Everything You Need to Know about Acupuncture with Dr. McKenzie O'Brien

This week Dani has her first guest on the podcast! Aside from being Dani's Acupuncturist, friend, and mentor- Dr. McKenzie O'Brien is a 1/3 Splenic Projector  who specializes in women’s health, pediatric care, and nervous system regulation. 

During this episode, the two discuss:
- How Dr. McKenzie got into Acupuncture
- Dani's healing journey and her experience being treated by Dr. McKenzie
- What training & education to become an Acupuncturist looks like
- Ultimate Frisbee
- How Acupuncture and Herbs actually work
- Is Qi a thing?
- The 5 Elements in TCM and the powerful poetry behind them
- Somatic Experiencing Therapy
- What conditions Acupuncture can be used to support, treat, and heal
- Is there anyone who should not get acupuncture?
- What you can expect from your first treatment
- The similarities and differences between an Eastern and Western medical approach
- Is Acupuncture painful?  What are the risks involved?
- What to look out for when seeking a practitioner
- Debunking common myths and misconceptions about Acupuncture

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
McKenzie's IG: @drfreeandeasy
Jenn's IG: @zenjenn11
McKenzie's Website: www.drmckenzieobrien.com
Local Offerings in San Diego, CA: https://linktr.ee/mixedyogaarts
Dr. McKenzie's Email for Herbal Consults: McKenzieOBrienLAC@Gmail.com

Let's be friends! Follow us on IG @PositivelyInfluencedPod or Email positivelyinfluenced@gmail.com. I'm so happy you're here :-) 

Transcript

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Friends welcome back to the positively influenced podcast today are inaugural guest describes herself as a free and easy Wanderer roaming the Earth with the hope of offering a safe space for unfolding and feeling into your whole body she feels pulses inserts needles nerds out over herbs and ultimately she hopes to help bring you back home to that perfect little note in the universe known as you Mackenzie earned her doctorate and acupuncture in eastern medicine from the Pacific College of Health and Science in San Diego completed over 2,000 hours of clinical training in addition to an internship at the Rady children's hospital where she treated a variety of pediatric cases in inpatient and Outpatient Care McKenzie is passionate about spreading the knowledge of the great efficacy of this medicine and it's lesser known strengths such as treating psycho emotional disorders like trauma PTSD addiction depression insomnia and anxiety to name a few. She is a powerful healer a beautiful poet a very real doctor and if you ask me just pure magic in human form please welcome to the positively influenced podcast Dr Mackenzie O'Brien.

It’s official, woohoo! Thank you Dani. I'm so happy that you're here. It's such a freaking honor to witness you in the place that you're at right in this moment relative to where you were a year ago or a year and a half ago or yesterday and I'm just really stoked to have been recognized by my fellow 1/3 and as the projector that I am it's sometimes nice to just have a really obvious invitation and I always feel comfortable being invited by you so thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, so for those who don't know Mackenzie is my acupuncturist and my herbalist and in many ways a mentor to me but also just a really beautiful and amazing friend. I mean I can speak first hand to some of the things in that intro. So I first met MacKeznie because we had some mutual friends in San Diego but I really got to know you When I was in the upside down cuz I called February 2022 and I was that holy hell oh come along way you're like I have your card at my office and people like oh Practical Magic what's that I'm like well and you're like night one of my greatest success stories like thinking about that intro that I love reminding people of their home and their truth and reactivating the spark inside of people that a lot of us are walking around with it dimmed relative to just living in a way that doesn't feel fully in alignment but just going with it because that was what Mom and Dad said or that was the expectation that you grew up with and I'm like oh Practical Magic yeah she's one of my star patients she actually quit her corporate job and became this hella cool astrology reader and human design reader in Asheville North Carolina so yeah anything is possible and they're like what? 

Yea if you ever wanna talk about making big changes I’m here to guide you and MacKenzie was such a big part of me even being able to build up that Foundation to make those changes. But I think in addition to the actual work that I've done with you between needling and cupping and herbs, big dragon bone gal. I love a dragon bone in my clinic. I think just really getting to know you more personally and seeing first-hand that a completely different way of life was even possible. Not to replicate it but just to break out like the very tight box that I felt like I was in at the time was so impactful for me. Totally I mean I'm sitting I'm in my van right now that I live in my Pharmacy is like just above my head it's so radical to talk to people and hear their stories and hear their doubts and resonate with the doubts cuz I have them too cuz I'm a human and able to be like well I've tried something that's a little bit different and it might be too different for you but just so you know there's others out here doing it totally different and I'm still surviving you know I'm like I have a doctorate I'm a doctor I'm a primary care physician in the state of California and I also live in a van and I house sit for people and you know,  I'm still able to exist in the Matrix. I can participate and so can anyone else.

