A reflection on 8 years

I founded Heart & Hands Oct. 5, 2010 and here is what I have learned from this crazy ride thus far…

I hold a deep faith that our bodies hold all the answers we are seeking and they will reveal themselves when we are ready to listen.

I am a woman of colour, navigating a world that regularly reminds me that I do not quite belong anywhere, processing and negotiating a more or less confusing and traumatic immigrant upbringing and a survivor of a 17 year battle with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. I intimately understand what it means to feel broken, but also what it means to put yourself back together again.

I practice acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a modality that is profoundly innovative and has stood the test of time, survived brutal racism and xenophobia and transcended cultural barriers. My practice is a bridge, a (lost in) translation of my cultural traditions and with the best of intentions, an honest expression of what it means FOR ME to be Chinese Canadian.

The way I see it, Community Acupuncture is a profound tool for positive social change. A means to transform the way we provide and interact with health care in our society. We fill the gaps, catch who we can falling through the cracks and hold space with curiosity, compassion and reverence of the human condition. Acupuncture is (extra)ordinary magic.

My motivations are rooted in the cultural traditions of TCM as well as to the people and the land that make my home and practice. I acknowledge that much of my creative and clinical expression originates from a grassroots, intuitive and self-exploratory place. And no matter where my motivations take me, I intend to return full circle to the humble beginnings of how I move through the world with a child’s mind, observant of the patterns in the natural world and the foundation in the practice of barefoot medicine; person-by-person, pulse-by-pulse, needle-by-needle.

Here is to another 8 more years and another 8 more years and….

~Christina Chan, R.Ac.