Dr. Isabella’s Insights
Published in The Retreat Newspaper May 2024 issue No. 12
What does embodiment mean to you? How does it show up in your work?
This is such a good question! Embodiment to me is the same as healing. I consider the degree to which we experience life in the body as the greatest measure of health. We only suffer when it is obstructed, fragmented or disembodied in some way. My clinical work is centered around embodiment in the sense we are only ever working with the resources within your own body and I will only ever prescribe things that entirely support, reconnect and liberate these resources at zero cost. This can seem like a big feat in the face of the chronic and mental conditions I work with, typically people want to run to the big and drastic interventions. Yet as my patients actively participate in their healing with practical participation, the more results they get without dramatic procedures. This is because they’re not relying on me to ‘give’ them health, they are creating it and embodying it themselves.
Like a lot of your clients, I work with you remotely. What is the concept of ‘quantum entanglement’ and how does it help explain why remote energy therapy works?
Remote energy therapy has been practiced in Taoist medicine for over three thousand years. Quantum physics explains how subatomic particles maintain relationship even when they are great distances from each other. Concepts like ‘quantum entanglement’ continue to explain the interconnection of the human body with the natural world that Taoism has always spoken about. The reality is that even acupuncture treatments don’t work because of the needles themselves, but because of the channels in the patient’s body. And we don’t need to be in the same room to affect them!
One of my favorite parts of our work together is the Qigong practices you assign. How can Qigong be a form of embodied healing?
Qi Gong IS embodied healing! It is literally the practice of cultivating and working with energy through awareness, in the physical body. To me the purpose of any therapy is really to help reconnect someone to their own internal experience in their body and create a space where healing becomes increasingly more possible. Qi Gong allows us to maintain that experience through daily practice, and then our health is ultimately in our own hands.
One of the definitions of embodiment is ‘a visible form or expression of a feeling’. I immediately think of symptoms as I read this. How often is a symptom a result of something emotional? How do you address the emotional root of something that has manifested physically?
In both Classical Chinese and Tibetan Medicine, we work on the premise that all illness begins in the mind. The mind creates emotions which express through the organs and cause us to contract in ways that create physiological blockages. In Tibetan medicine we call these mental-emotional causes our inner winds, as just like the wind, we cannot see them directly, we can only see their effects. As these materialize in the physical body, we get symptoms. These are held and stored at different levels of the body and can create varying degrees of stagnation in our muscles, blood, lymphatics, nerves and bones. Taoist medicine has a profound diagnostic system to assess this. Of course, this gets complicated by infections, toxins and burdens the body also accumulates over time and creates patterns of symptoms we call disease. So illness does not live at the level of our emotions, it follows stages of progression in the physical body. And that is where our sensory experience (our feelings) and our solutions live too. My approach to regenerative health and acupuncture works from the ground up through the physical body in light of each person’s unique history and mental-emotional patterns. This allows us to support the body’s own natural release of its physical and emotional scars. We’re never forcing out your emotional traumas to heal you, we’re helping the body to move to a state beyond survival mode towards circulation, vitality and evolution.
You asked me to send you a photo of my eyes recently. Of course, I went down an Iridology rabbit hole after. Techniques like iridology provide a less obvious sign of dis-ease in the body than something like a rash does. Two part question: what wisdom do the eyes offer? What other techniques, like iridology, which offer clues/subtle messages/insights, do you work with?
Every part of the body can be understood as a microcosm of the whole body itself. In Chinese Medicine school you learn a lot about tongue and pulse diagnosis but these are just the tip of the iceberg. Eye diagnosis is a lost art in Taoist medicine that can help us gain a lot of insight into constitutional (genetic) and latent (hidden) conditions in the body, which are difficult to diagnose by Western technologies. Certain palpation and observational techniques with the sinews and veins can also help me assess these kinds of deeper imbalances also. For the metrics lovers, I offer bio resonance scans to back this all up.
In one of our more recent sessions, we worked on feeling worthy of healing, of true vitality. Do you believe that our thoughts can create sickness? Can they heal? If so, can you talk about the power of embodying the belief that healing is possible and it is innate?
As we said, all disease begins in the mind. The mind gets us sick or well to the extent that our physical body follows suit. If we repeat thoughts long enough that they become beliefs, it is likely that our muscles and cells will contract in response and create symptoms. When significant inflammation, fibrosis or scar tissue have built up physically we need to focus on those areas first before we can expect the tissues to release what is in the way of their normal function. Only then can you have the embodiment of health in your body. The scientific reality is that healing is innate and limitless in every cell of the living body! And it is so much faster when you’re willing to bring awareness to the ways you suppress it with unhelpful thoughts and beliefs.
Speaking more specifically for the season:
For our Northern Hemisphere readers: what is the organ of Spring and what emotion does this organ embody. The liver and gallbladder, and our capacity for motivation, purpose and direction. Disembodied expressions would be anger, resentment and frustration.
Three tips for embodying health and vitality in Springtime? Flexible movement, light living foods and open-eyed meditations.
For our Southern Hemisphere readers:
The organ of fall and what emotion does this organ embody. The lungs and large intestine, and our capacity for release, forgiveness and discernment. Disembodied expressions would be grief, sadness, and judgement.
Three tips for embodying health and vitality in Autumn? Moisture rich meals, deep exhales and reflecting in appreciation.
Your favorite practice for embodiment?
Well since embodiment is a natural result of releasing what is dis-embodying us, the best practice would be one which allows us to exhale and let go. If we can devote ourselves to this type of practice, we can then begin to connect with ourselves on the deepest level, which is what embodiment is all about. This kind of contemplation easily gets lost in more ambitious spiritual practices. In Taoism we keep it simple and start at the root, as we can only grow up from there.
Daoist Meditation Practice
1. Breathe DOWN into your lower belly. This area just below your navel is called your lower dan tien, where you want all your awareness to settle. Do not move onto the next step until you feel that only your low belly rises and falls with your breath, not your chest or your shoulders!
2. Focus on your EXHALE only, through your nose. Pay little attention to your inhale, it will happen naturally.
3. CONNECT the tip of tongue on roof of mouth and maintain a sense of your center as you practice.
Remember to keep it embodied, present, and relaxed. Your qi flows a lot easier that way.