So well kick it off I guess from the very beginning because I've always been absolutely fascinated by people that have a trade or like a hard skill yeah you've done such a beautiful job at not following a defined path that I think a lot of times when people hear that someone is a doctor we have a very linear path in our head of what that looks like or even what a Doctor actually is, nevermind the path to get there. So I'd love for you to explain in your own words like how did you get into acupuncture what did that Journey look like for you well to start it off I feel like I was going by a lot of the rules I'm an undergraduate and international business and Spanish from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and I fully only did it because I was like well you know seems pretty applicable across the board and business that I'm good everything's business that sounds good but I would just sleep through the classes I would depend on the guy Ronnie next to me in a bow tie and be like dude what's going on in the class and can you give me all your notes for the test you know like I was in college I was doing it because I wanted the college experience not because I wanted the education and the privilege of being able to have that choice. Did you have an awareness of that at the time? I knew with that what I was doing was Dissonance like I had changed my major a bunch in college and the three classes in college that I genuinely enjoyed and the rest I probably just blacked out I still have like a nightmare about international finance but the three classes were Ceramics so working with my hands and fine details, Intro to Ethics which was sort of like a philosophy course and then I took Tai Chi As my PE cuz I was like seems easy and now I you know I'm 15 years out and I do touchy everyday and I'm like damn was that the seed that it was a part of the many seeds that ultimately led to my garden they're growing but yeah I started out on the path of average middle class American kiddo who had the privilege of going to a good high school the expectation was for me to go to college and get a degree in college that I could use for my career when I got out of college I didn’t know what the F*** I was doing I moved to California the other pieces that in the second youngest of five kids for my dad but I'm the oldest for my mom so I just a big diverse family and one of my older sisters is an acupuncturist and she's 16 years older than I am so I'd always kind of idolize her as like the hippie cool sister that would like leave to go to California and come home smelling like things that I was like this just smells good I don't know I probably thought it was weed or something but it was actually Chinese herbs. There may have been some weed mixed in there. I had this figure that I idolized I would get acupuncture from her not really understand it but I would just remember that I would relax so deeply and I was such a stressed out probably pretty depressed teenager that I just Associated that sense of relaxation and addressed with her and so I created this link and I already and I idolized I thought that she just had such a radical way of being in the world she's sort of the black sheep of my family and so she I mean without my sister none of this would have actually come about because she paved a lot of Pathways not only for me as her sister as an acupuncturist earlier on in our industry So anyway I graduated from college I decided to move to California because that's where I felt like I wanted to be and I found myself in San Francisco I injured myself in San Francisco playing ultimate frisbee which was what I was really in college for. Wait, how seriously so I don’t make light of it because you don’t hear a lot of ultimate frisbee injuries. Dude I tore both of my ACLS playing ultimate frisbee we were we went hard it was yeah and I even I got acupuncture right after my first ACL surgery and that definitely sped up my healing I remember feeling again just like these I would have these little tastes like that's so relaxing and so yeah I moved to California and I found myself living in San Diego I found myself working for an acupuncturist I was working for front desk and I was highly over qualified to work the front desk just because I had this college degree and I knew I had a lot of skills and I just didn't know where to utilize them at one point I thought maybe I'd studied to be a doula to assist so I can assist in words cuz I love kids I've been a nanny historically too so I had this like sense of wanting to care for others but I didn't know but working for the acupuncturist that I work for now actually means Jamie Boyd she's another wizard that she'd walk out of a treatment room and just like drop a knowledge bomb on me and be like okay can you go clean the cups and I'd be like plans Actually she jokes she's an aquarius cuz she has a I think she's a Leo moon as well or Leo rising and I'm a real son and she was like I just knew I could never tell you to do it you just had to figure it out on your own and surely enough after working for her for a few years be coming familiar with how to be in an acupuncture practice I was just feeling kind of lost so I decided to walk the Camino in Spain that's like 500 miles of walking alone in the woods where you just have no other choice but to be with yourself and your thoughts and when I got home I was still just kind of in sick of like I don't know who I am what am I doing and I guess it was sort of like a bottom sort of place because I had this really profound experience had felt so powerful but felt like I had no Outlet to pour the power into. Were you working at Whole family acupuncture in San Diego? I'm going to go walk this plate I'm going to go walk for a while and Spain she's like all right dude I'll find a cover for you like you got a job when you come back like this woman is just such an incredible caretaker herself and like she can she sees so much in other people and I know she saw that in me and trusted it so I got back and I just think I took like a few weeks to kind of assimilate and Digest feel like I'm still a digesting that experience and then I was like you know what f*** it I'm just going to go to grad school like a masters and psychology maybe to become a therapist but acupuncture just spoke to me I remember I went to they had to come to check out the classes it was a foundation of Chinese medicine class and they started to talk about the five elements and I started to talk about the body in a way that I was like it just made more sense to me. It was my tendency to dissociate for my body because of you know my bodily trauma as being a woman in the world or having those ACLs and just really hating my body I think in that experience I witnessed this teacher to speak about the body in a way that felt right. I finally felt more familiar with it So then I signed up and Acupuncture school the way they do it is and it was until recently it was just a masters it was a master's in traditional Oriental medicine and then in the last 10 years or so they started it as a doctorate program because they realized that a lot of the coursework and the course material and the time that you spend in the school is it's equivalent to that of a doctor of chiropractor and then some it's the equivalent of a doctor of physical therapy and then some it's similar Western Medical Training as a Physician’s assistant. And two extra years of Eastern medical Theory and herbalism any medical education like this this is just the the foundation and you you know leave the school get your license and that's everyone always said and now I'm witnessing and this is the time where I get to really explore the things that I'm finding that I have more interest in it was just having to learn a new language and then having to learn to become fluent in that language and then take that language and translate it back to your mother language I don't have a lot of Chinese people in the population that I treat so I don't have a lot of people whose contacts is the foundation of this medicine which is a more abstract context than the logical scientific thinking Westerner so yeah. Just as the white chick in Acupuncture school figuring out how to be respectful of a culture that's not my own having to Going to figure out how to speak that culture's language and then having figure out how to best translate it was definitely challenging but it's also just been such a joy to try and do more that was such a huge part of my experience being treated by you was not only are you technically very gifted at the treatments That you're able to administer in the care of that you're able to offer I mean I experienced it first hand I tell everyone who will listen that between you and my therapist like the two of you really foundationally impactful during that time for me but I had to such like a practitioner crush on you because the way you explained the Poetry of what we were doing and why we were doing it similar to your experience like I just noticed my body feeling so different in my mind being able to quiet and this just deep sense of relaxation in the midst of the chaos that I had going on at the time learning about the poetry and the elements and finding other ways for me to apply that to my life outside of your office was so important to me and I had so much fun learning from you.

