The Confluence of Body & Mind
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​Classical Chinese medicine sources speak to us about the '3 Treasures' of health:
Jing, Qi, & Shen.
The 'Shen', associated with 'heaven' is translated as the 'mind-heart' and it is what we consider to be our spirit or consciousness. Our physical health and our spiritual health are concurrent facets of the same system. When we seeking to understand the symptoms that the physical body is expressing, we must also explore the state of one's psycho-emotional well-being.
Chinese medicine recognizes that there is a 'shen' or spirit associated with each of the main organs and organ systems, and so in its truest expression of holism, the medicine wants us to explore the mind and body concurrently whenever we observe symptoms of disharmony.
Part of the brilliance of this ancient medicine system is that it is physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual medicine all at once.
"If the spirit is at peace, the heart is in harmony; when the heart is in harmony, the body is whole; if the spirit becomes aggravated the heart wavers, and when the heart wavers the body becomes injured; if one seeks to heal the physical body, one needs to regulate the spirit first.” - Liu Zhou, 6th century Confucian scholar
Our Work Together
Intake & Assessment
The Physical intake:
We start with a comprehensive intake of your physical symptoms in order to better understand your overall health. We look at the state of your Qi and Blood, evaluate the various body systems to learn more about which organs and organ systems may need support and, in Chinese medicine diagnosis language, explore where there may be stagnation, excess, and deficiency.
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Exploring your Emotional Watershed:
Through opening up to your inner world, we make contact with the many currents of psycho-emotional material that are there. We explore the tributaries that flow into your emotional watershed, such as your ancestral/lineage material, your own life experiences, and the impact of the larger culture on your knowing of the world. Through excavating below the surface and identifying the core patterns that we discover, we access the parts of ourselves that became exiled and where our belief systems took root. Learning to relate with the parts that reside there allows the deep work to happen of gaining agency and freedom and choice in your life. And you'll learn that you can live in accordance with who you truly are.​​​
How Change Happens
Marking Transition:
In Chinese medicine terms, often the health of someone will get out of balance when certain points on the meridians become stagnant. When this happens, the flow of energy through the entire channel is impeded, and we use needles in order to open up stagnation and increase the flow again. Similarly, in order to support psycho-emotional wellness in our lives, we need to root out where things have gotten stuck and sluggish. We need to investigate what needs to open and how to do that. I call this work 'psycho-emotional acupuncture'- which entails employing psyche work in order to 'needle' the stuck patterns that are affecting the flow of our entire systems.
However, working with with patterns that are stuck and challenging - especially old intergenerational ones - requires depth and safety, and often needs more than simply talking things through. We need movement and connection to our bodies. We need art. We need the medicine of land and community to hold us. And we need ritual and ceremony to help us release what is ready to be released and welcome in a new way of being and feeling and living. Making a strong demarcation between the old and the new is such an important part of declaring the new, the healed, and the liberated.​ Our human-ness needs us to be witnessed in our evolution, and our evolution wants to happen inside frameworks of beauty and meaning making. Together, through an indepth investigation of your unconscious material, and through the creation of ceremony, ritual and rites of passage work that is tailored to your life's transitions, we explore the next steps on your path of strength, clarity, and purpose.
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Supporting the Physical​:
By combining our exploration of body and mind into one, you will also be supported with health counselling from a TCM perspective where we look at diet, lifestyle, and herbal recommendations that will lead to greater health and vitality for your unique situation. We will look at herbal formulas, seasonal eating, how various flavours in food and plants affect your body, and the thermal energetics of food according to Chinese medicine nutrition. We will also discuss lifestyle changes that will allow you to feel more balanced, more alive, and more at ease as you navigate the wild journey that is being human. ​
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I refer to this work as psycho-emotional acupuncture.
It is the art of creating flow where there is stagnancy. It is the work of identifying the key points along the channels of our lives that are in need of attention. The places that when closed and untended to make our lives feel stuck and difficult. But through a careful process, these places can be opened so that energy can flow freely and we can watch as our health begins to sing again.
Are you looking to experience more
flow and ease in your life?
Rates
$150/session/60 min
Suggested frequency: 2 sessions/month
Suggested initial container: 3 months
In recognition of the challenge that capitalism poses to many people, I have made a few slots available at a significantly reduced rate. There are many in our midst who need more help due to the daily, systemic and inherited impacts of racism, classism, ableism, sexism and gender oppression. If this is you, I invite you to reach out.
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"Tali is an innate healer & medicine carrier. Tuning into my whole system, to emotional patterns, eating habits, body type, and her skills of observation of my pulse and tongue, she gives wholistic life recommendations and acupuncture/Chinese medicine sessions that I’ve noticed really have made a difference in my health. My experience working with Tali on a regular basis helped me address some core issues and gave me the experience of someone really tracking me as the complex and whole being that I am. I highly recommend Tali as an ally to your healing journey."
- N.J., dance facilitator & ritualist