Same Same but Different
The Rich Tapestry of Healing
As a practitioner trained across many modalities, namely Shiatsu, Chinese Medicine, somatic awareness, Qigong, nutritional and holistic health coaching. I move fluidly between languages of the body.
The thread that runs through all of them is this: we are whole. Our bodies, minds, and emotions are inseparable. The heart cannot be considered without the nervous system. Our kidneys cannot be separated from the fear we carry. Pain, tension, and joy all circulate through the same living system.
The more I study the nervous system, the more I see the overlaps between what Western anatomy describes and what Chinese Medicine maps through meridians and channels. Fascia, Qi, nerves, energy, all circulate through us, carrying information and memory. The body remembers. Always.
This week I treated a woman with three children. She arrived tense, anxious, overwhelmed, her energy tight in her chest and tummy. Her breath was short, and her body felt like it was holding more than just the demands of daily life.
As we began to speak, layers began to emerge; the pressure of parenting, the residual patterns of past experiences, and the body’s unconscious holding of trauma.
In that moment, I could have focused on one pathway or another:
Acupuncture and herbal support for postpartum Qi and Blood deficiency, which would nourish her system at a fundamental level.
Nervous system regulation, helping her shift out of hypervigilance and into safety.
Diet and lifestyle adjustments, acknowledging how emotional states often shape our relationship with food.
Qigong exercises, micro-moments of embodied awareness she could practice while folding laundry, playing with her children, or breastfeeding.
What I did was integrate them all.
Subtle shifts became visible. Her shoulders softened, her breath deepened, and the tension in her spine eased. The fascia through her torso and limbs began to release, allowing Qi to flow more freely through her channels. As her nervous system recalibrated, the fear and hyper-alertness she had been carrying quietly receded.
Her anxiety didn’t vanish, but it became a messenger instead of a dictator. She reported began able to notice the sensations in her body, the rising and falling of energy, and how her responses shaped her interactions with her children and partner. Her awareness became a tool, a bridge between her internal world and the life she was living.
What struck me most was how relational this work is. Healing happens in the body, the body communicates with the mind, and both communicate with the people around us. As she learned to breathe, soften, and inhabit her own system, her energy rippled outward. Her children felt it. Her partner felt it.
The body is a high-functioning organism, a network of intelligence, memory, and energy that is always adapting, always learning. Yet so often we operate on the ground floor, unaware of the potential inside us.
A few moments of awareness, a few minutes of movement, a few intentional breaths. These are enough to shift the nervous system, open the fascia, circulate Qi, and create ripple effects in the world around us.
Healing is never about rushing or forcing change. We could look at it in relationship: the networks within our own system and the web of life that surrounds us. Over time, patterns loosen. Awareness deepens. The energy flows. The nervous system learns it can be safe.
The work we do together may look different depending on the language we use; acupuncture, somatic exercises, breathwork, nutrition, but the intention is the same: to reconnect the self with the intelligence, wholeness, and place in the network of life.
And this, I believe, is where profound transformation lives.
With love,
Anny