What are the five elements how do they play into the whole picture first I'll say I think what's really great about a lot of folks in my profession is we are storytellers and we are able to tell stories maybe more easily than a western practitioner might because we've really kept it simple in that we can look at the entire body and see it from the lens of understanding that the body is merely the bigger picture around us so we're just a reflection of whatever the weather is outside. I don't come like I'm just a meteorologist trying to figure out like why do you why you're in a drought when it's been raining for the last month in California you know or like why do you have a flood up here and a drought down here like let's let's irrigate some of that desert area and bring some of this dryness to the swamp you know cuz that makes more sense to me than to try and explain the metabolic functions of the kidney and why the kidney isn’t transforming fluid within the tissue. I could sit there and try to explain that but it just doesn't feel, it doesn't feel resonant for me. I mean it made more sense for me that way I don’t even know WTF my kidney is supposed to be doing. To speak more to just the Simplicity like I like to storytell and explain things because I think that people receive treatment better when they know what's going on but I'll say this I love Western medicine I have a lot of dear friends that are Western Medical practitioners and that they're so smart they're so kind and they know too they're in a system that doesn't fully support that kindness and it doesn't fully support their whole spectrum of ability to explain things too because they're more having to operate under the insurance model which is like you have X amount of time based on this particular procedure that you have to do I'm lucky in that I get to make the decision on how much time I spend yeah you know I try to keep it in an hour and a half two hours but I've had people in the office for like 3 hours like I’m sorry I don’t know where we went & they’re like, I’m here for it. I'm sorry I I feel lucky to have the time to talk to people because like I said people are going to receive treatment when they know what's going on within their body and they know what I'm doing I I want people to feel safe I want people to know that they're in control and they’re guiding me and I'm not adding anything to your body I'm just igniting a memory within the tissue within the mind and the spirit of what it innately knows how to do in that the body knows how to create Harmony how to create homeostasis we just forget sometimes because of external obstructions disease and what have you.

I'll start with the five elements we say the body is made up of five elements and those elements are- I use my hands a lot in clinics I'll use my head now you have to visualize this if you're listening. So you have fire earth metal water and wood and those are the five elements in Chinese medical Theory they either create one another or they control one another so within each element each aspect of Nature has an organ system that's associated with it and it also has a season that's associated with it an emotion a color a smell of those elements. I'll start with the wood element because we say in life we experience the five elements through different seasons and we start out as wood because we're sprouting from the ground and we're all excited we come out of mom like I'm a human holy s*** what does this mean we're excited We're Dreaming the three or five year old and you like a bunch of sticks just like I'm going to build a house with this this is so cool so it's it's excitement it's this creativity it's this tendency towards being frustrated and things don't work out exactly as you thought they would because we've got the wood element and in a forest would Falls and lightning strikes and there's fires when we get to the fire element the fire element is like that what it was Springtime fire element is summertime it's Joy it's connection it's your heart it's the ability to be in community with one another and so then that fire burns and once the fires burned we get a little bit of Ash and that Ash creates Earth and the Earth element is what we associate more with our digestion so that Ash is coming together we we Compact and accumulate Ash to create mountains Witness this all in nature and it's happening what's happening within us right now I'd say right now I'm in my fireplace cuz I'm all excited I'm like I just want to tell you all the things and afterwards hopefully you'll go into an earth place where you digest the information that I offered so we have fire that's turned into Ash that Ash comes together and can packs into Earth the soil and within the soil if we gather enough soil we can make a mountain and that mountain kind of creates pressure and it can pack things and that mountain then produces minerals or diamonds or gems and those are the things that we assume metal so the metal face has to do with our lungs and our large intestine and it has to do with how we refined our accumulated experiences what we've decided now we can take in breathe in with the lungs and let go of the colon who would associate that time maybe with like after you've had your kids have gone off to college and you're realizing like you know I could downsize a little bit I don't need to keep moving and taking this damn chair that I've had since College I'm 55 what am I doing here so it's like how can we alchemize the experience of grief of letting go of something so as to create spaciousness to allow something new to form and so after the metal has formed in the mountains minerals are what allow for the sky or the clouds to condensate and then we have water flowing down the mountains and now we have the water element the water element has to do with our kidneys and our urinary bladder and the water element is like the last stage of life it's like no you imagine the picture of looking at a Still Pond and knowing like there's Stillness at the surface but just beneath that there's much transpiring there's life there's death there's mystery and it's the contentment knowing that like that exists and I can still just witness the surface and be fine the emotion associated with the water elements fear so the ability to work with fear and have it motivate you Do you and so then the water trickles off the mountain and the water goes into the forest and then we get back to the wood element the trees then grow from that mineral metal Rich water that's coming from the fertile soil from the fired up ashes and so the cycle begins again I don't think I mentioned but the wood element we associate with the gallbladder and the liver and too I remind patients it's in our Western mind to get a little bit nervous when you hear organs mentioned I just mean it's energetic function or the channel that we've associated with it on the body and channels are different sections of the body that we say one of those five elements Is runs through so and I'm I I speak to organs I'm speaking of their energy of their emotion of their you know the quality that they of your personality or the season in which your body is experiencing. So you're not telling me that I have liver failure or that my gall bladder needs to be removed. Exactly. Don't walk out of here and you got to get on a donation list like I'll say oh your liver Qi is a little bit stagnant and people look at me like what is what and I have to translate it as well the liver in Chinese medicine the wood element just wants to be growing it wants to be moving it wants to be bursting from the soil and it becomes stagnant when it doesn't have the support to do such and usually that support is windowed by a feeling of overwhelming emotionality or stress you know stress tends to tense make great tension in our physical body and so think if we're stressed out nothing's going to grow or move because we're in a stuck State any first treatment really I'm just moving everyone's liver Qi I'm starting with the wood I'm like what's stuck here you know? And then I can I'll go to the other parts of the biome later but first let me see why trees aren't growing. Yeah. You know? 

