell you how to puncture yourself. But I have these amazing photo therapy patches that uses light therapy, just like the sun helps convert vitamin D or produce vitamin D in the body, it will do similar things, these patches to help us produce more glutathione to be an antioxidant or carnosine or even produce extra stem cells. So I am able to send those to patients which work on the acupuncture points. And then we hop on a zoom and I do hypnotherapy with them and allow their bodies to

heal. And you guide them in where to place the patches. I'm presuming. Exactly. Awesome. I love that. I love that. And then my last question, just as we wrap up, I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you today. But what message would you like to leave with the audience to inspire them to step into their healing journey or taking responsibility for their health today?

It's that they have all the power, just like you said, thinking that the doctor is going to make them well is giving up their power. You have all of the power to heal your own body. And whether you are just as far away from your reaching your health goals as you possibly could be. You got to take that one step and by taking that one step you are going to empower yourself to heal your own body

I love that. And that's exactly what the body is designed to do is heal itself. We just have to get into that place and find the resources and the practitioners that can help us do that.

I love that. Well, thank

you so much for joining me here today. Charlene, it's been a fabulous conversation with you. And thank you to all of my listeners, I will see you back here next time on the next edition of don't wait for your wake up call. I hope that the content I bring to you in my podcast is inspiring you to take action in your health, and to come to the realization that you and only you are responsible for your health, and your health is your greatest asset. health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. I also hope you're starting to realize how much is not taught to us through our education system and through mainstream health. And if you would like to learn more about your health, I welcome you to look into my upcoming health optimizer program. It's a four week program. And I dive into key aspects of optimizing your health knowledge that you will then have for life that you can share with your loved ones. And that will change your health outcomes. So check out the link to the health