Would you say that how acupuncture functions is a balancing and rebalancing of those five elements to oversimplify it? Yea and that’s the beauty It can be that simple it's like well you have too much here let's see if we can cultivate more joy you're in an environment that's really stressful for you so you're getting stuck easily another like if it's helpful for people a lot of let's talk about the livers cuz I love talking about it probably cuz I should be treating my Livermore the liver we associate with movement of blood and energy in the body and when it gets stuck by stress or you know or maybe like a physical external Force then processes in the body begin to get stuck too so a good example like in a uterus owner's body is you have terrible cramps or your when you menstruate you get a lot of clots that's stuckness in the blood you know or you get really bad headaches on one part of your head and they always are always there it might show up as you have a really short fuse because there's only enough energy in one part of your body and not in the other part so you just have the shorter fuse if I were to translate it and really simplified way the needles activate different nerves which sends signals to the brain to tell the brain to go out of sympathetic which is fight or flight and go back into parasympathetic which is rest and Digest and most people because of the world that we live in are stuck in sympathetic they're stuck in the the Primal internal space of thinking that there is a tiger running behind them and they have to get safe most of us do not feel safe in the world because the world is f****** dumpster fire. **Gestures Wildly at the Room** The world is a dumpster fire and I tell people I'm like there's only so much I can do to the external but I can at least Build Your Capacity to manage by helping your body to feel safe and also to feel safe regulating itself on its own with acupuncture we're not trying to get you to come in every you know to do it every day every week every month whatever no I want you to come in so that I can create the reminders within the hormonal chemical processes in the body to remind the body that it has this capacity to switch into that rest and digest state so that when you do sit down for a meal your body goes okay I remember what to do and you actually sit down and go into rest and digest and eat the food and digestion and not immediately leave the meal all bloated and tired cuz the body was like I don't whatever you gave me stuff when I'm not in the place to Used to do it brought me to seek out your services and your care but I do know that there are a few different big buck acupuncture falls into as far as treatments to my knowledge there's physiological which would be a pains joints headaches low back pain headache shoulder issues like mechanical stuff Angel and spiritual health which would be to kick it back to the intro like trauma PTSD anxiety depression and then there's also a cosmetic bucket but I've learned about that it could be an alternative to your Botox or yeah just like purely Aesthetics well there's the mechanical there's the internal so maybe not maybe a little bit deeper like supporting kidney function or addressing digestive disruptions ultimately this is fun so you've spoken to the mechanical bucket the psycho emotional bucket and the Cosmetic bucket and as Chinese medicine practitioners what we're actually doing is just figuring out we say you know you have your body or your mind and your spirit so we've spoken to the body with the mechanical we spoken to let's say the mind with a psycho emotional and we spoke into maybe the body again with the Cosmetic but it's root a lot of the issues that route from me is three buckets are are coming from a spiritual dissonance our spirit which is in my belief our spirit is like we say in Chinese medicine your spirit resides in your blood and it's flowing throughout your body flowing through out of the channels it's reminding your heart and this is your truth this is what keeps you in alignment so when we have mechanical issues all of a sudden there is an obstruction or like a traffic cone in the middle of the highway of your body and so your spirits getting stuck in a place and it's screaming for help It's really hurts I can't get into my alignment you know like I can't do the things I'm always walking around and now I can't walk with this back pain and that's going to make your mind hurt so it's fun when folks come in with mechanical issues and we really get to the root of it and they're just they're sat there they're dealing with grief of having to leave the loss of this mechanical function and then the address the grief all of a sudden the mechanical function can opens up and then I do some needles around the mechanical area Increase blood flow get the tissue to be a little bit more Supple and then all of a sudden they're moving and they're like I haven't gone for a run in two years and I ran yesterday and I didn't I'm without paying today and I'm like hell yeah but first we talked about having to grieve the loss of that running piece and then with cosmetic acupuncture like think about I mean I live in Southern California an hour and a half in Los Angeles the epicenter of Pop Culture we live in that dumpster fire world that is reflecting such a strange ideal of Beauty for obtaining that ideal through means that don't actually align with our spirit I think and the cool thing that help to again create blood circulation or a nice Supple so that it can hold up for example what Botox does is it paralyzes muscle so over time the muscle loses tone so then we become dependent on the botox to keep everything nice and in place what cosmetic acupuncture does is it strengthens the muscles ability to actually hold tone so it does be complete yeah so you don't become dependent on it you talk to anyone that specializes in that they're also doing body points because of disharmony you know people have dear friends be like oh I just want to have like Kim Kardashian's ass or something and I'm like yeah but like what does she feel like on the inside you know like first off you're comparing yourself to like over a hundred thousand dollars worth of cosmetic surgery… That’s the classic you're not ugly you’re broke. Parts of their spirit and and the Beautiful parts of their life and it's like what's fun for me is to remind people of the other parts of themselves that are really beautiful and whole and yeah you're really bummed about the acne or yeah you're really bummed about this knee issue that you're having but let me remind you about all the other great parts of yourself and get the the negative Focus away from the issue and then we remove the negative focus and we bring Vibrance and light back to the spirit and all of a sudden the spirit moves through the issues a little bit more distinctly the spirit is the blood the blood moves and opens up the spaces and then we have a really simple tenant in Chinese medicine is where there is obstruction there is pain where there is stagnation there is pain so when we get stuck mentally physical pain will follow when we get stuck spiritually mental pain and then physical pain will follow being able to understand that we are more than just the mechanics or more than just their bags of the contents of the leather bag, leather bags being our body. The meat suit. I come in and do cosmetic acupuncture and like hell yeah but let's also look at your diet let's look at your the way you express emotions let's look at the movement practices that you have because ultimately I can do the face needles but if you're still eating things that your body doesn't agree with having habits that disallow your body to fully digest the things you're eating the body trying to purge of dissonance with physical symptomology.

Another question. I'm a little biased because I had an incredible experience with acupuncture and you specifically and it tangibly changed so much for me but with those I guess three big buckets of mind body and spirit that acupuncture does encompass are there certain types of people that should not seek Seek out acupuncture like who is it not right for if anyone yeah I think that I think acupuncture is for everyone and it just may be the level of support that the acupuncture will provide or the level of dependence that we I'm not sure if I love the word dependence but expectations yeah or you know if someone has a really serious that's another podcast and collaboration with Western doctors I have a dear friend who works at a mental health clinic in San Diego and you know she's working with a team of psychiatrists psychologists nurses chiropractors body workers like somatic experience practitioners and not particular Clinic is really set for folks who are you know dealing with really serious mental health problems acupuncture is always going to be supportive for those people because we're going to help you regulate your nervous system and I just said you need to go to the emergency room after this because I've calmed down the acute expression of this episode but you know when I see folks that are like really anti-medicine or anti-western intervention I remind them I hear you and you were also Born Into the timeline that we have the technology and the advances to utilize doesn't mean that we need to do all of that type of care but we have that here for a reason you were born now for a reason so let's at least get a better idea what's going on I've had a few patients where maybe the first step before they come to my office is to start deep semantic therapy? so I'm somatic experience practicing is a model of care based on how we've witnessed animals experience trauma in the wild so it's understanding that psychological issues or traumas show up in the physical body in our stored in the physical body so maybe you've had you were traumatized as a child say and no matter what type of talk therapy or Psychiatry that you seeked that that issue still is a shadow within your existence somatic practices are about tapping into the physical body when you're having that psychological experience that's negative it's actually like really rooted and Eastern thought but if I move my tissue I move the body I can actually move the emotion with it I'm using that as an example because perhaps someone comes in and they're in such a sympathetic state that fight or flight or freeze mode that for me to for me to first off invade their their CHI with my chi might be too uncomfortable I might do more harm than good by the just trying to go in with my needles and do my protocol to activate the parasympathetic because that person might not feel safe in parasympathetic actually. So in fight or flight that it might feel so jarring to be relaxed that it actually just further activates them into a fighter flight state I'm all about like I can't do it I know someone that can't I don't have an ego around like listen you need to go to this person for that you know and even I'm speaking from My Lens like they're acupuncturists who are deeply trained and Trauma work or deeply trained psychological matters I'm still at the point in my career where I just kind of been like there are things that I do a little bit better than others and even then I'm like you should go see my buddy for that shoulder issue or whatever entirely different than what we're used to in our Western medicine they might be able to address a concern but like then refer you to a specialist yes yeah that is there's a similarity there and then maybe the differences we are able to do more even in our generalist approach because we have a holistic view of the body perhaps if they're on a lot of medications General richer people are seeking treatment for the first time so what could happen is your nervous system could just get overwhelmed and go into further dysregulation and so it's in the kind of like I use I'm flapping my hands here you won't be able to sleep but it's like I'm not sure if I should go this way or that way this way or that way sympathetic person to really disregulate and start to send out stress signals so they might you know they might literally pass out and in Chinese medicine going to the brain and the Brain goes oh my God I'm over here there there are certain points that we know really moved to vigorously and so you out it's up to the acupuncturist to gauge what what level of Qi does this person have and can I move that much so things to be aware of you might feel really tired after a treatment because it's sort of like getting it's like sort of like doing exercise you're you're increasing blood circulation so you might be really exhausted out of her treatment so if you have a big day planned afterwards and next time you know if you come in without having eaten that's not the best because it's a little bit with moving blood it can be a little bit dehydration throughout the bloodstream so you might feel really hungry afterwards or a little bit woozy or dizzy I don't think that's a terrible thing the woozier Dizzy piece if you have eaten and you still have that woozier dizzy piece cuz that just tells me you're nervous system guy reset baby it's it went into a deep relaxing State and it's just trying to you know modulate I feel like in school we learned a lot about things not to do for pregnant folks just because it's such a like I said there's those points that really move blood it's really circulate the blood heavily so if you have a pregnant person especially in the you know first trimester you don't want to do those points cuz you want to keep everything nice and tacked I'm going to treat the 22-year-old former athlete former College athlete with way more needles than I'm going to treat my 85-year-old sweet frail grandmother it's it's up to the practitioner to discern what is appropriate sounds like a lot of the risks are up to the practitioner to your point discern and redirect yeah and really we have it's it's all about informed consent we have to inform you the risks the risks might be like you might have bruising at the point I might I might pop a blood vessel and create a little hematoma skin you might feel dehydrated or a little bit afterwards one thing I've had a few patients later Drinks later after my session like had to alcoholic drinks and I was hammered and I got sick and I'm like okay yeah it's because we're moving blood more your body is circulation is more functional so things are metabolizing a lot quicker through the Liverpool antibiotics if you're taking birth control cuz that you might end up so if someone doesn't already have an acupuncturist or hasn't had treatment before and they're wanting to get acupuncture are there certain things that a patient could look out for to make sure that they're with a practitioner that has all the credentials or would be able to use this level of discernment so that they don't have to worry yeah much about the rest themselves well you always want to make sure that you're practitioner is licensed by either the California acupuncture board cab so in the state of California where under the license body and then every other state in the country in the country goes under the NCC aom which is the national certification certification Committee of acupuncture and Oriental medicine so number one you want to make sure that your practitioner is licensed under that you want to make sure that they you know received either an mstum Masters of Science and traditional Oriental medicine which is a doctor puncture in Chinese medicine or a d a o m a doctorate of acupuncture and Oriental medicine they're all Masters or Beyond level education and at this point in the I believe my understanding of how the field is going as you're only able to get your doctorate they don't they're not even doing Masters anymore so there's there's a specific number of schools that actually are accredited to offer the doctorate and then from there I would just be making sure that you know the same thing of great reviews I'm all about like what is your intuition I'm a wedding human design and intuitive I'm a spleenex Authority so it just has to like hit I just have to be like I don't know the color of that guy's shirt looked nice so now I'm just going to go pay him a hundred bucks to put needles in me I don't know trust yourself and go to the appointments a medical practitioner spiritual Mentor anyone that you're working mind body or spirit with and you're putting your care into their hands pay attention to how their energy feels in your body yeah pay attention to that because it's an important part of it there's three major things one of my mentors taught me and it's this original source of the information so that would be the accredited college that you went to the person delivering that Karen information so that's the energy in the aura of the practitioner Mackenzie in this scenario and then also the energy of the person receiving the tree yeah I will remind myself when I when I'm hanging out with my other acupuncture buddies and we'll go into the comparison game like oh can you believe that this person's doing this or that person's doing that I can never I don't like the way they do that but the reality is there are so many different people walking this Earth and for every client that I'm not in Residence with there will be a practitioner that is in Residence with them to speak into your point like trust your body trust your feeling you want to call the practitioner reach out to them explain what you what's going on and you know see if if they're speaking and you're like I think they know what they're talking about if you're wanting a more Western approach go with the person who has that energy most people will list that what they've done on their website just to say like I I specialize in women's health and you're wanting to get acupuncture you're probably going to have more resonance. I mean you might, there’s no rules. I think that’s actually super helpful. 

BuzzFeed just about wrap up I had two more questions for you what are some common misconceptions about acupuncture that you would like to dispel while we have a little bit of a platform yeah there's a lot of fear around needles and I totally understand that I hate getting my blood drawn I hate you know getting an IV or something but the reminder that is that with needles that are used in the western model hypodermic needles they're Hollow so imagine when you put a straw into the ground that straw is like creating a it's cutting the ground and when you pull the straw out some of the ground is in the straw right it's creating an incision it's it's cutting something creating a separation of the material creating the separation of the skin that's why there's pain you're cutting through a tissue with nerves whereas with acupuncture needles, they're not hollow. In fact about 100 of my acupuncture needles will fit inside of one of those hypodermic needles. So yeah acupuncture needles are just about and it's like there's different gauges for different different practitioners use different sizes but the ones that I use there's been as a strand of hair so imagine it's not Hollow on the inside so it's actually just kind of fitting its way between the tissue or between the pores and people also associate needles with pain and I always I like to bring this up when that comes up in treatment associate any sensation with pain and therefore it's negative that's why it's like so I think I see a lot of folks that are dissociated from their body because sensation is bad I remind people like sensation can be so many different things I could put a needle in and you could feel it like a bubble popped beneath your skin it could feel itchy it could feel achy it could feel like a ripple on a pond after you've thrown a rock in like this dissipation of energy throughout the tissue it could feel like nothing A lot of times I love I love this when someone's never had acupuncture I can tell there has a tent and I'm talking to them they're still talking to me about something Something like wait did you put it in like I did like you got needled! Things you don’t want to hear “is it in?” **laughter** I'm the only like professional room like yeah then baby you didn't even feel like that's the only time you really want to hear that that positively but a lot of times people are like well this is Voodoo or it's too woo woo I am I am a lot more food than I am logical and I feel like I'm here to tell the story of Medicine and translate the Western logical linear framework into a more holistic so people people might think it's a little bit woo or two esoteric and I just remind them you know where do you think medicine came from well sure it came from from Greece and Roman time or whatever like you know ages but where do you think that information came from it came from the Silk Road originated in Asia. I hear you what's the research telling it's hard because I'm in in the acupuncture field we're in this state right now trying to fit ourselves into the Western model more get paneled by insurance companies get more into hospitals which I think is great and we're also trying to prove ourselves from the Western model which is the scientific method and to my knowledge we have no way of proving that Qi or energy exists there's no machine that can you know measure if Qi She was improved to deliver she moved you know so we're trying to fit into a model that just doesn't have the tools or language to fully support our system and so people are like well the research shows that it doesn't really work or it's like a semic or it's a placebo effect on like let me just really quick on the placebo effect if I can alter your mind if I can alter your brains perception of the physical issue and the physical issue changes what's the problem you and I have had conversations about this on your people I think just cuz I was like telling everyone who would listen I was like you should really try asking I'm telling you guys that should filed until like I caught some of those outside opinions and it made me really pause and think and I was like I don't actually give a s*** if it is a placebo effect. And then I went down this hole again the one in my profile that we both here well if I was ever in like a traditional Western Medical trial give me the sugar pill if I can get the same results like some sort of foreign chemical agent in my body find me up for the placebo effect there's just there's such interesting research just on the concept of a placebo effect like really speaking to the power of the Mind in the body you know like it's our Western desire to have physical tangible result or to have like a tangible non abstract concrete reasoning. Prove it, we love proof.  It's like well did you get better I really like I love the people that are like acupuncture didn't really work for helping me get pregnant so I stopped and then like 2 months later they call me and they're like can I book an appointment I got pregnant and I'm like oh that's awesome like yeah I guess like I just needed a break from the acupuncture and like or you're nervous system got regulated and you no longer have the obstructions within your blood circulation that would disallow your uterus from receiving a baby but either way you know. I mean that’s my ego talking. There's such power in the placebo effect so I'm like I actually like I love when people bring up the placebo effect on like isn't it so cool I can just change your mind if there's some Netflix documentary Michael Pollan the not documentary like how to change your mind it's like there is power in our mind we can alter the chemical state in our blood by just thinking that things are going to go positively we can positively influence our body through our f****** thoughts you know like I can yeah we're we're not just moving blood in Chinese medicine we're not just boosting circulation I'm moving your spirit I'm moving your spirit from stuck state so it can actually come back home to its original you know Divine Bliss hopefully but I'm like we've been around for over 5,000 years and a lot of the medical practices that at Western medicine utilizes or rooted in Chinese medicine the constituents of the Botanicals that I'm using in my herbal formulas and lucky for me my herbal formulas are in their natural form so the body is going to digest them a lot better and they're going to be less taxing on the liver than a lot of pharmaceuticals that people use we're used to the Western model. Stop shop or like a instant gratification instant fix so when you're signing up for acupuncture it's sort of like you're signing up to regularly have your nervous system harmonized or cleared in the same way like I was I was telling my chiropractor the other day I was like you know I don't know why I even come here every week she's like dude cuz you're nervous system gets jacked and I'm like but I'm pretty regulated she's like I know but the world isn’t and I’m like oh yea. I feel more clear and even my ability to make decisions and function is heightened when I have regular acupuncture and herbs in my system because again it's just such a dysregulating world that we really need that Regulatory and harmonizing support. When you're signing up to see a practitioner know that yeah Miracles f****** happen really cool s*** can go down in one treatment and I don't see someone for like a month and they're like dude that thing that I came to you for like it stopped Michael that's cool what do you want to work on now they're like I don't know like do you want to just have a nice nap and like reset yourself sometimes it's a it's a process and you have treatment plans and issues that you've had for 15 20 30 years you can't expect one treatment to fix everything you might feel really awesome for two to three days after the treatment but patterns that are built into the tissue and the nervous system for that long can take a little bit to unwind so it's a commitment but it's a commitment to yourself to become more aligned with whatever your spirit is truth is cuz most people's Spirits truth is not to be in chronic pain not to be in in mental anguish that's an external societal thing that's pushed on us.

What I think you brought up a beautiful point and something that I noticed a lot something I'm working on for myself as well as introducing and instead of or so like Western medicine works and some of these Eastern modalities can work really beautifully in tandem so I also think it's important to know like it's not this or that. Not necessarily contradictory in fact being a part of your practice and being a patient like I know firsthand that you blend the two together you work in hospitals yeah she's a real doctor. Actually remind people that when I'm rolling out of my van at The Climbing Gym like I swear to God I'm a functioning human in society this is my own projection of judgment but I I'm not a practitioner that demonizes Western medicine I think again I'm like thank God for Western medicine my cancer patients get incredible chemo and radiation treatments and what I do is I mitigate the side effects I make it so they're not vomiting every day for a year during their treatments I'm making it so that they're liver is metabolizing and clearing the harmful Pharmaceuticals and radiation a little bit more quickly I'm making it so that they can sleep at night so they have an appetite you know and I'm so f****** grateful that they can get that treatment too cuz it's saving their life and I'm like it's not a this or that thing it's a and you're right thank you for that just remind her like more people need to know like yeah it's our tendency to polarize things but what if we put these two together made it all great and one big system. Like an energetic that I've been noticing in myself recently that I'm trying to unwind is just being so dogmatic totally you know and I think that that's something that's becoming I don't know so many things part of the dumpster fire is just how divisive things are becoming Really beautiful support and relief from a holistic approach from acupuncture and herbs and also yeah go to your primary care the integrating the two we I'm all about like let's have more information more information is more things for me to and I'm an analytical and Western at my core I grew up in Philadelphia dude it's like Catholic School through and like Dogma right doctor needed with with core beliefs that didn't work for me but I understand the framework of having like no this is how it is and maybe run the precipice of that radically shifting in society because we're having access to more information from all over the world and more philosophies and we're like integrating new ways of thinking maybe that's why we're all of a sudden seeing it is really divisive right now because all of a sudden people are waking up and they're like you know there's interdiscence and there's the external dissonance that's revealing itself from that but just reminding people like the best thing for you as a human is to stay open and curious that's going to allow you to flow the best in the world ever to speak to what I know about Taoism you know we are not separate from the world around us so to compartmentalizes to create separation I'm not my body is not separate from my mind is not separate for my spirit you know so I'm struggling in my physical body I have to sit down with myself and find a friend that I can talk to the most about my spirit in the physical thing might still hang out but I have a better understanding and I'm softer and more curious about the physical thing so yeah just remaining open and curious to Discovery is ultimately going to make life more free and easy baby. Free & Easy Wanderer. 

Relaxing for you before I let you go is what is your favorite part about what you do I don't ever feel exhausted after work my favorite part is just seeing people relax giving people space offering safety seeing people's physical and spiritual and mental state change in an hour and a half seeing people finally have their story listened to telling stories Five elements out and being like well we want to make sure that your Earth is fortified so that it's creating healthy metal and metal were produced the water and then you're wood will feel nice and flexible and growing and will support the natural forest fire and they're like yeah my favorite thing is to watch light bulbs ignite people to watch Sparks open it's just to help people feel better in their body because it's so easy not to feel good in your body in this culture yeah. That was so beautiful. Thank you I'm totally in my wooden fire element right now I'm all jazzed and creative and so full of joy and love for you Danny cuz you really helped me just better understand where where and how I want to present my information and the reminder that like more people need to know about this practice and this philosophy because it would benefit everyone I mean I couldn't agree more I feel like before really getting to know you and starting my treatment with you like I genuinely didn't realize how accessible this type of treatment was I wasn't it wasn't on my radar that it could be used to treat anxiety depression PTSD like things that we consider mental illness speaking from my personal experience anyone who you know has any of these I guess diagnosis and is on medication you like it I love it like no shade over here yes I was able to navigate a time in my life and with my mental physical and spiritual health I mean it was all so interconnected for me without Pharmaceuticals and I was in a position where had I gone to my primary care physician first not that I couldn't have been that would have been inappropriate but like yeah I was fast tracking to I mean I could have gotten some Xanax and some Ambien. The diagnosis in the symptoms and if that path feels aligned for you and that feels true for you incredible if that doesn't feel true and doesn't feel like a half you want to take for whatever reason inside of your body I think just knowing that there is an alternative holistic approach that could get you the same amount of support and relief and healing and just to help get yourself out of that Rock Bottom yeah just so incredibly enlightening for me and that's what I hope people know there's an alternate route and we can even do the scenic driver we do both you know I want to remind people like oh I I do this so I can't do that it's like no you you can do both there's a rules yeah that's like I love that about I'm so grateful that you remind me that every time I talk to you there are no rules. They can support any person in any state regardless of their pharmaceutical Choice their therapeutic Choice whatever I told you to feel happier yeah we're all designed to get there in a different way and that's okay totally. 

What are you working on right now? But maybe listening to be in the San Diego area or maybe those who aren't what are the different things that you've got in the works right now so I practice that whole family acupuncture whole family wellness center in North Park so I see private clients there I'm definitely thinking you patient so happy to treat folks if they're looking for like someone-on-one sessions I've been doing a lot of building I'll take a shout out to my yoga teacher and best friend Jen Richardson she's the yoga teacher in the San Diego Community master and we've been collaborating with her particular form of yoga she calls it mixed yoga arts. A particular form is very much in alignment with how a Chinese medical practitioner might view the body so we've been doing a lot of like we do classes at Cosmic Flow Yoga Studio in Point Loma on Tuesdays and Thursdays it's a lot of like Qigong Tai Chi but also like good training for the body movement yoga it's very unique and anyone and everyone can do it so we do that and we do some Community Acupuncture afterwards and we share we story tell in the beginning Catch up with folks so it's like an opportunity to cultivate Greater Community within the San Diego area and hopefully we're working on some projects right now maybe to start an online presence create some courses even write a book who knows I'm really jazzed about my connection with her and community that I've made doing those movement practices movement is so f****** important for health regardless of your abilities whether it's like energetic movement or physical Movement we all need to be moving cuz our lives will be happier everyone should come out to our classes Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30 to 11:30 11:30 Cosmic flow and Point Loma and we also do it Monday a clinic where you just come lay down on yoga mat have guided meditation and different body workers do craniofascial sacral therapy Reiki I do some acupuncture and you just lay in a circle and receive and it's just like this extremely delightful pleasure stack of things. Incredible I was just you came I was just in San Diego for a good Friend's Wedding actually an extended my trip to like get to sneak in a little time with Mackenzie and I got to go to that Monday offering and it was f****** incredible if you're in the area or passing through go it was such a beautiful opportunity to do nothing but receive and like be in community and it is incredible highly recommend yes yeah and if you're interested go to Jen's Instagram it's at Zen Jen with two ends 11 and you just click on her link tree and you can sign up for any of the classes or the clinics that we do and anyone and everyone is welcome hopefully we'll be doing some Retreats maybe later on this year so more to come you're in Northern California Central California or you're in LA or someplace not local you're always welcome to email me and I can do an herbal consult cuz I do own an herbal pharmacy and I mix all types of custom tees for a variety of different things and herbs are just such nice support treatments so they can be a little bit more accessible if you're not able to get into acupuncture right away or you can't afford to come as frequently as you need to okay let's get you on some herbs they're a little bit less expensive and quite effective so you would just email me Mackenzie O'Brien lac@gmail.com And I'll link all of this below I'll put MacKenzie's email MacKenzie's website Jen's Instagram a link to some of Jen's offerings and anything else that's it for now but everything is always happening all at once everything everywhere else 

Mackenzie Thank you so much seriously I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming on today and sharing all of this just really important and supportive information with all of us you know firsthand how much you've done for me personally and I'm so excited that more people will be able to hear your valuable projector perspective you're such a gift and just thank you so much for doing this again Dani I love you I love you so much fun I'm so proud of you thank you.